We explore how to plan and organise the story elements in your brand’s story. Learn the key components behind every great story. Read this to improve how you create and craft your brand’s story elements.
Most storytellers build their stories from the same core elements. In simple terms, every story has a hero with a problem. You follow what happens to them until the problem is resolved. The end . Almost every story can be boiled down to these core elements.
We instinctively enjoy hearing stories because these story elements are so familiar to us. We know what to expect.
These story elements are the skeleton that supports the body of the story. They give the story a recognisable structure. You can make your brand’s story clearer and more memorable by learning when and where to use these story elements. With a dash of imagination, they can help you take your brand’s story to infinity and beyond.
Dig deeper and you soon unearth the 5 big story elements behind any story :-
Every story needs a hero / heroine lead character. That character could be anyone from a superhero from another planet to the person you see on the bus every day.
The key is that every story’s hero lives in their own unique context. Their own unique story world. However, they all play the same role in the telling of the story. The hero is the vehicle which carries the audience along the story’s journey. It’s their experiences, thoughts, feelings and actions which the audience connect with.
You want the audience to identify with the hero. They need to be able to imagine themselves in their hero’s situation.
That way, they can think and feel what they would do if the story were happening to them. They vicariously experience the story through the hero’s thoughts, feelings and actions. They help the audience feel they share a similar view of the world and how it works. Like they share a similar character.
With brand storytelling, it’s even more important that the customer identifies with the hero. That they could be the hero of that brand’s story.
In brand storytelling, the customer is the hero.
It’s common during customer experience planning to create a customer profile to bring this hero character to life.
The profile outlines a broad description of your ideal target customer. You share that with your agencies and use it wherever stories are part of your brand activation.
For example, when you talk about customers in your advertising. Or on your website. Even on your social media posts and comments.
You use this to tell your story from that ideal customer’s point of view. The words this character uses. The problems they face. How they make decisions. What drives them to the end goal of the story.
The key is to make sure the audience feels connected to the hero. That they see something of the hero in themselves. When you do that, customers are hooked. They want to see what happens to the hero, because they can potentially learn something about themselves by seeing what happens.
The hero then faces a problem. There’s no story if everything’s always good with the hero. They need to be challenged in some way.
In brand stories, the hero has to face a problem that customers recognise. Something they themselves find difficult. This makes them curious to find out how the hero will solve the challenge, as then they can learn from that.
As per our business villain article, this problem can appear at different levels. It might be a problem at a broad societal level (e.g. global warming). It could be a specific person or group getting in the customer’s way (the traditional villain of the story). Or it could be someone’s internal problem (e.g. a lack of confidence).
In brand storytelling, the problem should connect to the customer need which drives your positioning. Your benefit, reason why and reason to believe support the solution to the hero’s (and audience’s) problem. So you must lay out this problem as early as you can. It makes people pay attention to the story.
This is why you see many advertising headlines start with a question. A question is a great way to identify a problem quickly and grab attention.
Need help with filling out your taxes? Losing weight? Buying a new car?
Adding a sense of drama helps grab the customer’s attention. But the key to hooking customers’ interest is to make sure the problem is relevant to them. These types of problem questions start the story for the audience. They follow the story because they want to find out the answers.
To answer these problem questions, your story needs another character to help the hero move in the right direction. The hero doesn’t just do it themselves. They need help from someone.
If they can solve the problem without help, then it’s not much of a problem and not much of a story, is it? The car broke down, and then I fixed it. The end.
No one cares about stories where solving the problem is too easy. It’s the hard problems where the hero needs help that grab people’s interest.
The help usually comes in the form of a guide. Someone who has experience, knowledge and skills that can help them.
You find these “guide” figures in almost every story. Think Ben Kenobi in Star Wars. He guides Luke to solve his problems with The Force. Think Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. He guides Frodo to return the ring and destroy it. Or think about Back to the Future. Isn’t Doc Brown the guide to time-travelling for Marty McFly?
Generally, this mentor figure’s role is to educate the hero. They share the knowledge needed to start the hero’s journey toward solving their problem. They point the hero in the direction of where to start. Go to Mos Eisley. Go to Bree. Help your mum and dad get together at the school dance.
In brand storytelling, this is your brand identity comes in. It’s where you bring your brand personality and values to life. The messages and advice your brand shares help position it as a worthy guide in helping to solve the hero’s problem. You offer wisdom and support, pointing customers in the direction of their goal and helping them come up with a plan.
The combination of this advice, wisdom and support, and setting the direction towards their goal becomes the hero’s plan of action. Where they need to go and what they need to do to solve their problem. On the way, they’ll deal with other characters and situations that will help or hinder them.
In brand storytelling, it becomes the actions you want the target audience to take. To solve their problem, they just need to go to this store or website. Buy this product. Book that appointment. Order that delivery. Your brand’s story should make it clear the steps that the customer needs to follow to overcome their challenge or problem.
To start the hero off on their journey, they need a call to action. The first step in their plan that triggers the chain of events into motion. This might be discovering the map of the hidden treasure. Or getting a message from the kidnapped prince or princess. Something needs to happen in the story, so the hero starts the process (the story) to overcome the challenge.
In brand stories, this is your learn more button on your advert. It’s your website address and phone number that are easy to find. Once you’ve made the customer aware there’s a problem you can help them solve, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to act. To do something that moves them towards their goal.
The final part of the story is the build towards and arrival at the climax. What happens when the story is over? And what happens along the way to get there?
There can be many different ways to share this, and we cover more of them in our story process guide. However, a few basic story elements are key to hooking your audience.
There must be a struggle. As we said earlier, easily solved problems aren’t interesting or compelling in a story. The story should make clear what the successful resolution of the problem looks like and feels like. And what the consequences of failure are.
Brands can use the resolution and the key scenes in the story to help paint a picture of what they do to make the customer’s life (and story) better. The brand’s story should show what life will be like when the customer interacts with the brand. And possibly even the consequences if they don’t.
Every story sounds different, but under the skin, they’re usually made of the same fundamental story elements.
That applies whether you’re writing a Hollywood blockbuster or building the website for your new start-up brand.
Someone needs to lead the story. That’s the hero / heroine. In brand stories, you make that the customer. They need to see themselves reflected in the thoughts, feelings and actions of the customer.
That hero must have a problem. The need to solve that problem drives the story forward.
The problem isn’t something the hero can solve on their own. So they bring in a guide. In brand stories, that’s you and your brand. You’re there to help them plan how to solve that problem. You give them a call to action that sets them off on their journey of ups and downs until they reach the story’s climax and solve their problem, one way or another.
We believe storytelling is a powerful creative skill that you can use to connect with customers and build your brand identity. With our coaching and consulting services, we can support you with knowledge, ideas and processes to help your brand tell a more engaging story.
Get in touch to learn how we can help your brand’s story end happily ever after.
We explore where to start with marketing psychology. Learn the key marketing areas where psychology gives you a head start. Read this to learn how psychology can smarten up your marketing.
We explore how to be a good underdog brand. Learn the 3 defining characteristics of a good underdog. Read this for ideas on building a better underdog story.
We explore how to find your creative place. Learn how to shape where creativity happens mentally, physically and with your audience. Read this for ideas on finding a better place to be creative.
To hear our latest ideas first, enter your email details below to receive email updates. Be among the first to hear our new marketing, creative and e-Commerce ideas.
Brands that consistently bring the brightest ideas to life build great creative habits and processes.
Check how bright your brand’s creative habits are with our free Creative habits and ideas Quotient (ChiQ) test.
10 questions to learn whether your brand’s ideas are more likely to be “no” or more likely to be “woah”.
Take the test to find out more.
Our mission is to build better brands with brighter ideas.
Get in touch to discover how we can help you create, craft and commercialise better ideas.
