Episode 1: What Is a Brand?

Episode Notes

This episode explores the most fundamental question, what is a brand?

Our answer: A story told in the marketplace

Stories have been used in the marketplace since there have been marketplaces. These stories are used to add value to products.

What is the difference between a traditional marketplace and the modern market?

-You aren’t eye to eye with the customer.

-There’s a great deal of media

-You aren’t necessarily in the same community or context

What is a brand story? A story told to buy and sell products.

A story is a human construct to connect emotion and meaning. We use them to define spirituality, entertain us, to understand our own inner workings, to tell our histories. And we use them in the marketplace.

How do you create a brand story? Short answer: be interesting.

Longer answer: We do preliminary work to make sure we understand what is important to share. Then we construct the story like a novelist or screenwriter.

We ask: what is the plot, the premise, the genre, the setting, the narrative arc?

We write a treatment, or backstory, which helps the team understand the story and give feedback.

Then, along with the visual guidelines and the verbal guidelines, we have the tools needed to create experiences for people: communications, events, communities and bring them into the story.

You don’t necessarily hear the brand story all at once, in a linear fashion. You get impressions of the story over time and it adds up.

The adventure framework tends to be the starting point for the brand story.

Shared sense of purpose allows everyone involved to be a part of the story.  That is where culture and vision come in. Stories don’t happen in a vacuum.  Developing a story creates a strong bond within an organization.

Brand stories are often used by leaders because they encompass the vision and the strategic goals that the leader holds. People will often cheer when  a leader shares the story well.

How did Eric get into this work and develop his storytelling approach?

Deborah Sussman and Paul Prejza, experiences in Tijuana marketplaces, being a writer.

We tell stories to sell things, to stand out from competition, to build customer loyalty. We come in generally when clients have a new challenge: launching, changing markets, mergers, fighting being a commodity and becoming more valuable.

Over the first 13 episodes we will be talking about the tools and elements that every brand needs. These elements can be complex or simple but understand the core elements and processes will make your brand strong and strategic.

Resources:

Eric La Brecque writes about re-naming co-opted cultural terms.