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Ross Mckeever

Marketing and Storytelling—A match made in heaven

Marketing is changing. Sales promises and banner ads no longer cut the mustard. Brand storytelling is quickly becoming one of the most effective ways to improve product value.

Today’s consumers are on the look-out for a story they can invest in. Marketers are developing their storytelling skills to stay on top of the game. However, storytelling isn’t just useful for selling brand stories. It’s also useful for market research and interpretation.

At All Good Tales, we recognise that a good brand story can make your marketing strategy. However, storytelling has uses beyond brand storytelling. Below, find four reasons why storytelling and marketing are a match made in heaven.

Express your brand’s personality

Like people, brands need to have a personality to stand out. Stories are great vehicles for showing this personality off. Stories are useful tools for conveying information, but people often overlook their ability to reveal character.

A few months ago, looters ransacked a Lidl in Tallaght during Storm Emma. The story was swiftly picked up by every major outlet. Rather than wallow in the loss, Lidl laughed it off:

The tweet expressed the company’s sunny personality perfectly, turning a national story into an opportunity for promotion.

Stories can be case-studies, user-generated, or created through organic brand interactions. Any story that successfully conveys personality will help your brand stick in prospect’s minds. Stories are going to be told about your brand one way or another—use them to your advantage.

Help clarify complex data

Today, much of marketing is data-driven. Though data is a priceless marketing resource, it can be tough to interpret.

One way to interpret data is through storytelling. Stories are especially effective because they can be shared easily amongst team members. Whereas raw data is difficult to grasp, stories are always easy to understand.

It’s hard to imagine numbers leading to real life outcomes. Fortunately, storytelling accounts for these outcomes. For a marketer, stories are an invaluable aid for communicating raw data to colleagues.

Realise the emotional core

Focus groups play a big role in market research. The goal of these groups is to expose consumer’s thoughts about a brand or product

Visual Storytelling

Focus groups are uncomfortable situations. They can make people anxious, and anxious people tend to avoid taking risks. A nervous person is less likely to give a personal response, and more likely to stick to views their peers will accept. Focus groups are meant to uncover personal responses, but sometimes they deter people from getting personal.

Storytelling offers a way around this. Stories require improvisation. This makes it hard to lean on easy clichés. Instead, people have to draw from their own experiences. This ensures that their response will be personal.

Tell me what you don’t know

Focus groups are also at risk to group think. People can change their answers to make the researcher happy, or to avoid confrontation. These responses generally lean on known truths—they don’t tell the researcher anything they don’t already know.

Stories, however, involve improvisation. Improvising is hard. People don’t always have time to consider what they are saying. When asked to improvise, people can reach conclusions even they find surprising.

This kind of insight is priceless for a market researcher. The goal isn’t to find out what the consumer thinks they think—it’s to find out what they actually think. Storytelling is valuable because it brings these thoughts out into the open.

Here at All Good Tales we are doing great work for brands like Kingspan, Ancestry.com, and daa, to name just a few. We are building brand newsrooms, executing exciting PR strategies, and training key staff how to source, structure and tell great stories. For more information please click here or call Gaye on (01) 254 1845.

Passionate about stories: Failte Ireland

 

Come for the scenery, stay for the story. Learn how Fáilte Ireland’s passion for stories fuels the Irish tourism industry.

 

Fáilte Ireland is Ireland’s National Tourism Development Authority, named after the Irish word for ‘welcome’. Established in 2003, Fáilte Ireland provides a range of tools, skills, and advice to tourism businesses. It’s the cornerstone of Ireland’s competitive, high-quality tourism industry.Failte Ireland

Fáilte Ireland uses many best practice tools and strategic tactics to promote Ireland overseas. However, their most effective tool is their ability to tell a story. Jenny De Saulles, Fáilte Ireland’s Head of Ireland’s Ancient East, spoke on the importance of storytelling for the brand:

“Visitors relate to stories and interesting people – something we have in abundance within Ireland’s Ancient East. Bringing our past alive for the overseas tourist requires knowledge of what they expect and the best ways to reach them.”

Below, find out how Fáilte Ireland uses storytelling to promote the Irish tourism industry, whether it be through battle-hardy Vikings or talking statues:

Storytelling in Ireland’s Ancient East

In 2016, Fáilte Ireland rolled out a domestic marketing campaign with a telling tagline—“Great Story’s Stay With You Forever”. As part of this campaign, Failte Ireland also released an exceptional TV ad.

In the ad, a Father tucks his Son into bed, with a storybook open in hand. Without warning, they’re in Co. Kilkenny’s Dunmore Caves. A bearded Viking proudly unsheathes his sword. Clashing blades resound throughout the cavern interior. The Father turns off the bedside light.

Later in the ad, when the Father and Son have a mock swordfight in Athlone Castle, you get the sense that their fight is just as exciting as the ancient battle from their storybook. Clearly, Fáilte Ireland doesn’t just recite the story of Ireland’s Ancient East. Instead, they bring you into it.

Leinster has a wealth of stunning heritage sites, but they really stick with you once you’ve heard the stories behind them. Fortunately, Fáilte Ireland’s passionate storytelling means there’s plenty of opportunities to engage Ireland’s ancients sites on this level.

Storytelling Statues

Ireland is a nation of natural storytellers, and Fáilte Ireland definitely makes use of this fact. Last year, they launched a new initiative, called ‘Dublin’s Talking Statues’. As part of this initiative, Fáilte Ireland installed QR codes on ten statues across Dublin. Today, tourists can scan these codes to receive a monologue from each of the statues.Failte Ireland

Each statue’s monologue is written and performed by an esteemed Irish writer and actor. For example, James Joyce’s monologue, written by Roddy Doyle, is animated by Gabriel Byrne. Other notable contributors include actor Brendan O’Carroll, playwright Enda Walsh, and author Eoin Colfer.

It’s easy to miss these statues while plodding down Dublin’s busy streets. Fortunately, because the monologues are only available through their QR codes, tourists must visit the statues up close and in person.

Once tourists are at the statue, the strong storytelling and passionate performances do the rest. Yet again, Fáilte Ireland expertly uses storytelling to connect tourists with Ireland’s historical monuments.

Fáilte Ireland’s Storytelling Toolkit

Fáilte Ireland has produced a booklet — called Ireland’s Ancient East: A Toolkit For Storytelling Interpretation — that outlines their best practice for storytelling. This helpful booklet includes four key tenets towards achieving the ideal approach to storytelling.

Focus on the audience

When you know what your audience wants, it’s much easier to design an effective story. Tailor your story to your audience for the biggest impact.

Highlight people, rather than facts, figures, and dates

People, actions, and relationships are more emotive than facts, figures, and dates. An emotionally charged story is more likely to get a message across than an amassment of dry statistics. Avoid raw data — it’s better to include something more personal.

Create common ground

The goal of any good story is to evoke empathy. Stories are delivery tools for difficult messages. However, without empathy, audiences are likely to reject these messages outright. For this reason, it’s important to establish a common ground between your audience and your story.

Forge atmosphere and sense of place

Storytelling isn’t just about the spoken or written word — it’s also about the setting. This is especially true for heritage sites and tourist locations. If the setting isn’t convincing, the story won’t be either. So, make sure your setting is distinct, comfortable and complementary to your story (and vice versa).

End of Story

Through good storytelling, Fáilte Ireland is able to keep Ireland’s vital tourism industry alive and thriving. It generates growth in visitors, revenue, and jobs around the country.

Fáilte Ireland’s unique approach to storytelling makes for memorable tourist sites. By bringing emphasising the relationship between story and setting, and by bringing its audience into the story, Fáilte Ireland has elevated Irish tourism to new heights.

Here at All Good Tales we are doing great work for brands like Kingspan, Ancestry.com, and daa, to name just a few. We are building brand newsrooms, executing exciting PR strategies, and training key staff how to source, structure and tell great stories. For more information please click here or call Gaye on (01) 254 1845.

3 challenges every CMO must overcome

CMOs are the marketing equivalent of plate spinners. They keep a constant tab on emerging developments, author the brand story, and ensure the overall cohesion of the brand.

In larger organisations, CMOs perform these tasks by communicating with a variety of marketing departments. Generally, these departments don’t contact one another outside of the CMO.

To make things more difficult, the digital age has uprooted traditional marketing strategies. As marketing migrates further online, it only becomes more of an unpredictable prospect.

Below, we’ve outlined three challenges that CMOs must rise to face during the digital age. Keep these three plates spinning and you should be well on your way to a positive ROI.

 

1. Staying on top of emerging developments

Technology is constantly advancing, and the tools of the modern CMO are evolving with it.  CMOs need to keep their teams up-to-date with any changes to social media platforms or data analytic software. Failure to keep teams up to date on current trends will inevitably result in missed opportunities and wasted investments.10 influential CMOs you should follow on Twitter

 

Of course, briefing marketing teams to this level is easier said than done. Marketing occurs across a variety of different platforms. Each platform has its own unique feel. Creating briefs for each platform can be time-consuming. In large organisations, long and bureaucratic approval procedures can drag briefs to a dead halt.

For this reason, it’s crucial that CMOs cultivate dependable team leaders. Developments happen immediately online—there isn’t always enough time for everyone to mull everything over. To a CMO, there’s nothing more valuable than a team leader with the capacity to quickly react to emerging developments.

 

2. Selling the experience, not the product

The internet is always on, and this means that the primary channel of communication between the brand and the consumer is always active. Raja Rajamannar, MasterCard’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, thinks this change has thrust marketing into a new era of experiential storytelling, or, as he calls it, “storymaking“.

“As the world becomes more experiential, every person alive today is a natural story-maker. The desire for amazing experiences is bottomless. It’s not enough to tell stories about priceless experiences. We need to align the stars for our consumers and help them create their own.”

It can be tempting to think that the relationship between the brand and the consumer begins and ends with the product. However, from the moment the customer first considers the purchase, up until their final interaction with the product, the brand and the customer are connected.

Storytelling CMOs shouldn’t just consider the story behind their product—they should also consider the stories their consumers will make while interacting with the brand. The best CMO won’t just sell the product through storytelling, they’ll sell the brand experience by “storymaking“.

 

3. Building outwards from your core storytelling message

Typically, brand stories are built around a core belief. For example, Airbnb is built on the idea that “people are fundamentally good and every community is a place where you can belong”. In line with this thinking, Airbnb embraces local cultures and social diversity as part of its brand story.

Airbnb’s brand story is successful because it remains true to the organisation’s mission while resonating with its target market. Its brand story appeals to young travellers, but also complements its business model. Striking this balance ensures its brand story is authentic, greatly increasing the organisation’s marketing credibility.

Storytelling Digital Marketing

Unfortunately, a CMO’s success is tied to the bottom line. This might lead some to resort to unsustainable strategies—like misrepresenting their brand to attract an audience. Worse still, CMOs can often be so engrossed in the marketing language of sales pitches and benefit bullet points that they struggle to step back. Instead, they need t0 evaluate their brand from an ordinary person’s perspective.

The easy way for a CMO to avoid these problems is to stick to a core storytelling message. By building their brand story around this core message, CMOs can create sustainable relationships founded on trust. Brand storytelling isn’t about tricking someone into buying something they don’t want. Instead, it’s about earning trust and bringing customers around to your brand mission.

Here at All Good Tales we are doing great work for brands like Kingspan, Ancestry.com, and the DAA, to name just a few. We are building brand newsrooms, executing exciting PR strategies, and training key staff how to source, structure and tell great stories. For more information please click here or call Gaye on (01) 254 1845.