What’s Your Story?

Think of all of the friends and family you have. Chances are you know interesting details about them and even play a character in their life story. We all share common interests, belief systems, and experiences. These are all pulled together into small historical snippets that we associate with every person we know.  The more information we can store, the closer we are to determining an opinion about them.

This same phenomenon happens with brands. The rules of marketing are changing at a rapid pace, and you’d better get your story straight if you want to survive. It used to be true that you had a good amount of control over the perception and the story. But in the digital shift, you don’t own your reputation. Do you really know what people are really saying about you? It’s your current, past and future consumers that have the helm. Terrifying thought? Not if you have a solid foundation and awareness. This is the perfect time to get back to basics and trim, sculpt and preen your brand.

So what makes a good story? Let’s think cave paintings. Some believe these prehistoric scribbles document the first records of visual communication. Several are similar in theme and tell a very clear story - Man hunts animal. What would your company’s cave painting be? I’m not talking mission statements here. I’m talking bones, foundations, and guts. What is your history? How do you survive? In a line up, how would you stand out? In most cases, companies THINK they know the answers, but reality is, they don’t.

So you really need to do some soul searching - several souls actually. It’s true the saying “There always two sides to a story”. In order to really examine your brand, you have to find out several sides - and directions. If you are a large company, you can invest a good budget into research. If you are a smaller company with smaller resources, you can do your own legwork. The below exercise is a good place to start.

Make sure that before you do this exercise, you have a small fleet of guinea pigs to help you complete your brand study. Here is the criteria you should look for when recruiting help:

ON THE INSIDE
Find 3-5 people that have worked for the company. These should be a good mix of the ancients, whippersnappers and those in between.

ON THE OUTSIDE
Find 3-5 people that are not your clients. This could be random people that may have been exposed to some part of your company - or not.

This exercise can be done through email or even by setting up a form on a website. Keeping it simple is key to successfully getting people to participate. Keep in anonymous so you don’t have any brown nosing or fairy tales. You want the truth, even if it’s not pretty.

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COMPANY CHARACTERISTICS
Define 5 positive characteristics
Define 5 negative characteristics

SHORT STORY
In 100 words or less, tell the story of the company. This could include history, culture or a personal experience.

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