Does brand marketing only involve advertising?

When promoting their brands, they should not just use spending money on advertising as a marketing method. If you want consumers to feel the attitude and warmth behind the product, you need to tell your product story well.

In order to promote products to consumers, JD.com launched a new advertisement - "The Best Product Recommendation Guide in the Universe", which continues last year's silly style.

The entire advertising narrative rhythm is more compact and concise; the advertisement is short in duration but contains a huge amount of information.

Compared with directly implanting products in front of the audience, JD.com chose a funny way to push different products to the audience in combination with plot design, making people buy things with a smile.

What is the logic behind this? Sister Mulan thinks that it is nothing more than grasping one point: the product has a story, and marketing turns it into a song.

In this commercial, JD.com does not talk about promotions, brands, or even attitudes. There is no indoctrination, which is exactly in line with the self-awareness of young people. They don’t listen to big principles and only see the world in their own eyes.

It has to be said that consumers are becoming increasingly difficult to please.

Users are becoming more and more impatient with advertisements. They don’t want to listen to brands’ statements or self-congratulations. So instead of mindlessly boasting about the product, it is better to tell users a good story based on the product.

When you mention Nongfu Spring, what do you think of?

Is it "Nongfu Spring is a little sweet" or "We don't produce water, we are just nature's porters"?

Or "Well water is the worst, river water is the middle, mountain spring water is the best, farmer's tea", or "Make good tea with care. Good water, good tea, good people drink it"...

You will find that behind every Nongfu Spring product, there is a deeper story that represents the temperament of Nongfu Spring, extending the brand's value in the hearts of users.

"Stories are a great way to connect emotionally." This is because stories open up a new way of communication between products and users. The two parties are no longer in a buyer-seller relationship, but rather a storyteller-listener relationship, which makes it easier to achieve emotional resonance with users.

So how can we tell stories?

Your product needs a good real story

Robert McKee, author of the well-known bestseller "Story", believes that stories naturally attract the attention of the human mind. They can wrap information in the story, and once the audience connects their feelings with the protagonist at that moment, doubts will disappear.

Therefore, Sister Mulan often emphasizes that your product needs a real and good story and can tell the story to consumers.

When a product is packaged with a story, it can attract attention in a clever form, carry the story into the user's mind, and cause resonance and identification, thereby eliminating the user's aversion to the product and making the product more likely to remain in the user's memory or achieve purchase conversion.

Just like the mineral water Jingtian Baishuishan, which created a beautiful and moving advertisement based on the love legend between the famous mathematician Descartes and the Swedish Princess Christine.

Baishuishan combined this romantic love story with the characteristics of Baishuishan mineral water, telling everyone the "aristocrat of water", which successfully won the hearts of users and helped Baishuishan surpass Master Kong with a market share of 10.1%, successfully ranking among the top three in domestic sales.

Another example is the "Dream Crazier" ad that Nike inserted at the Oscars some time ago. The content of the ad came from real news stories about the athletes involved.

This advertisement is Nike's tribute to those women who dare to challenge themselves and pursue their dreams on the occasion of International Women's Day. Nike does not comment on feminist issues subjectively, but directly tells you the stories of women challenging themselves.

It is just right to leave the imagination to the audience and keep the brand impression in the minds of users.

Therefore, brands do not tell stories for the sake of telling stories. Instead, they should base their stories on facts, based on actual developments and real events, and continuously tell the same story in a convincing and vivid but not exaggerated way, and give it new meaning over time.

What we sell is not products, but stories that provide insights into human nature.

Users in all circles have inner emotions. Insight into their inner emotional pain points is the breakthrough to break the circle effect. A story with a moving theme is a powerful tool to break the circle effect.

Ele.me’s advertisement “Koi Takeaway” is a perfect interpretation of this.

This advertisement uses the male protagonist with an "ordinary face" and "average loser's body" to portray the appearance of a "takeout version of koi", and forcibly links eating takeout with cheating in the workplace, falling in love, and loser's counterattack.

Double the salary

Eat well in the workplace

Eat to improve your appearance

Eat the peach blossoms

Winners in life eat out

It can be said that under the guise of playfulness, humor and comedy, the story portrayed in this advertisement touched the hearts of many people.

As a quality takeaway brand launched by the Ele.me platform, Ele.me Star Selection tends to be positioned in the mid-to-high-end market, and its core target consumer group is the vast number of white-collar workers.

In reality, topics such as salary increase, promotion, appearance, love, and identity change have always been the social topics that white-collar workers pay close attention to. Ele.me Star Selection obviously realized this point and carefully designed the story segments in the advertisement, which naturally resonated with them.

There is also last year's phenomenal "What's Peppa Pig?", which also provides a profound and clear insight into human nature.

First of all, there is the generation gap between the elders and their children and grandchildren, and between urban and rural areas. But it doesn't matter, love is the greatest thing in the world. In order to bridge the gap between you and me, I am willing to work hard to understand what you like.

The advertisement highlights every way an old man can think of to get closer to his grandson. With family affection as the theme and heartwarming stories to find resonance, it not only touched the pain points of children working away from home, but also the pain points of the majority of users. It instantly dominated our circle of friends and successfully broke the circle effect.

So, a good story is a lot like a string on a piano: when it hits something of the same frequency, it resonates, and your story continues.

This is what Sister Mulan has always said, what we sell is not the product, but the story that provides insight into human nature.

Whoever has the best storytelling consumers has the strongest brand

As Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt once said, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole."

People don't care about what you offer, they only care about their own problems. The important subversion of this sentence is: let the customer, not your brand, be the protagonist of the story.

In this regard, Airbnb is undoubtedly the leader. Since day one, Airbnb has been focused on one thing: authentic experiences. They tell their customers a consistent story - a more "authentic" travel experience in the homes of locals.

The brand story it creates comes entirely from users - "without users, there is no product." On the Airbnb website, everyone who provides accommodation has the opportunity to showcase their lives to attract others. These stories are the most sincere language of communication and the true spiritual connotation of the content and services provided by Airbnb.

Another brand that has a similar purpose to Airbnb is The Beast Flower Shop.

When The Beast was first established, customers who ordered flowers would tell their own emotional stories, and The Beast would match the bouquets based on these stories. This is completely different from the traditional flower ordering model. Behind every bouquet of flowers, there is a story and an emotion, which includes the emotions we have experienced, the people and things we have met.

On the other hand, The Beast will post customers’ emotional stories anonymously on its official Weibo account, along with pictures of corresponding bouquets of flowers. What the flower recipients receive is not just a bouquet of flowers, but a story, and they themselves are the protagonists of the story.

This is why, although The Beast’s prices are several times higher than those of traditional flower shops, it still has many customers following it: they sell not only flowers, but also stories and experiences.

The cleverness of Airbnb and The Beast lies in leaving the glorious journey to the customers and positioning themselves as a guide who provides the audience with the wisdom, products and services necessary for growth.

When a brand puts the customer in the position of the protagonist and itself in the position of a guide, the brand will be seen as a trustworthy resource that can help them overcome difficulties, and customers will spread and share the brand.

Therefore, whoever has consumers who are the best at telling stories will have the strongest brand.

at last

A good brand is one that allows consumers to feel the attitude and warmth behind its products without any professional knowledge.

As Peter Guber said, “Telling a compelling story is the best way to close business,” so don’t hesitate to tell one story, and if it doesn’t resonate, try another.

Author: Sister Mulan

Source: Mulanjie (ID: mulanjie-)