The difference between story and relevance:

For years now, everyone has been talking about brand stories, and how everyone has to craft these epic brand stories, and referring to Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey. Agencies started calling themselves “storytellers” and everyone got on the “story” bandwagon.

Here’s the thing. Have you ever listened to someone telling a long story and eventually wondered “Is this thing going anywhere?”

Of course you have. Everyone lives in the center of their own personal story, their own epic journey in which they are the hero and the star, and before they invest time in something, they want to know: what does this have to do with me?

Classification of Brand Stories

There are several types of brand stories out there, and they are compelling for different reasons:

Brand origin stories: these stories are compelling because they lead you to empathize with the brand.

Example: this sandwich was made by a guy who was a child soldier in Liberia and then miraculously escaped to America where he got recruited into gangs and was a criminal before he learned how to make sandwiches in solitary confinement and now he has a bakery and he makes the best sandwiches.

That’s a great story, and most people hearing it would definitely want to go buy a sandwich. We are interested in him as a person and want to support him. Also note that everyone likes sandwiches and has them from time to time: if he were selling pet octopuses, the story alone isn’t compelling enough to motivate most people to buy.

Product origin stories: these stories are compelling because they express something unique about the attributes of the product.

Example: this is the best face cream because it’s made from dewdrops suspended in spiderwebs in the Himalayas, collected individually at dawn by local women who know the ancient secrets of infusing the healing power of spider silk into each drop.

Of course, this kind of story is best accompanied with charts and graphs showing why spider-silk water is the best for your skin, and some people will pay a fortune for products they think have uniquely powerful ingredients or attributes. This kind of story appeals to people who are already using a product in that -class of products- to convince them to switch brands.

Personal experience stories: these stories are compelling because the teller has a genuine emotional attachment to the brand.

Example: I was driving to a birthday party with a car full of balloons and babies and an ice cream cake and I got a flat tire. I pulled into the tire shop, but they had closed for the night and there was just one guy there locking up and about to leave. But he stayed and fixed my tires and was really nice and got me to the party on time. He even gave me a discount!

These are incredibly compelling stories because you are hearing them first-hand from a brand evangelist, someone who now loves that tire shop and won’t go anywhere else. For the rest of their lives, they will be a customer of that shop, and will tell that story to anyone who asks. And of course, if I were going to buy tires, I would want to visit that shop as well, hoping for the same service and price.

These are all interesting, compelling stories. However, none of them would convince someone to buy a product they weren’t already in the market for. And they become boring without -relevance-. For a person who isn’t in the market for that product, or didn’t ask for a recommendation, the story becomes much less interesting.

Furthermore, these stories are not required. A person can get lunch every day at a sandwich shop that is just a sandwich shop, because they like the sandwiches. Over time, they may come to learn more about the brand or product origins, or have enjoyable personal experiences, but it’s not necessary in order to gain a loyal customer. In fact, most people make purchase decisions several times a day that aren’t driven by a brand story at all.

Factors that drive purchase decisions

Let’s differentiate day-to-day shopping for items like shampoo, pet food, or milk, from more significant purchases like a gift, a refrigerator, or a computer. In fact, let’s say that there are two categories of products (leaving out the third factor of shopping as a recreational activity in itself):

Frequently bought items: bread, diapers, gas, morning coffee, etc. These are generally items where the initial purchase decisions (brand, store, style, etc) have already been made: the customer has already done all the cognitive work of choosing, and now wants to simply execute that choice as quickly and efficiently as possible. They don’t want to think about that decision any more.

For frequently bought items, factors that drive purchase decisions include:

• Location and convenience
• Product price
• Brand and packaging
• Time and placement

In other words, a person may always buy lunch at the same few spots close to work, or gas at the station near the highway. Their daily or weekly grocery trips are driven by the list of things they need, and the most efficient way to get to the store(s) where those things are, influenced by price decisions like sales and coupons. Within the store, purchase decisions are largely automatic and pre-determined (we always get Folgers Coffee, Budweiser in cans, and Kraft Singles), but can be influenced by in-store competition (they are out of my brand, my brand went up in price, there is an attractive competitor’s product right next to my normal purchase).

New-to-category items: the first purchase of an item in a category involves a lot of thought and cognitive investment in the decision. Most product decisions start here: new parents haven’t bought diapers before, new adults haven’t bought gin before. Even if you have bought an item in the past, if it’s purchased infrequently (like a car, or a gaming console), the new items are different enough from the prior years that new research and decision-making has to be done. Significant gifts can also be included here, because the year-over-year interpersonal relationship, needs, or desires of both parties may have changed.  While a customer often has existing brand loyalty coming into this decision, this is also the moment that they are most vulnerable to switching brands.

Primary factors that drive purchase decisions for new-to-category items include:

• Product quality
• Competitive pricing
• Online research (done beforehand or in-store with a mobile device)
• Personal recommendations

It is in the new-to-category items where brand stories become most relevant to the potential buyer, but, again, only assuming they are already shopping in that category. And you see that “brand story” is not listed as one of these key factors: the story may speak to quality, they may encounter the story doing online research, but only the personal brand experience story is actually a factor in the final purchase decision.

Skip the story and deliver the basics

In short, the brand story isn’t terribly important to the purchase decision of the customer, and doesn’t deliver a great ROI. The only brand story that gives concrete financial returns are the personal stories as related in online reviews, social media, or person-to-person interactions, and those stories are generally driven by the quality of your service, rather than the quality of the product. Successful marketing should focus on identifying the customer who is actively looking for your product (thereby making it relevant), and then delivering:

• Product quality
• Competitive pricing
• Great service

The stories will come after.

 

image courtesy of the New York Public Library on flickr