Advanced Branding: Story Tellers Rule The World

Caleb Ferguson for The New York Times
Dave Goldberg, left, Shane Snow and Joe Coleman founded Contently, which aims to be the “anticontent farm.”[/caption]

Kudos to NY Times’ David Karr re yesterday’s article profiling upstart company Contently, and narrowcasting on the increasing trend on the part of companies to disintermediate their intermediary media companies by creating [in-house] story-telling-style content and delivering this well-proven, brand value strategy directly to the consumer.

So as not to infringe on the NY Times copyrighted story , below are the excerpted “take-aways”:

“..At a time when advertising is achieving diminishing returns and public relations has trouble breaking through, companies are learning the value of putting their names around — but not in the middle — of memorable stories.”

“..In 1947, General Electric had an in-house reporter telling the company’s stories — a guy named Kurt Vonnegut.”

“…the bar has been raised by companies like Red Bull, whose incredibly popular extreme sports videos almost make it seem like a media company that sells beverages on the side..”

Call it “brand positioning” or call it “spinning”, companies who aspire to innovate need to pull no punches and understand  the art (and science) of telling stories as a means to ingratiate your targeted audience is a critical component to your overall brand messaging strategy.

This self-acclaimed expert re topic of spinning strongly advocates the successful and time-tested use of  compelling story-telling as a means to inspire and influence your audience to respond to your story accordingly.

Kurt Vonnegut might have pioneered this corporate branding strategy for GE, but to truly appreciate how a good story can have a meaningful impact your audience is to consider the success of The Bible.

Advanced Branding: Story Tellers Rule The World