Every organization has a brand story, whether you’ve spent time thinking about it or not. The funny thing about brand stories is that they have a life of their own. So even if you’ve spent a billion bucks architecting the slickest, most endearing brand story – the proof is in the pudding, as they say.
At the end of the day, your brand story is the sum of stories that others (i.e. read customers, investors, stakeholders, etc…) tell about YOU. So Delta can go on and on about “friendly skies”, but upset travelers have a far different story to tell.
Therein lies the rub of brand stories as a concept – a self-regulating mechanism that redistributes power to the people. In the end, even a masterful and well-orchestrated spin campaign can’t compete against the real world brand experiences and (not so always accurate) misperceptions that people may have about your brand/organization.
So are you ready to go something about your brand story? Great! Then, go and listen to the stories that people (i.e. the people that you should care about) are telling about you. Starting from here, you’ll have a much better sense of how the world sees you, and from there can make some choices about how you would like to be better seen and understood.
