Building a Story Brand

I concluded today Building a Story Brand – Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen (Donald Miller, 2017, 242 pages). I think this was a bit unusual book, but somehow it works quite well.

Despite not being a marketing expert, I studied Marketing in a graduate course, and read a couple books previously on the topic. And I think this is not a book I would associate directly with what I previously learned. It does cover marketing topics for sure, but what seems a bit unusual to me is that this book is about story telling techniques as much as it is about marketing and selling. And that I think is a bit unusual.

For sure the main reason behind is the fact that the author had been a novelist for over a decade and half before this book first came out. So, there you have someone who is familiar with story-telling theory, and simultaneously has a business experience. And I think he manages to combine these two realities quite well in the book.

The main idea is that a typical successful plot has a hero, who has a problem or desires something, and along comes a guide who offers help and triggers the hero into action. The fulfillment of the hero’s destiny in solving his problem or obtaining what he wanted closes the story gap.

This main plot idea, according to the author, is a recipe that can and should be used by brands in order to engage customers. What I like a lot is that the client is the hero of the story. And along comes the brand to act as a guide helping the hero achieve what he needs to feel as a whole again.

There are more details following this basic idea, and a bunch of references to stories in famous movies and books. But essentially that’s what this book is all about. And I think it works! I only wished the author was a bit softer in his approach to use the very technique he describes to sell his services along the book. But it was not so much to annoy me, although I was not interested in buying.