Going back to an earlier item, I just googled “a brand is a story”, and came up with some different things:

From a site run by a company called “Interbrand Wood Healthcare“. They seem to come up with brand names for HUGE pharmaceuticals or something (which is interesting it itself, and which I’ve talked a bit about elsewhere):

If a brand is a story, the brand name is the title. It may describe, it may suggest, it may evoke - and it may even provoke - but it always identifies your product and reinforces its uniqueness. It is the hook that gets attention and influences the purchase decision.

WHOOOOO! SHIT! These two dudes James Twitchell, and Douglas Holt have a posted email conversation about this very subject over at Slate. It’s nothing short of TREMENDOUS! I’m gonna have to pop in a bunch of different parts in here, willy-nilly:

A brand is a story told by producer and consumer about some object. It’s a work of fiction rather like a nursery story.

… The Industrial Revolution means most objects are machine-made and hence interchangeable. Your widget-making machine and mine make the same stuff, ergo the only difference resides in what we say about the widget; the difference resides in the story, in the brand.

… Usually, in the modern world, the more similar the widget, the more fanciful the story. I mean that’s the only way to generate distinction. So with a completely interchangeable product–say, bottled water–the brand–especially for the luxury supplier and consumer–will go over the top.

… the greatest brands are supershort stories. Ivory is pure. FedEx is overnight. Budweiser is the king of beers. Ronald Reagan knows. Harvard is for the supersmarties. As you can see, often this has nothing to do with truth. Forget truth. Brands are never about literal truth.

Brands in distress go bananas because the story is shown as fiction.

… Often we don’t want things. We want stories. Sometimes we buy things to get the stories.

Then the other dude makes a bunch of points/counter-points. My favorites:

…When marketers (the Roman Catholic Church) try to control the meanings of their ecclesiastical product, they are not able to do so, and the alternative meanings eventually take over.

… companies often have tremendous power to shape the stories that we consume.

… Companies today largely control the pipelines through which culture flows. And their authorship makes a difference. Consider how a great novelist once was able to recast the thinking of an entire generation. Today branding plays this role.

Anyway, they say some other stuff, but that’s the best of it, I think. On to something else.

From some concept-sheet by somebody named Omar Khan:

Leaders realise that a brand is a story AND a promise, and they are critically committed to making the story true and ensuring the promise is fulfilled.

From a cached site on Google:

What is a brand? And why does it matter?

Simply put, a brand is a story. For the most part, it is a story told in the marketplace. It is told in words, pictures and graphics. It is told through the media of packages, brochures, ads, commercials and web sites — and sometimes through people and music and buildings and other things, too. Ultimately, it is a story told through the products and services these other media support.

Like any good story, a good brand is relevant. It is believable. It is memorable. And it is engaging. It appeals to our emotions and relates to our experience.

Will a good story draw us into the marketplace? Sometimes. It’s part of what elevates the purchase of goods to a shopping experience. Will a good story provoke us to buy a product or service? On occasion. How else to explain certain irresistible impulse buys? More to the point, a good story will help us to prefer one product or service over another. Because we can relate to it better, seeing more clearly how it fits with who we are or who we wish to be. Because we can believe it more readily, seeing more clearly what makes it authentic and valid. Because it stands out in our minds. And sometimes because we simply enjoy it for its own sake.

This is the value brands hold for consumers, and the reason why it pays to pay attention to the story you tell.

Anyway, it’s hot in here and getting late. I may put this to rest for the time being.