How to Make Sure Your Brand Story is Unique

A Paradox for Telling Your Brand Story

Never before have there been more channels for a brand to communicate with their consumers. From Facebook and Twitter to Google+ and YouTube, consumers want to have a stronger connection with the brands they endorse. They want to be engaged, entertained and informed with value, not empty messages. With so many brands with similar, if not exact, value propositions vying for consumer attention using social media for business, how does a brand create a unique brand story? The answer lies in the following paradox:

“There is nothing new under the sun and everything is new under the sun.”

This is true in life as it is in the world of brand storytelling and the continually evolving world of social media marketing. Yes, most stories have already been told, in one form or another. Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter how often a story has been told in the past. The objective is to retell the story BETTER than what we’ve seen, heard and experienced before. If your brand can accomplish this successfully, your story will seem as though it’s the newest idea ever presented! That is the genius of branding and the beauty of great storytelling.

Telling a Familiar Story Better than Your Competition

The most impressive example in recent memory of a brand taking a familiar story and creating something seemingly unique through story retelling was last year’s beautifully animated short “The Scarecrow” by Chipotle, the fast-food chain providing healthier alternatives with a Mexican theme. The video which became a viral success on social media, has received well over twelve million views on YouTube to date and has become the epitome of great social media branding. The story is about a scarecrow who’s employed by a large and evil corporation that’s in the business of churning out unhealthy, processed food. Saddened by this realization, the scarecrow has an epiphany to harvest his ingredients naturally, opens up a burrito stand and provides a healthy alternative to the public.

Chipotle’s brand story surrounding their commitment to sustainably raised ingredients and providing their customers with great nutrition, taste and value is admirable and should be applauded, but their message is far from being unique. Every brand in the healthy food industry puts on a daily barrage of marketing messages pertaining to the wholesomeness of a brand’s product claims for being all-natural, organic, pesticide-free, cruelty-free and so on and so forth. It can be difficult to even discern where one brand’s story ends and their competitor’s begins. With everyone pushing out a similar story, the adverse effect is the eventual consumer immunity to the message behind the story. The key lies in taking that familiar story and communicating it better than your competition as Chipotle did with The Scarecrow campaign. A brand needs to truly embrace the public’s real desire to develop a deeper relationship with the products they consume, and in this case, the foods they consume.

…and The Moral of the Story?

Chipotle understands the value of branded content and having a clear content marketing strategy. They took a potentially stale value proposition and set of brand values and found a freshly creative way to communicate it, thereby forging an even deeper relationship with their core audience. When you tell an old story in a fresh, new way, it becomes a new story.

If you are interested in learning more about brand storytelling, we encourage you to reach out to our social media agency, ImagiBrand, where we will work closely with you on developing your brand story and provide your company the customized social media training and/or daily social media management services to make sure that story is heard and seen every day on social media.

For more information regarding Chipotle’s Food With Integrity can be found on their website: www.Chipotle.com