Be relevant

“I am always amazed to see just how many things there are that I don't need.” The quote is attributed to Socrates, but it expresses a sentiment we are all familiar with. There is too much of everything. Myriads of messages are vying for our attention when we switch on the phone, step into a store, flick through a magazine, or simply walk the street. For a story to register as relevant on our cognitive radar, we have to see the connection between the narrative and our lives. In the context of content marketing, this means that the target audience has to be able to relate to the message. An effective story draws consumers in, provides them with useful information, or even helps them solve some real-life problem they are struggling with. The topics that consumers talk about in social media are a good starting point for the creation of relevant stories, and the best ones incite consumers to participate, i.e., to share the story with others, comment on it, continue telling it, or even create their own spin-off stories.

Apple's award-winning “Shot on iPhone 6” campaign is an example of involving consumers in the storytelling from the beginning. The campaign, created by TWBA's Media Art Lab, features real pictures taken by real people, using the iPhone. The images were reproduced in print ads and posted on thousands of giant billboards in more than 70 cities worldwide. Apple called it “the largest mobile photography gallery in history”.¹¹ Tipp-Ex, the maker of office supplies, was similarly successful with its interactive “hunter and bear birthday party” ad on YouTube. Halfway through the clip, a fiery meteor approaches the scene, and users are presented with a choice (“end the party” or “don't end the party”). The story reached more than 10 million users to date.¹²

Including your audience in the stories that you tell, and inviting it to partake in the telling, are great ways of attracting attention. To sustain the momentum, successful companies direct consumers from paid and earned media to proprietary platforms, such as a brand's user forum. Apple, for example, did not stop at claiming that the iPhone helps users explore and express their creativity. Rather, the company went on to demonstrate how the brand's products enrich consumers' lives. Apple invited users to submit videos shot with their phones and published these clips through the company's iPhone world gallery on TV, in rich-media web ads, and on apple.com.

Be consistent

Our cognitive capacity may be limited, but we respond well to triggers we are already familiar with.¹³ Our values and attitudes are shaped by repeated exposure to similar stimuli. So a great way to hold the attention of consumers is to make sure the stories you tell are consistent. As a brand owner, you should find a theme that carries across all stories you tell about your brand. To maximize the effect, consistency should govern not only the stories themselves, but your publishing strategy as well: the styles and formats you use, the media platforms you choose for dissemination, and the timing of individual releases.

John Lewis, the British retailer, is a true master of consistent storytelling. For almost a decade now, the company's Christmas ads have explored recurring themes that include love, friendship, and giving. While the style of execution varies, the emotional key notes are always present. Introduced in 2007, the annual Christmas ad has become a much-anticipated national event in the UK that drives John Lewis' social media followership and sales.¹⁴

Be differentiated

While you want your stories to be consistent across installments and over time, a good story also needs to be sufficiently different from the stories your competitors are telling. Differentiated storytelling helps you stand out from the noise in your marketplace, and makes it easier for consumers to make the connection between the story and your brand. You don't want to waste your budget on a story that the audience does not associate with your brand, or one that is erroneously attributed to another brand. Nothing is quite as frustrating as spending money to promote your competitor.

Mercedes' 2013 dancing chicken commercial is an impressive example of the impact of differentiated storytelling. When Mercedes first aired the tongue-in-cheek clip to advertise the company's new car body control technology, it generated over 12 million views, and 8 percent of those who saw it shared it with others. When other car manufacturers tried to replicate Mercedes' success by airing similar themed ads, they generated less than a third of the impact. What's more, the copycat competitors drove a lot of additional traffic to the Mercedes original.¹⁵

Be credible

There is a paradox at the heart of successful storytelling. You want to use stories to build your brand, but you don't want to be caught doing it. In other words, you want it to promote your proposition without appearing promotional. Says Shane Smith, CEO of Vice Media: “Young people have been marketed to since they were newborns. They have developed the most sophisticated bullshit detector, and the only way to circumvent that bullshit detector is to not bullshit them.”¹⁶

To be perceived as credible, start with a genuine message that is true to your brand and honest about the benefits it provides. Then add an authentic messenger with a well-chosen testimonial consumers can relate to, or even an actual consumer who sees eye-to-eye with your target audience. Top it off with an appropriate platform, such as a social media network or a testimonial's personal platform, to get the word out.

Vodafone and Always are among the brands blazing the trail for the integration of real people and everyday situations into marketing communication. In Vodafone's “Firsts” campaign, real-life people are seen fulfilling their lifelong dreams. Vodafone made professional, documentary-style films chronicling these adventures that created a stir in social media.¹⁷ Always' “Like a girl” campaign features real girls talking about their experiences and their feelings. The clips were widely applauded for challenging stereotypes about what it means to be a girl and collectively created close to 100 million views.¹⁸ See the insert below for details.

Be motivating

You want your stories to touch and entertain your audience. But that isn't all you want. As a marketer, you also want to influence consumers' attitude and behaviour. You want them to make the connection between the story and the brand, and you want them to buy your products. To fully satisfy the content fit requirement, stories need to drive the performance of your brand in the consumer's decision-making process; see Chapter 3 for details on the different stages consumers go through on the way to purchase. A great story will make consumers like, consider, buy, and recommend your brand.

To connect the story to the brand, look for distinctive assets that make it easy for the audience to figure out who sent the message. Visual and emotional cues, such as a specific design or a specific set of values, help the audience make that connection, and they also act as potential purchase triggers. Traditional examples of such cues include the shape of the classic Coca-Cola bottle and Apple's white earphones.¹⁹ Make generous use of the assets that you have, or come up with new ways to flag your brand. Only a story that consumers associate with your brand has the potential to drive awareness, positive sentiment, and sales.

Great brands master the challenge of telling compelling stories that are linked to the brand and its products in a subtle way. Examples include Procter & Gamble's “Better for baby” Pampers campaign and Nivea's “Learn to swim” programme, a charitable initiative that features an iconic seahorse mascot decked out in the brand's unique shade of blue.

To effect a change in behaviour, do not hesitate to include explicit calls to action in your stories. Brands are using different types of incentives to encourage their target groups to get active. For example, Dunkin Donuts runs a Halloween photo campaign, asking friends of the brand to dress up as coffee cups and post photos of their costumes on Instagram.²⁰ Urban transport innovator Uber combines branded storytelling with the distribution of vouchers that encourage users to take a ride.

Be original

Great stories should not only be different from the stories others tell, they also should contain some element or aspect that makes them unique. Perhaps the most notorious example is the space jump Red Bull helped daredevil Felix Baumgartner prepare and execute, something nobody had done before. Records were broken both in terms of the actual jump and in terms of the attention it generated (see insert for details).

Of course, you can only make history every once in a while. Another way of being original is to have your branded stories bounce off breaking news or other current events and affairs. To make this strategy work, you need to be fast. Be the first to tie a branded story to a hot topic, and you will earn the privilege of owning that particular topic. Provided the story also has the appropriate content fit, it will make your brand the talk of the town. This is precisely what Beats by Dre, the headphone brand, accomplished when soccer superstar Bastian Schweinsteiger announced that he would leave Bayern Munich to join Manchester United. Within 24 hours of the press release, Beats launched their “By your side” campaign.²¹ Oreo is another fast mover in this area. During the power blackout during the 2013 Super Bowl, the brand responded in real time on Twitter: “Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.”

Be simple

Consumer attention is in short supply, and it is much contested. Keep your stories simple to cut through the clutter. Your window of opportunity is narrow, so make sure your story can be found quickly and absorbed easily. Shoot for short sentences and plain words. But wording is only one aspect of simple storytelling. You will also want to focus on one message at a time, and use memorable visuals to support it. Colours, symbols, and icons help consumers get that message. Ask yourself a set of simple questions: How does this story bring out our brand promise? How does it tie in with other activities? Which product is the story about? Why should consumers want it?

Nike is a pioneer of simplicity. Their claim, invented by Dan Wieden and introduced in 1988 despite corporate reservations, is straight to the point: “Just do it”. The many stories Nike tells about athletes and their accomplishments in advertising all revolve around this spirit: they just do it. The claim is short and simple, and yet it encapsulates the activity, the athleticism, and the motivation Nike stands for as a brand.

Be inventive

Even the best story doesn't share itself. So take every precaution for your story to go viral. Include “like” and “share” buttons for all relevant social media platforms, and make it easy for users to embed your story in their own channels or blogs. If the audience likes, shares, and reposts your story, its reach will multiply at no additional cost to you. What's more, a story recommended by a friend, or by someone you follow, is more likely to register as relevant and credible on your radar than a story some company wants you to read or see. Organic sharing drives relevant reach and brings down cost per view. For example, the Melbourne Metro Trains campaign “Dumb ways to die” was viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube, simply by way of social media distribution.

And if it works once, it might work again. Why stop telling an exciting story that consumers want to see and hear more of? Adopt a publisher's mindset and take inspiration from the likes of Ian Fleming, Stan Lee, George Lucas, and J. K. Rowling. Serial production will help you build a fan base that eagerly awaits the next installment of branded content. Apple pulled it off with their now legendary “Get a Mac” campaign. Featuring actors John Hodgeman as the boring PC and Justin Long as the hip Mac, the series comprises more than 60 episodes. The campaign ran for more than three years and received a Grand Effie award in 2007. AdWeek declared it the “best advertising campaign of the decade” in 2010.

Be emotional

Would you care for another bland commercial? Probably not. Most people don't. We are all at turns overwhelmed and annoyed by generic advertising. The challenge for branded stories is to get past the brain's screening mechanisms and trigger a positive reaction. You want your audience to want to see your story again. But how do you do that? By appealing to emotion. Emotional campaigns are often particularly successful, both in terms of likeability and in terms of purchase generation. Behavioural science has demonstrated that emotions are important drivers of human decision making and behaviour. When consumers are confronted with a purchase decision, they evaluate each option based on what they have felt in previous, related experiences.²⁵ Says John Kearon, CEO of Brain Juicer, a two-time winner of Esomar's best methodology award: “We are basically emotional creatures. We think much less than we think we think. And what marketing and advertising overdoes is trying to persuade people to buy, whereas actually they should try and seduce people to buy.”²⁶

The aforementioned John Lewis Christmas campaign is a fine example not only of consistency, but also of emotional storytelling. Launched in 2007, the series has since broken many records. In 2013, John Lewis ran with “The bear and the hare”, a very emotional episode and arguably the most successful one to date. The clip was watched over 15 million times on YouTube and eventually became the most shared video in the world.²⁷ It generated GBP 142 million in incremental sales and had one of the highest ROIs ever observed by the jurors of the Creative Effectiveness Lions, GBP 7.21 for every GBP 1 spent on advertising.²⁸

By the way, this chapter runs to about 5,000 words. It would have taken Bob Andrews, the veteran of soap opera screenwriting, roughly four hours, three dozen cigarettes, and a gallon of coffee to complete. But they don't make hacks quite as productive, and as frugal, as Bob Andrews anymore. Chances are that today's master content marketers will pester you with questions about your brand, while insisting on celery sticks and kale smoothies for sustenance. So stock up on organic goodies, brace yourself for some serious brainstorming, and find yourself a storyteller.