Episode 11: Backstory Jul 8 Written By Marissa La Brecque </iframe</div></div><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" data-border-radii="{"topLeft":{"unit":"px","value":0.0},"topRight":{"unit":"px","value":0.0},"bottomLeft":{"unit":"px","value":0.0},"bottomRight":{"unit":"px","value":0.0}}" id="block-6faa9dcfb9619df36cf2"><div class="sqs-block-content"> <div class="sqs-html-content"> <p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Backstory is the backbone of our brand building method. A brand is a story told in the marketplace and this is the story. A backstory validates the platform and instigates the messaging. A good backstory marries meaning and emotion and inspires the team. We share our process for creating a solid backstory.</p><p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"></p><p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"></p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Welcome to Episode 11 of Brand Frontlines. Today we're digging into the brand backstory. Last episode we gave the backstory of the backstory and talked about how Eric really came on to the concept of a of a narrative brand. But today we're going to talk about the mechanics of creating a backstory, which for us is really the backbone of how we build brands. But before we get into all of that, Eric, what are you up to?</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Well, as you know, we've just moved and the office has moved. So a lot of what I'm up to right now is just the mechanics of getting the office set up. And all I can say is I'm really glad that Zoom and teams have blurred background. Because the background is pretty chaotic. In terms of work, the very first call in the new space was with our client AMI, the big firmware company based outside of Atlanta to talk about their platform and gather some further details to flesh out the messaging. And the second call was with our team to talk about a new personality project. It's a new phase. For brand development work that we're doing for cybersecurity company anomaly. We're going to be looking at their visual system. So we're building out the brand. Nice, Yep, good stuff. What about you?</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Um, well, I think I mentioned last time I launched my brand strategy and storytelling studio, Hyperflore, and we put the word out to our general list, after soft launching with our clients and friends. So a lot of new business calls.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, that's excellent. And I'm just going to plug your site for you since you probably won't do it and shouldn't do it yourself. But Hyperflore is first of all, a really great example of taking your own medicine. So within brand consulting, I just love how you've narrowed your focus to focus. I realized that not everything will necessarily fall within this focus, but to really kind of emphasize the solopreneur and building the sense of community. These are things you share with me, maybe a bit of an emphasis on kind of women owned business is fantastic. And the look and feel really support that the messaging really support that and I think that it's a great case in point for those of us in our business to look at ourselves. We often I think in this in this profession. It's not that we try to be all things to all people, but we are careful not to close doors because we're always looking for new opportunities and and so we're opportunistic and opportunism sometimes fights, the need to be really focused.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Yeah, I mean, when I first hung my shingle, I think my first sight was that it was very muted, classic, you know, beautifully done. Obviously you want to have that as a marketer and needs to be like really well done. But definitely not closing any doors. And this time around, I just I really wanted to have fun. I really wanted it to be you know, in my pocket and express a real look and feel and it's definitely that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: yeah, the personality and look and feel is amazing, really distinctive. Really kind of groovy. Yeah. I love that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And shout out to the visual identity designer and site designer, Tia Harrison, who is on our team.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, she did a great job and love the name. I guess it's like you know, if you have a dentist in the family, right you right you're all gonna have good tea. So we have to make sure everything that needs a name has a name that we generate. So anyway, best success with that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Thank you. Yeah, so, backstory. Why don't you just define what a brand backstory is.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: A brand backstory is the story that you develop about a brand and use behind the scenes. The closest equivalent in other storytelling modes would be a treatment for film, or a synopsis for play, things like that. And it should read well to the people who, you know are going to be building the story telling the story through all their other media. We don't go out and buy books full of treatments to read them for entertainment value, but at the same time, those who work with them, want to get a little energy from them, and want to feel the vibe and see the sense of what they're creating.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: There’s that thrust of the story that is inspiring. It's not the work of art in it in and of itself, but it's the working document from which we create the art </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: That’s exactly it. So for us, as you mentioned, brand backstories are central. They're really the backbone, as you say, of what we do. They're not the first thing that we create, even though they're the backbone, we sort of just like when you're creating a treatment or writing a synopsis, you want to do some research and you want to gather all the pieces together to build that narrative. And that's building brand platform, you know, so that's what we've we've talked about a lot of those elements first, and you bring them together in the backstory, the backstory is where you actually compose with them, and piece them all together. And see how it flows. So that's a really important thing that that backstory does, is it sort of proof of concept for all the individual platform elements, right, which is huge. And agencies that we've worked with in the past because we partner with a lot of agencies don't necessarily view it that way. Many of them will have a story as part of the setup deliverables and sort of an equivalent to a positioning or personality sitting above that the positioning and personality are feeding into it. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: A brand is a story told in the marketplace, right? So this is the story.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: We’re telling you a story. Yeah, this was it. We're gonna bring it to life in all different ways. We're going to tell it many different times, over and over other people are going to pick up on it and tell it in their own way. Hopefully, so that's what we're talking about in terms of okay, what does it look like? You know, really like what are you? What are you delivering? It's, it's often pretty long. We've had some really long ones that are over 1500 words, but typically we're shooting for fully fleshed out 750 to 1500 word story which is going to explore all the themes, develop them a little bit, and all those other elements of the platform. So you're bringing some concrete case studies, some dates, some milestones to flesh out those points.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And then from that, there are other versions of the story that we usually deliver. And for me that really depends on the client and their specific needs. But usually there's like a capsule version might end up as like the about copy on a on a website or script that you might use for internal or external hyping, and that's usually about 300 words.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: That’s a good length. I think. We'll talk about that. But I think it's really important. You're kind of providing the answer to this really big question, which is: so what do I do with this? Now I get the platform elements. Those are familiar to me from brand Marketing 101, you might have a slightly different take on them, but I get what a positioning is. But the story I don't really understand what am I supposed to do with this 1500 word thing? And the answer is, well, it's not for outside consumption again. So you should be referencing it. It's almost like a reference tool.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I also think that the proof is in the, in the presenting pudding like people kind of feel that in the back of their minds until you read it and understanding how having that narrative articulated and having all the different people on your team brought in in the right way having your you know the story is taking you from your your origins wherever you you choose to begin the story through your to your vision and through that you'll Express challenges and things that you've overcome successes, all these things. Hearing that people just get it it's like I've been explaining all these things in different ways, but having it all come together into one cohesive narrative that makes sense of why you're here where you're going, what you're about, is really powerful.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, exactly. It's a behind the scenes tool, right? I mean, it's like someone asking, what's the point of a treatment? It's for the people who are gonna go on and tell the story to go, Aha, got it. Yep, we're on the same page. We see where this is going. And I see what I need to do and how I can do a great job bringing it to life, right. That's really its primary purpose. And to your point about reading it and giving it sort of its first you know, its debut off the screen or off the page and seeing how it works emotionally and whether it makes sense some other people feel it is a huge moment. I mean, it's one of the more satisfying moments in our work. I remember developing and sharing for the first time the backstory for the deep rad the brand for Metro Detroit back in the mid 2000s. And there was a lot of anxiety around how's this going to come together? How is Detroit gonna fit in with the suburbs around it? Right? How's this sound again, stakeholders and right and this was a huge problem that the brand had to solve and the story had to tell well, which is how do all these disparate areas that want different things and have different histories, histories come together? And I remember the feeling of joy in the room, and there was a journalist in the back from one of the big daily papers, who got up and said I'm so excited. I have to pee. That was just a really awesome moment. And there have been other moments like that generally, you know, there's enthusiasm, there's excitement. Sometimes there's clapping. Yeah. Sometimes if it's a very moving story where there's been a lot of struggle or a lot of effort, it can be emotional in another way where people are having slightly missed the eyes. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And we're not really playing directly for that effect. But that's kind of again, prove that we're onto something here. That's a great moment. We look for that moment. If people are just going Aha, yeah, that's Yeah, okay. Right. I see that then. Something's missing. And we have to go back. We haven't done our job. All right.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Yeah. Because you're bringing together meaning and emotion.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Exactly. Yeah.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: So I kind of got into this a little bit. Let's talk about structure. You landed on the hero's journey, a classic story structure,</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Anybody you talk to about storytelling in the brand world is going to talk about the hero's journey. There's another person who's out there. I think training a lot of folks who uses that comes from the world of screenwriting, to help people make sense of brands that way, so there's nothing really totally original in that. What we've done is just pushed hard to make it really systematic really break it down so that it's easy to create the ground backstory using that framework. I'm very excited for the next episode to share the story points. Which is sort of our breakdown of that that was a milestone in terms of tool building for us because all of a sudden, we could scale production. I could give this to somebody who was a good strategist but wasn't familiar with the storytelling approach and they could start to organize their notes and their insights, you know, really more easily been in the past. So yeah, excited for that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Yeah, me too. It's really amazing tool. Yeah, so examples of the hero's journey will be Star Wars Seven Samurai</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Odysseus is probably the ultimate early example, that all other ones can learn from. Yeah, it's the story to recap it briefly in case you missed it. Which, who knows? Yeah, but it's the story of a hero from the Trojan Wars, who is now struggling to get home. He has a vision of home life that he wants to return to his wife, his son his peaceful farms on his native island. He's far from that and he embarks on a journey with a crew on a ship to get back and many bad things. generally bad things happen to him along the way, that he has to struggle against and overcome in order to finally make it home. So his journey is one that tests challenges him causes him to live by his wits. helps him to grow in certain ways, and draws on, you know, every resource that he has to finally make it back. And this story, interestingly, doesn't really end when he gets back because things aren't all peachy at home, right? The neighbors have moved down on his wife and he has to deal with them and people have sort of forgotten who he is his dog hasn't forgotten. When old servant hasn't forgotten but you know, things have changed life has moved on. And the last stage of the journey of the conflict is actually the resolution of of life and home and getting that back on to the even footing. So he might read it less for pure entertainment than for getting grounded in this but it's kind of a fundamental read. I think if you're going to be around storyteller, going back to something that you mentioned to about the different lengths or so we talked about the long version and that's great for giving somebody to generate reference, it's almost never used directly. People pull pieces from it right and putting them at different communications right.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Generally yields a lot of good copy.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, that's good for that. It kind of provides the inspiration for like a messaging deck, right? Really useful version is one that's been boiled down to about 300 words, which translates to a minute and a half or so of a pocket. And you can trim that or you can expand a little bit but that's about the right length we found for like a brand intro video, I didn't realize was 300 words can be adapted to a script fairly easily. And we do that a lot. We often create videos and producing the brands. They're often used at annual conferences where entire organizations are coming together or there's a big user conference. Those kinds of events are in common kickoffs, or this comes into play and then some of them go on to live our websites or on YouTube or Vimeo. So that 300 word length is a good length we could write to that length to begin with, but then it would leave a lot of the detail out so it's kind of nice to be able to write a lot and then take from that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Especially if I'm not going to do a messaging doc for a client, I will. I mean, sometimes I'll do 10 or 20 versions, you know, like a version that's really focused on the founders, a version that's focused on the founders with really heightened personality. A version that's focused on the founders with really muted personality. Press boilerplate copy for press releases or interview intros, a version that's focused on an innovation that they did you know, is is pulled from the story and it still has like a similar kind of timeline and meaning but it's just really honed in on that subject matter.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Something to say about that. I think is important is like in our work, you kind of want to get that general story down first. And then to your point you can version forever. You can version to different audiences, different personas.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I mean, we're talking about proto-messaging like I'm saying, you know, for certain clients, it really makes sense to do a messaging deck but as we mentioned, I work with smaller clients, they don't always necessarily need that that level of detailed messaging. So I'll do this sort of deck of narrative versions, backstory versions.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah. You know, it's funny, some of the bigger clients don't see the need for a story as intuitively. They want to go right to the messaging acquires and actually we had somebody, somebody yesterday who kind of said, like, we don't really need all that brand stuff. We just want to go to messaging and design, which is a pretty different understanding of how it all works. Start from that, okay. To me, I think to you as well. All of it is enhanced by being able to be pulled together into you know, one structure. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">There's also I think, a temptation to feel like if you're coming from a demand generation world, more of a pure tactical place, that maybe you shouldn't necessarily start with an overall story. You should start by honing in on a specific persona from the get-go and just figuring out exactly what it is it's going to take to make that person engage with you. And you can do that and discover those things along the way it strikes me as a very inefficient way to work. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: If you have a very highly tactical marketing needs, like, it's just so much easier to have the strategy set and the story set because things shift all the time. And if you keep recreating the wheel pretty soon, you're not going to recognize the wheel. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, I think we're in an age when tactics dominate over strategy, at least in the imagination, because there's so many wonderful tools that are tactical in nature, right? </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Plus, they're the last part so you associate them with getting the paycheck, whatever it is, yeah, but the best tacticians have strategic underpinnings. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, and I love great tactical tools. And I love it when we're in a dialogue with people who are using those tools to help see how the tactics can inform the brand and vice versa. I feel like there's a deep respect for I'm not gonna say a deeper respect, but I feel the respect for the customer the respect for the end user in telling the story, they're an audience. And yeah, I feel that connection. And I feel sometimes when I'm looking at tools that move customers through a marketing funnel that I'm looking at something designed for Pavlov's dog. You know, it's like if I plug in this input at a certain frequency at a certain time using the channel that you'd like to consume information in, the bell will ring and you will pull the lever right by my thing and you Yeah, you know, 1500 times then maybe once you're make the purchase, this is obviously rooted in a deeper connection with your customer base. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And also with the people doing the work to create your product or service. They also want to feel that there's meaning and that there's a vision and creates a lot more sense of connection with your culture. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: It does come down to working from a vision, you know, all of this is, as we say, you know, the vision is is what sets the story in motion, right? It's the motivating action of the story. And so, if you neglect the vision, then you're not going to see the sense of a story, I guess. Yeah, but neglect that at your risk. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, and we'll we'll share all the points of the story with the Story Points Wheel in the next episode. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: We talked about how the backstory validates your platform. Let's talk a little bit more about where it goes into messaging or how it becomes messaging. We've outlined that a little bit but… </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: in the ideal world the sequence of work would be platform development after your discovery, and then story and then messaging. In reality, often clients want the messaging first. They recognize the value of the story but want to get some, you know, actionable stuff down, right. But let's put that aside. That can work. It's a little harder on us, but it can work. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">When you have the story you're working from, you're incorporating the themes into the story, and the themes become, they're really important to the story. And they're also really important to the messaging. They're really tied to the value props, the value propositions that are part of your brand, the reasons why people are going to find you to be relevant or useful or buying or engaging with, set the stage for messaging so you have these really big points about why someone should interact with you by you choose to spend time with you, come to love you, recommend you. Yeah, and then the messaging is really from our standpoint, organizing those which all fall out of the promise. They're all things that lead up to that ultimate value proposition, which is the promise and then they take it further. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">So the the story is this narrative structure, right and it it follows an emotional flow, which we're going to get into and the Story Points Wheel the messaging is it following that structure, right? It's just organizing the pieces, right? It's the parts catalog. And it has the promise and the things the other platform elements and then it goes into the value propositions and then underneath that, the proof points and the details that flesh out why you can say that this is going to do whatever it's going to do for you. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I think about like XY graph. It's like, Alright, I'm going down. I want to think about this theme. This audience this product. Okay, here's my message. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah. And we'll get into more specifics when we get to messaging frameworks, which is a topic of an upcoming episode. Yeah, definitely check that out. And relative to the story, the backstory, the messaging framework is a more of a workhorse tool. You're using that every day. Yeah, different people are using it and you're building on it and you're constantly changing. It changes more than the story, where the details of the story might change but the basic flow is going to be with you for a while. It should be sturdy enough for that. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And the last thing we wanted to touch on is just how you present a backstory to a client because it's a particular kind of thing. I mean, first of all, both of us feel this way about every stage of work we present. I think we've mentioned this before, but we never just send off a document for our clients to review. We always present in a meeting but the backstory is even more particular than that. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah. Like so many things in our world. Strategy is obviously, maybe central. But psychology is really important. And there's a psychology to presenting.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">If you give somebody a backstory on a single sheet of paper or a couple of sheets, and it's just paragraph after paragraph, their eyes are gonna glaze over. And so we usually, on first presenting, break it up by paragraphs and present it in a screen format. And at this point, we're not going to include visuals, that will come, we just want the words to sink in. And we present basically a paragraph per screen, and we may have some subheads to help guide it. Now we're going to read it aloud. And we're gonna walk through it together. And we invite the client to read along with us if they want or close their eyes and just let it flow. The first impression. They're gonna have initial thoughts to share, but that first impression isn't one where they need to be looking at everything. It's just more about the overall feel of the story, the overall impression, the overall vibe. So setting it up that way, usually, as a PowerPoint or Keynote. Going through it slide by slide, reading it will give you the best and truest read on whether the basic backstory is working.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">And when you read it, don't be reading it for the first time. You know, like, practice it, read it a couple of times. In reading it, you'll fall into the rhythms and you'll get good at reading it. You'll also discover areas where it's a little bit rough or it doesn't translate to how you talk. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: The other part of the presentation is that we share an annotated version of the story. So as we mentioned, the backstory acts as a validation of the platform, right. So every element of the platform needs to be present somewhere in the story, for it to be a successful backstory. So we go through and just note ‘here's the promise.’ ‘Here's an example of the personality, this personality trait.’ ‘Here's positioning’, ‘here are the themes’, et cetera. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, and those may tend to fall some more towards the beginning some more towards the end, because there is this structure that we're working right but they don't have to, they can crop up at different places. And so the question so what happens after you read it? Do I get that and yes, you get the version that we shared on screen. We will give you a Word document, as well, so you can mark it up. These things always go through rounds of refinement. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I never share on like a Google doc because I don't want people's comments to build. I want to hear people's individual comments. And then, you know, our team will put it all together and create a new version. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, this is a case where Google Docs isn't necessarily the best tool. It's great for other things. Yeah. So we will give you that will provide the screen version, the printout version, the annotated version. And then, as we talked about earlier, there, there may be different lengths that we've edited. To start with a full length, a 300-word version, and then like 100-word summary, which could be adapted to boilerplate. There may be a specific boilerplate version, right? For PR purposes, which is really more factual. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I usually wait until we finalize the backstory. And then I'll create other versions. So that's brand backstory, and you know, obviously, we've been kind of building to this one and excited to share this element of our brand building philosophy. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">So next time, we're going to talk about the Story Points Wheel, which is a really central tool for us. It's pretty much as important as the brand wheel. We think in terms of wheels, where we keep on the wheel rather than pyramid. And we'll get into that and how that can help you to create these stories with a consistent level of quality and minimum heartache. smooth process. Yeah, totally. That's also really great for engaging your client and other folks on your team. Yeah. And it gets them thinking in the story mode, getting them to collaborate on the idea of a story before you present it, which is great. Yeah. Awesome. All right. We'll see you next time on the brand front lines. Yeah, looking forward. Bye.</p> </div> </div></div></div></div></div></div> <div class="blog-item-author-profile-wrapper" data-content-field="author"> <a href="/episodes?author=52ae2586e4b0532c165ecdaa"> <span class="author-avatar content-fill" data-tweaks="tweak-show-blog-item-author-profile"> <img class="author-avatar-image" data-controller="AuthorProfileImageLoader" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v2/namespaces/memberAccountAvatars/libraries/52ae2586e4b0532c165ecdaa/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd.jpeg?format=300w" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v2/namespaces/memberAccountAvatars/libraries/52ae2586e4b0532c165ecdaa/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd.jpeg?format=300w" data-load="false" alt="" elementtiming="nbf-author-avatar" /> </span> <span class="author-name">Marissa La Brecque</span> </a> </div> </div> <section class="blog-item-comments"> <div class="blog-item-comments-toggle-wrapper"> <div id="blogItemCommentsContent" class="blog-item-comments-content" data-content-field="comments"> </div> </div> </section> </div> </article> </div> </div> </div> </section> </article> <section id="itemPagination" class="item-pagination item-pagination--prev-next" data-collection-type="blog-basic-grid" > <a href="/episodes/episode-10-the-secret-history-of-storytelling-in-marketing" class="item-pagination-link item-pagination-link--next"> <div class="pagination-title-wrapper"> <div class="visually-hidden">Next</div> <div class="item-pagination-prev-next">Next</div> <h2 class="item-pagination-title">Episode 10: The Secret History of Storytelling in Marketing</h2> </div> <div class="item-pagination-icon icon icon--stroke"> <svg class="caret-right-icon--small" viewBox="0 0 9 16"> <polyline fill="none" stroke-miterlimit="10" points="1.6,1.2 6.5,7.9 1.6,14.7"/> </svg> </div> </a> </section> </main> <script type="text/javascript"> const firstSection = document.querySelector('.page-section'); 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Episode 11: Backstory Jul 8 Written By Marissa La Brecque </iframe</div></div><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" data-border-radii="{"topLeft":{"unit":"px","value":0.0},"topRight":{"unit":"px","value":0.0},"bottomLeft":{"unit":"px","value":0.0},"bottomRight":{"unit":"px","value":0.0}}" id="block-6faa9dcfb9619df36cf2"><div class="sqs-block-content"> <div class="sqs-html-content"> <p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Backstory is the backbone of our brand building method. A brand is a story told in the marketplace and this is the story. A backstory validates the platform and instigates the messaging. A good backstory marries meaning and emotion and inspires the team. We share our process for creating a solid backstory.</p><p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"></p><p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"></p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Welcome to Episode 11 of Brand Frontlines. Today we're digging into the brand backstory. Last episode we gave the backstory of the backstory and talked about how Eric really came on to the concept of a of a narrative brand. But today we're going to talk about the mechanics of creating a backstory, which for us is really the backbone of how we build brands. But before we get into all of that, Eric, what are you up to?</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Well, as you know, we've just moved and the office has moved. So a lot of what I'm up to right now is just the mechanics of getting the office set up. And all I can say is I'm really glad that Zoom and teams have blurred background. Because the background is pretty chaotic. In terms of work, the very first call in the new space was with our client AMI, the big firmware company based outside of Atlanta to talk about their platform and gather some further details to flesh out the messaging. And the second call was with our team to talk about a new personality project. It's a new phase. For brand development work that we're doing for cybersecurity company anomaly. We're going to be looking at their visual system. So we're building out the brand. Nice, Yep, good stuff. What about you?</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Um, well, I think I mentioned last time I launched my brand strategy and storytelling studio, Hyperflore, and we put the word out to our general list, after soft launching with our clients and friends. So a lot of new business calls.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, that's excellent. And I'm just going to plug your site for you since you probably won't do it and shouldn't do it yourself. But Hyperflore is first of all, a really great example of taking your own medicine. So within brand consulting, I just love how you've narrowed your focus to focus. I realized that not everything will necessarily fall within this focus, but to really kind of emphasize the solopreneur and building the sense of community. These are things you share with me, maybe a bit of an emphasis on kind of women owned business is fantastic. And the look and feel really support that the messaging really support that and I think that it's a great case in point for those of us in our business to look at ourselves. We often I think in this in this profession. It's not that we try to be all things to all people, but we are careful not to close doors because we're always looking for new opportunities and and so we're opportunistic and opportunism sometimes fights, the need to be really focused.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Yeah, I mean, when I first hung my shingle, I think my first sight was that it was very muted, classic, you know, beautifully done. Obviously you want to have that as a marketer and needs to be like really well done. But definitely not closing any doors. And this time around, I just I really wanted to have fun. I really wanted it to be you know, in my pocket and express a real look and feel and it's definitely that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: yeah, the personality and look and feel is amazing, really distinctive. Really kind of groovy. Yeah. I love that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And shout out to the visual identity designer and site designer, Tia Harrison, who is on our team.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, she did a great job and love the name. I guess it's like you know, if you have a dentist in the family, right you right you're all gonna have good tea. So we have to make sure everything that needs a name has a name that we generate. So anyway, best success with that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Thank you. Yeah, so, backstory. Why don't you just define what a brand backstory is.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: A brand backstory is the story that you develop about a brand and use behind the scenes. The closest equivalent in other storytelling modes would be a treatment for film, or a synopsis for play, things like that. And it should read well to the people who, you know are going to be building the story telling the story through all their other media. We don't go out and buy books full of treatments to read them for entertainment value, but at the same time, those who work with them, want to get a little energy from them, and want to feel the vibe and see the sense of what they're creating.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: There’s that thrust of the story that is inspiring. It's not the work of art in it in and of itself, but it's the working document from which we create the art </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: That’s exactly it. So for us, as you mentioned, brand backstories are central. They're really the backbone, as you say, of what we do. They're not the first thing that we create, even though they're the backbone, we sort of just like when you're creating a treatment or writing a synopsis, you want to do some research and you want to gather all the pieces together to build that narrative. And that's building brand platform, you know, so that's what we've we've talked about a lot of those elements first, and you bring them together in the backstory, the backstory is where you actually compose with them, and piece them all together. And see how it flows. So that's a really important thing that that backstory does, is it sort of proof of concept for all the individual platform elements, right, which is huge. And agencies that we've worked with in the past because we partner with a lot of agencies don't necessarily view it that way. Many of them will have a story as part of the setup deliverables and sort of an equivalent to a positioning or personality sitting above that the positioning and personality are feeding into it. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: A brand is a story told in the marketplace, right? So this is the story.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: We’re telling you a story. Yeah, this was it. We're gonna bring it to life in all different ways. We're going to tell it many different times, over and over other people are going to pick up on it and tell it in their own way. Hopefully, so that's what we're talking about in terms of okay, what does it look like? You know, really like what are you? What are you delivering? It's, it's often pretty long. We've had some really long ones that are over 1500 words, but typically we're shooting for fully fleshed out 750 to 1500 word story which is going to explore all the themes, develop them a little bit, and all those other elements of the platform. So you're bringing some concrete case studies, some dates, some milestones to flesh out those points.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And then from that, there are other versions of the story that we usually deliver. And for me that really depends on the client and their specific needs. But usually there's like a capsule version might end up as like the about copy on a on a website or script that you might use for internal or external hyping, and that's usually about 300 words.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: That’s a good length. I think. We'll talk about that. But I think it's really important. You're kind of providing the answer to this really big question, which is: so what do I do with this? Now I get the platform elements. Those are familiar to me from brand Marketing 101, you might have a slightly different take on them, but I get what a positioning is. But the story I don't really understand what am I supposed to do with this 1500 word thing? And the answer is, well, it's not for outside consumption again. So you should be referencing it. It's almost like a reference tool.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I also think that the proof is in the, in the presenting pudding like people kind of feel that in the back of their minds until you read it and understanding how having that narrative articulated and having all the different people on your team brought in in the right way having your you know the story is taking you from your your origins wherever you you choose to begin the story through your to your vision and through that you'll Express challenges and things that you've overcome successes, all these things. Hearing that people just get it it's like I've been explaining all these things in different ways, but having it all come together into one cohesive narrative that makes sense of why you're here where you're going, what you're about, is really powerful.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, exactly. It's a behind the scenes tool, right? I mean, it's like someone asking, what's the point of a treatment? It's for the people who are gonna go on and tell the story to go, Aha, got it. Yep, we're on the same page. We see where this is going. And I see what I need to do and how I can do a great job bringing it to life, right. That's really its primary purpose. And to your point about reading it and giving it sort of its first you know, its debut off the screen or off the page and seeing how it works emotionally and whether it makes sense some other people feel it is a huge moment. I mean, it's one of the more satisfying moments in our work. I remember developing and sharing for the first time the backstory for the deep rad the brand for Metro Detroit back in the mid 2000s. And there was a lot of anxiety around how's this going to come together? How is Detroit gonna fit in with the suburbs around it? Right? How's this sound again, stakeholders and right and this was a huge problem that the brand had to solve and the story had to tell well, which is how do all these disparate areas that want different things and have different histories, histories come together? And I remember the feeling of joy in the room, and there was a journalist in the back from one of the big daily papers, who got up and said I'm so excited. I have to pee. That was just a really awesome moment. And there have been other moments like that generally, you know, there's enthusiasm, there's excitement. Sometimes there's clapping. Yeah. Sometimes if it's a very moving story where there's been a lot of struggle or a lot of effort, it can be emotional in another way where people are having slightly missed the eyes. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And we're not really playing directly for that effect. But that's kind of again, prove that we're onto something here. That's a great moment. We look for that moment. If people are just going Aha, yeah, that's Yeah, okay. Right. I see that then. Something's missing. And we have to go back. We haven't done our job. All right.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Yeah. Because you're bringing together meaning and emotion.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Exactly. Yeah.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: So I kind of got into this a little bit. Let's talk about structure. You landed on the hero's journey, a classic story structure,</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Anybody you talk to about storytelling in the brand world is going to talk about the hero's journey. There's another person who's out there. I think training a lot of folks who uses that comes from the world of screenwriting, to help people make sense of brands that way, so there's nothing really totally original in that. What we've done is just pushed hard to make it really systematic really break it down so that it's easy to create the ground backstory using that framework. I'm very excited for the next episode to share the story points. Which is sort of our breakdown of that that was a milestone in terms of tool building for us because all of a sudden, we could scale production. I could give this to somebody who was a good strategist but wasn't familiar with the storytelling approach and they could start to organize their notes and their insights, you know, really more easily been in the past. So yeah, excited for that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Yeah, me too. It's really amazing tool. Yeah, so examples of the hero's journey will be Star Wars Seven Samurai</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Odysseus is probably the ultimate early example, that all other ones can learn from. Yeah, it's the story to recap it briefly in case you missed it. Which, who knows? Yeah, but it's the story of a hero from the Trojan Wars, who is now struggling to get home. He has a vision of home life that he wants to return to his wife, his son his peaceful farms on his native island. He's far from that and he embarks on a journey with a crew on a ship to get back and many bad things. generally bad things happen to him along the way, that he has to struggle against and overcome in order to finally make it home. So his journey is one that tests challenges him causes him to live by his wits. helps him to grow in certain ways, and draws on, you know, every resource that he has to finally make it back. And this story, interestingly, doesn't really end when he gets back because things aren't all peachy at home, right? The neighbors have moved down on his wife and he has to deal with them and people have sort of forgotten who he is his dog hasn't forgotten. When old servant hasn't forgotten but you know, things have changed life has moved on. And the last stage of the journey of the conflict is actually the resolution of of life and home and getting that back on to the even footing. So he might read it less for pure entertainment than for getting grounded in this but it's kind of a fundamental read. I think if you're going to be around storyteller, going back to something that you mentioned to about the different lengths or so we talked about the long version and that's great for giving somebody to generate reference, it's almost never used directly. People pull pieces from it right and putting them at different communications right.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Generally yields a lot of good copy.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, that's good for that. It kind of provides the inspiration for like a messaging deck, right? Really useful version is one that's been boiled down to about 300 words, which translates to a minute and a half or so of a pocket. And you can trim that or you can expand a little bit but that's about the right length we found for like a brand intro video, I didn't realize was 300 words can be adapted to a script fairly easily. And we do that a lot. We often create videos and producing the brands. They're often used at annual conferences where entire organizations are coming together or there's a big user conference. Those kinds of events are in common kickoffs, or this comes into play and then some of them go on to live our websites or on YouTube or Vimeo. So that 300 word length is a good length we could write to that length to begin with, but then it would leave a lot of the detail out so it's kind of nice to be able to write a lot and then take from that.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Especially if I'm not going to do a messaging doc for a client, I will. I mean, sometimes I'll do 10 or 20 versions, you know, like a version that's really focused on the founders, a version that's focused on the founders with really heightened personality. A version that's focused on the founders with really muted personality. Press boilerplate copy for press releases or interview intros, a version that's focused on an innovation that they did you know, is is pulled from the story and it still has like a similar kind of timeline and meaning but it's just really honed in on that subject matter.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Something to say about that. I think is important is like in our work, you kind of want to get that general story down first. And then to your point you can version forever. You can version to different audiences, different personas.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I mean, we're talking about proto-messaging like I'm saying, you know, for certain clients, it really makes sense to do a messaging deck but as we mentioned, I work with smaller clients, they don't always necessarily need that that level of detailed messaging. So I'll do this sort of deck of narrative versions, backstory versions.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah. You know, it's funny, some of the bigger clients don't see the need for a story as intuitively. They want to go right to the messaging acquires and actually we had somebody, somebody yesterday who kind of said, like, we don't really need all that brand stuff. We just want to go to messaging and design, which is a pretty different understanding of how it all works. Start from that, okay. To me, I think to you as well. All of it is enhanced by being able to be pulled together into you know, one structure. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">There's also I think, a temptation to feel like if you're coming from a demand generation world, more of a pure tactical place, that maybe you shouldn't necessarily start with an overall story. You should start by honing in on a specific persona from the get-go and just figuring out exactly what it is it's going to take to make that person engage with you. And you can do that and discover those things along the way it strikes me as a very inefficient way to work. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: If you have a very highly tactical marketing needs, like, it's just so much easier to have the strategy set and the story set because things shift all the time. And if you keep recreating the wheel pretty soon, you're not going to recognize the wheel. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, I think we're in an age when tactics dominate over strategy, at least in the imagination, because there's so many wonderful tools that are tactical in nature, right? </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: Plus, they're the last part so you associate them with getting the paycheck, whatever it is, yeah, but the best tacticians have strategic underpinnings. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, and I love great tactical tools. And I love it when we're in a dialogue with people who are using those tools to help see how the tactics can inform the brand and vice versa. I feel like there's a deep respect for I'm not gonna say a deeper respect, but I feel the respect for the customer the respect for the end user in telling the story, they're an audience. And yeah, I feel that connection. And I feel sometimes when I'm looking at tools that move customers through a marketing funnel that I'm looking at something designed for Pavlov's dog. You know, it's like if I plug in this input at a certain frequency at a certain time using the channel that you'd like to consume information in, the bell will ring and you will pull the lever right by my thing and you Yeah, you know, 1500 times then maybe once you're make the purchase, this is obviously rooted in a deeper connection with your customer base. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And also with the people doing the work to create your product or service. They also want to feel that there's meaning and that there's a vision and creates a lot more sense of connection with your culture. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: It does come down to working from a vision, you know, all of this is, as we say, you know, the vision is is what sets the story in motion, right? It's the motivating action of the story. And so, if you neglect the vision, then you're not going to see the sense of a story, I guess. Yeah, but neglect that at your risk. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, and we'll we'll share all the points of the story with the Story Points Wheel in the next episode. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: We talked about how the backstory validates your platform. Let's talk a little bit more about where it goes into messaging or how it becomes messaging. We've outlined that a little bit but… </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: in the ideal world the sequence of work would be platform development after your discovery, and then story and then messaging. In reality, often clients want the messaging first. They recognize the value of the story but want to get some, you know, actionable stuff down, right. But let's put that aside. That can work. It's a little harder on us, but it can work. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">When you have the story you're working from, you're incorporating the themes into the story, and the themes become, they're really important to the story. And they're also really important to the messaging. They're really tied to the value props, the value propositions that are part of your brand, the reasons why people are going to find you to be relevant or useful or buying or engaging with, set the stage for messaging so you have these really big points about why someone should interact with you by you choose to spend time with you, come to love you, recommend you. Yeah, and then the messaging is really from our standpoint, organizing those which all fall out of the promise. They're all things that lead up to that ultimate value proposition, which is the promise and then they take it further. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">So the the story is this narrative structure, right and it it follows an emotional flow, which we're going to get into and the Story Points Wheel the messaging is it following that structure, right? It's just organizing the pieces, right? It's the parts catalog. And it has the promise and the things the other platform elements and then it goes into the value propositions and then underneath that, the proof points and the details that flesh out why you can say that this is going to do whatever it's going to do for you. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I think about like XY graph. It's like, Alright, I'm going down. I want to think about this theme. This audience this product. Okay, here's my message. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah. And we'll get into more specifics when we get to messaging frameworks, which is a topic of an upcoming episode. Yeah, definitely check that out. And relative to the story, the backstory, the messaging framework is a more of a workhorse tool. You're using that every day. Yeah, different people are using it and you're building on it and you're constantly changing. It changes more than the story, where the details of the story might change but the basic flow is going to be with you for a while. It should be sturdy enough for that. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: And the last thing we wanted to touch on is just how you present a backstory to a client because it's a particular kind of thing. I mean, first of all, both of us feel this way about every stage of work we present. I think we've mentioned this before, but we never just send off a document for our clients to review. We always present in a meeting but the backstory is even more particular than that. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah. Like so many things in our world. Strategy is obviously, maybe central. But psychology is really important. And there's a psychology to presenting.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">If you give somebody a backstory on a single sheet of paper or a couple of sheets, and it's just paragraph after paragraph, their eyes are gonna glaze over. And so we usually, on first presenting, break it up by paragraphs and present it in a screen format. And at this point, we're not going to include visuals, that will come, we just want the words to sink in. And we present basically a paragraph per screen, and we may have some subheads to help guide it. Now we're going to read it aloud. And we're gonna walk through it together. And we invite the client to read along with us if they want or close their eyes and just let it flow. The first impression. They're gonna have initial thoughts to share, but that first impression isn't one where they need to be looking at everything. It's just more about the overall feel of the story, the overall impression, the overall vibe. So setting it up that way, usually, as a PowerPoint or Keynote. Going through it slide by slide, reading it will give you the best and truest read on whether the basic backstory is working.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">And when you read it, don't be reading it for the first time. You know, like, practice it, read it a couple of times. In reading it, you'll fall into the rhythms and you'll get good at reading it. You'll also discover areas where it's a little bit rough or it doesn't translate to how you talk. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: The other part of the presentation is that we share an annotated version of the story. So as we mentioned, the backstory acts as a validation of the platform, right. So every element of the platform needs to be present somewhere in the story, for it to be a successful backstory. So we go through and just note ‘here's the promise.’ ‘Here's an example of the personality, this personality trait.’ ‘Here's positioning’, ‘here are the themes’, et cetera. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, and those may tend to fall some more towards the beginning some more towards the end, because there is this structure that we're working right but they don't have to, they can crop up at different places. And so the question so what happens after you read it? Do I get that and yes, you get the version that we shared on screen. We will give you a Word document, as well, so you can mark it up. These things always go through rounds of refinement. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I never share on like a Google doc because I don't want people's comments to build. I want to hear people's individual comments. And then, you know, our team will put it all together and create a new version. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eric: Yeah, this is a case where Google Docs isn't necessarily the best tool. It's great for other things. Yeah. So we will give you that will provide the screen version, the printout version, the annotated version. And then, as we talked about earlier, there, there may be different lengths that we've edited. To start with a full length, a 300-word version, and then like 100-word summary, which could be adapted to boilerplate. There may be a specific boilerplate version, right? For PR purposes, which is really more factual. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Marissa: I usually wait until we finalize the backstory. And then I'll create other versions. So that's brand backstory, and you know, obviously, we've been kind of building to this one and excited to share this element of our brand building philosophy. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">So next time, we're going to talk about the Story Points Wheel, which is a really central tool for us. It's pretty much as important as the brand wheel. We think in terms of wheels, where we keep on the wheel rather than pyramid. And we'll get into that and how that can help you to create these stories with a consistent level of quality and minimum heartache. smooth process. Yeah, totally. That's also really great for engaging your client and other folks on your team. Yeah. And it gets them thinking in the story mode, getting them to collaborate on the idea of a story before you present it, which is great. Yeah. Awesome. All right. We'll see you next time on the brand front lines. Yeah, looking forward. Bye.</p> </div> </div></div></div></div></div></div> <div class="blog-item-author-profile-wrapper" data-content-field="author"> <a href="/episodes?author=52ae2586e4b0532c165ecdaa"> <span class="author-avatar content-fill" data-tweaks="tweak-show-blog-item-author-profile"> <img class="author-avatar-image" data-controller="AuthorProfileImageLoader" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v2/namespaces/memberAccountAvatars/libraries/52ae2586e4b0532c165ecdaa/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd.jpeg?format=300w" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v2/namespaces/memberAccountAvatars/libraries/52ae2586e4b0532c165ecdaa/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd/88302e398dec4c4591d4c1beeade70dd.jpeg?format=300w" data-load="false" alt="" elementtiming="nbf-author-avatar" /> </span> <span class="author-name">Marissa La Brecque</span> </a> </div> </div> <section class="blog-item-comments"> <div class="blog-item-comments-toggle-wrapper"> <div id="blogItemCommentsContent" class="blog-item-comments-content" data-content-field="comments"> </div> </div> </section> </div> </article> </div> </div> </div> </section> </article> <section id="itemPagination" class="item-pagination item-pagination--prev-next" data-collection-type="blog-basic-grid" > <a href="/episodes/episode-10-the-secret-history-of-storytelling-in-marketing" class="item-pagination-link item-pagination-link--next"> <div class="pagination-title-wrapper"> <div class="visually-hidden">Next</div> <div class="item-pagination-prev-next">Next</div> <h2 class="item-pagination-title">Episode 10: The Secret History of Storytelling in Marketing</h2> </div> <div class="item-pagination-icon icon icon--stroke"> <svg class="caret-right-icon--small" viewBox="0 0 9 16"> <polyline fill="none" stroke-miterlimit="10" points="1.6,1.2 6.5,7.9 1.6,14.7"/> </svg> </div> </a> </section> </main> <script type="text/javascript"> const firstSection = document.querySelector('.page-section'); 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