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19/04/2010 by
5365 views

Search For The Holy Tale

The story starts with Howard Gossage selling pink air and a stretch of pink asphalt to the American people as a campaign for Fina gas stations. The Americans bought it. Not only did they visit the Fina gas stations but they started to tell the story to people around them and they told other people.

mymagnum.com

The Heist by Magnum is not only telling a story, they are involving their target audience by letting them participate in the story. Although it is a Hollywood story, Magnum is trying to connect to their audience by telling a story that appeals to people.


Since the early days people told each other stories, not only for amusement but also to share knowledge and pass this on from generation to generation. The stories told were relevant and appealing for the storyteller as well as for the listener. To make it easier to remember and more entertaining to tell, the messages were told in the form of a story. Nowadays people still tell stories using traditional methods, but internet has added a different dimension to sharing stories.

Brands have always wanted to become part of these stories. Before the digital age the only way to become a story was to write a message on the wall and pray that people would read it and pick it up and tell one another. To many brands started to try this tactic and the message they tried to sell got lost, it wasn’t relevant, it wasn’t appealing anymore and the storytellers were numbed. The storytellers didn’t listen anymore and certainly didn’t tell the brand story to the people around them.

The internet has changed the way people share stories but the essence, sharing knowledge, still hasn’t changed. A story needs has to be relevant, needs to appeal to people and there has to be a reason to tell it. And with so many stories online the only messages anyone will see and hear and tell others are the messages they choose to see and hear.

Unfortunately brands and add agencies often don’t know how to tell their story in a relevant and appealing way. They use the internet as just another medium, they still try to stuff their messages down your throat using banners and placing their 30-second spots on places you can’t avoid them. Yes, people will tell each other, how annoying it is.

With the rise of social media, brands want to start a dialogue. Not only do they want to interact with their clients, they want their clients to talk about the brand in their social networks. But with all the attempts on the internet I often wonder, what is there to talk about and why should I talk about a particular brand. What makes this particular brand so different from any other brand. There usually is no reason; most brands don’t appeal to me, they aren’t relevant. There is no story to tell or to share.

Brands have to start searching for their DNA, the story within the brand, a genuine story they can share with others. A story that makes people WANT to connect with the brand and share its story. Maybe then I will start to listen and share.