Storytelling doesn’t just belong in media and fiction. It can also be a valuable tool in devising your marketing campaign. Telling a story through advertising makes your campaign eye-catching, memorable, and successfully unique. 

What is storytelling in marketing? 

Storytelling in marketing involves selling your product or service using a narrative structure, rather than the facts and figures. They can be fiction or non-fiction and use characters and a plot to convey a message or moral which indirectly promotes your business. 

These stories follow a narrative structure of a beginning, middle, and end. The narrative presents a moment of conflict or tension. However, using the marketed product or service resolves it. 

The benefits of storytelling in marketing 

Utilising stories in marketing helps to show your product in action, how it can practically help benefit customers’ lives. Hearing stories cause us to release oxytocin, the love hormone. In a marketing campaign, this helps your audience connect with your business.  

Personal stories that are more emotionally compelling ‘engage more of the brain’, which make your brand more memorable. 

Marketing storytelling such as the John Lewis Christmas Adverts have become culturally iconic. This highlights the efficacy of emotional storytelling in marketing campaigns.

IKEA employs environmental storytelling within their stores. Setting up elaborate scenes allows the customer to imagine themselves at home with IKEA furniture. Personal details or even intentional clutter help simulate an actual living space. 

By crafting a captivating and engaging shopping experience, customers can emotionally connect with the products available for purchase. 

How to create a successful storytelling campaign 

To implement a successful storytelling campaign, you first need to identify your client base. Successful campaigns have a relatable protagonist in a similar demographic to their target audience. This encourages the audience to empathise and put themselves in the protagonist’s shoes. 

When planning the structure of the story, introduce a strong and likeable character in an identifiable environment or situation. Then have them struggle with authentic and common pain points that you audience can relate to. Finally, resolve the narrative by offering a solution using your products or service. This emotionally engages your audience and encourages them to resolve their own related problems with your product. 

Other tips for creating a strong storytelling campaign are to highlight trends. Convey your brand values in the message of the story. Use storytelling to establish a brand voice and story, giving it its own identity. 

For example, Duolingo, a language learning app, was trending for its insistent reminders to complete a lesson. Duolingo then employed a comically aggressive marketing strategy focused on the importance of learning, and they developed storytelling narratives surrounding their threatening owl mascot. 

Ready to write the next chapter of your business’s success story with the help of GIANT? Get in touch with our team via email at info@gogiant.co.uk or call 01604 250900.