Prof K’s Brand Narrative Manifesto – Differentiate Emotionally and Activate Passion

If you ask people why they chose a certain product or service or candidate or team, they might try to give you a sensible, logical rationale.

“It was cheaper.”
“It looked better.”
“She has the right qualifications to lead this city.”
“They’ve got a top-notch coach.”

But the real reasons people make those kinds of choices go beyond these answers. For many of the products and services consumers buy, as well as for many of the things they buy into, other more subtle rationales are at work.

The days of differentiating a product or brand by function and/or price are over. You can’t merely say, “We’re different because we’re a little cheaper,” or “We’re better because look at our special organic molecules.” That kind of copy just doesn’t cut it with the consumer who has seen it all and heard it all.

[wcm_restrict]Take an old friend of mine who was a farmer in the Deep South. He is an inveterate Coca Cola® drinker and wouldn’t drink Pepsi® even if it was half the price of Coke®. When I asked him about this preference, he told me, “Pepsi’ll give you stomach problems. I know people who’ve gotten stomach cancer from drinking it.”

I then offered him a Mountain Dew®. And he said, “No sir, you can’t trick me. That’s a Pepsi product and I won’t touch it.”

So what exactly is going on here? I have to admit, I was a bit confused by this at first. But then I looked at his history. He’s a Georgia native who grew up 80 miles from Atlanta, home of Coca-Cola. He was raised in an environment where nobody drank Pepsi. All of his fondest childhood memories have a bottle or can of Coke in them. All of his family reunions feature only one kind of soft drink; take a guess at what it might be. You got it: Coke!

If you think about it, people buy things for emotional benefits, for security, to express themselves, to feel good, to show how unique they are, to feel connected with others, and for other lots of other essentially subconscious reasons. But all these add up to one real reason: People buy things to give their life greater meaning.

Many intangible factors — such as memories, the rumored or real behavior of the company that produces the product, the fact-based or erroneous opinions of others, even the consumer’s true or false conceptions about the product — all end up having a huge impact on what that person purchases and on brand loyalty.

Remember all the ruckus about Nike® hiring children in foreign lands to make their sneakers? Even though it’s been years since Nike rectified this, I know people who, today, still won’t buy any Nike products.

Emotional Differentiation

In a media-saturated world where the average consumer is bombarded with thousands of messages a day, how do you create an authentic emotional response, especially when consumers are so jaded, busy, and overwhelmed?

Think of it this way: If products are things without emotions, then the brand is the emotional beating heart of the product. It is only through stories, through brand narratives, that it is possible to create an emotional relationship between people and brands, thereby connecting them. This is what I like to call “emotional differentiation.”

In other words, people buy things because of the emotional meaning or advantage that thing provides them. Tell a good story about your brand that provides a compelling emotional feeling and guess what they will do when they have to choose between products in the supermarket aisle.

In essence, an engaging brand narrative will circumvent our defenses and slip through to reach the deepest parts of ourselves. So, if you can create well-executed, on-target brand narratives, you will have tremendous power. You can foster word of mouth, brand loyalty, and maybe even brand advocacy.

Please note: emotional differentiation is significant in any brand narrative, but it tends to be more prevalent with brands that are in well-known and crowded markets. In other words, if you are introducing the first MP3 player on the market, then you need to tell a knowledge-based story that gives the consumer tremendous information about the functions (and benefits) of the product.

However, if you are introducing a new MP3 player 10 years after they have saturated the market, you need not tell people about the functions of a MP3 player. In that case, you need only to emotionally differentiate how your new MP3 player stands apart from all the others out there. Consumers already know what MP3 players do. Now, they only need to know how yours is different.

Here’s another example. If you are introducing the first cola in the marketplace, you need to let people know about the taste and qualities of a cola-flavored soft drink. However, if, as is the case today, people already know everything they need to know about what a cola is, you need only to differentiate this product emotionally.

Think about it. What is Coke advertising today? The brand’s ads don’t deal with Coke’s flavor or its price point; instead, they seem to focus on happiness. And Pepsi also is not talking about price or taste, but instead seems focused on the energy of youth. So I think it’s fair to argue that Coke is attempting to own the emotion of happiness while Pepsi is attempting to own the youth-oriented emotions.

Activating Passion on a Mass Scale

This tale of the ruby-red bracelet is a good example of how stories work, of how, in a consumer service industry, you can create faithful ambassadors for your brand. Engage people with extraordinary customer service, get them to start telling the world stories about your fantastic customer care, and just sit back and watch as customers convert to fans.

And, if you keep it up, within a few years you should have a cadre of loyal, passionate “sneezers” (my favorite term for brand ambassadors), who broadcast your brand’s virtue to the world.

But what’s really going on here under the surface? How do you explain and define my friend’s conversion from customer to crusader? I would argue that the answer is this: Passion emanates from a positive interaction. The memorable emotive experience gives birth to the faithful ambassador who enthusiastically spreads the story about your brand to the world. A positive experience is transformed by a person into a positive story and, once told, that story spreads like wildfire in the form of good word of mouth. Think of it as the word of mouth form of viral videos. And no advertising dollars were spent in the process. Yep, it’s every store-owners dream.

And, in these days of less and less product differentiation and of customers with little time and desire to sift through mountains of information to select the product that is best, this emotional bond can separate one brand from another and build long term loyalty.

In essence, sometimes consumers buy your product not because of what you do but because of why and/or how you do it. In other words, because of your STORY.

How does all this translate to large companies as well as small? It’s essentially the same thing. In order to create a cult-like passion for their company and its products on a national level, every company, big or small, must create a brand narrative. And this company story should include product stories that share the same essential core message and theme.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Richard Krevolin is the author of The Hook: How to Share Your Brand’s Unique Story to Engage Customers, Boost Sales, and Achieve Heartfelt Success (Career Press, November 2015). Richard has been an adjunct professor at ASC Cinema/TV School, UCLA Film School, Emerson College and several others. He is a brand consultant for numerous Fortune 100 companies and a master os storytelling, sales and communication.