Your Destination is a Story

People tell stories; great stories become myths because they allow audiences to aspire to a basic value.

We moved from an oral tradition of storytelling to a broadcast era where ideas spread in one direction.

We’re now in a digital era where everyone spreads ideas and tells stories; the best survive over time.

Great marketing stories don’t sell products. Marlboro ads didn’t sell cigarettes; they sold manliness at a time when filtered cigarettes were for women.

In the best stories, the hero goes on a journey, meets a mentor who gives him a talisman and sends him off on an adventure to seek a truth.

In successful marketing, stories empower their audiences.

In traditional broadcast marketing, the focus is on the brand—its accomplishments.

But engaging stories make the audience the hero by giving them something to aspire to.

You can share all the great sustainability stuff that you’re doing. But that’s not a story that’s going to stick with your audience.

A very successful Dove soap campaign didn’t focus on the product’s cleaning power; it engaged women around their feelings about self-image and self-worth.

Values are the essence of what your brand stands for.

The nonprofit Charity Water stands for water as the basis of life.

This Nike campaign was not about running shoes but inner strength.

Patagonia takes the audience on the sustainability journey; they don’t claim that they’re doing everything perfectly. Sustainability is a journey.

Airbnb’s campaign is about the essential goodness of people.

What is a value that you can share about your brand?