Welcome back to From Brand to Image.
I want to introduce you to this incredible space it's
called the WOW Room at IE University.
It's really state of the art technology in online education,
and we're here to use it today as a sort of a presentation space.
So what we're going to look at today is story branding.
Now, you might say, well what is story branding?
Branding is essentially taking
a brand and developing its sort of physical characteristics,
communicating the values of the brand and what makes it unique into images,
logos, colors, etcetera, right?
So what is story branding?
Stories are the way that we have as human beings from the beginning of civilization,
the way that we have communicated values and belief systems,
the way that we have understood the world.
So story branding means that brands can now communicate their values,
their beliefs through stories.
So it's a different way of sharing what a brand is about, right?
So rather than just selling product,
what we're doing is we're actually inspiring people through brand values, right?
Now, let's look at this aspect of what I like to call beyond anxiety advertising.
Now why do I call this beyond anxiety advertising?
The reason is that advertising from
its initial days was essentially creating anxiety in people.
It was telling us that we are too fat,
that we are not fair enough,
that we are not tall enough,
that we're not rich enough,
that we don't have the right car, right?
And then what they would do is they would provide us with a sort of
magical solution which would solve that problem and then they would repeat that.
So we were always feeling insecure through advertising.
Now, what is happening now is that advertising has essentially moved
beyond this state of anxiety and we've seen many brands,
if you take Nike for example,
Nike is communicating its values to us and inspiring us, right?
Many brands do that these days and that's what we're going to focus on.
So, for example, if we look at
the initial advertisements that we saw
in the 70s and the 80s from Coca-Cola and Pepsi for example,
what we saw is that they really focused on product, right?
So Coke is it is telling you that Coke is the product that you need
to satisfy your thirst or Pepsi is the choice of a new generation.
But slowly these concepts began to evolve.
So what we see is that in the 90s and into the 2000s,
brands begin to talk more about their values.
For example, Coca-Cola is saying open happiness.
So it's not just about the product,
it's actually about how we're feeling.
So they're beginning to talk more about emotions, right?
Now, I'd like you to think for a moment.
I'd like to think about a brand that you connect to in a value based way.
I'm going to give you an example.
For me, other than the fact that I love ice cream,
Ben and Jerry's is a company whose values I relate to.
I relate to this idea of using local products,
of ecological conservation, of supporting nonprofit organizations, right?
And being small.
So Ben and Jerry's is a company that I relate to at a values level.
So I'd like you to think about that.
What are the brands that you relate to not just about the product itself,
but actually about the values of the brand and how that brand tells you stories, right?
So what we're going to do in the next video is we're going to move from
storytelling into this idea of mythology and mythmaking.
I'll see you back here.
Brian HallettAssociate Professor
