Recently, I sat in a workshop with one of my clients and we discussed the structure of his brand story. As usual, it didn't take long before we arrived at my question "Who is your opponent?" and the dialogue that ensued: "I don't have any opponents." - "Without opponents there is no conflict, and without conflict there is no story." - "But we are by far the market leader, I have no competition." - "Your competitor can never be your opponent anyway." - "Why not?" - "Among other reasons, because you must never be the hero of your story." - "Are you crazy now?"
I conduct this dialogue again and again. It reflects three central questions that many companies, brands and organisations often answer misleadingly and incorrectly:
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- Who is the hero of the story?
- What role does the brand play?
- Who is the opponent?
too lazy to read on? Then listen to me:
In the blogcast, I read this recent blog article to you. With emphasis, of course!
Who is the hero of the story?
In the traditional understanding of brand story, the brand is the hero, no question. However, this inevitably leads to the nowadays common, annoying troublemaker display shouting advertisement (aka adverstalking), which constantly talks about itself, can be quite funny/exciting/emotional, but at the end of the day generates nothing but echo and noise before the defeat.
The essence of my brand management method Hero Branding®and its central axis is the radical change of perspective that lets us see a brand's audience as heroes. That's why we say Hero Branding®- brands make heroes.
We subordinate everything we do to this perspective because we keep a sentence by John Steinbeck in mind: "If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen ... A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last.
The hero of a story must change or something must change for him. Without this transformation, there is no story. Often the hero is even the only character in a story that changes.
In the history of a brand, the customer is now the one for whom something changes because he gains benefit from the product or service, gains insight, learns something, gains additional prestige, in short: improves his status in some way.
A special characteristic of a brand is that it does not change, but constantly and consistently embodies what people expect of it. Or that it adapts at most in mini-steps to the developments of the times - and that over a long period of time. For this reason alone, your brand cannot be the hero of the story.
If a brand really does change massively, then it is called a relaunch. But even then, the change only affects the brand values in very, very few exceptional cases, but mostly the appearance of the brand.
What is the function of the brand?
The brand is the mentor of the hero. Mentors accompany heroes on their journey with advice and action, give impulses and hints, help with understanding, sharpen the view, change the perspective, sometimes even trigger change.
In fictional stories, mentors are often teachers or wise men, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gandalf or Merlin. As a rule, a brand is not allowed to take on this role, but must meet the hero at eye level, not implicitly from above. Brands as mentors are like coaches who help people to help themselves.
Heroine and mentor usually have the same values, the same goals, the same concern, the same longing for change. And they have the same opponent.
With a brand, the opponent is never the problem to be solved, because the product solves that. And above all, it is never the competition.
Who is the opponent?
An adversary must never change. James Bond's adversary remains evil, just as Super-, Spider- and Batman's adversaries remain evil. Harry Potter learns and matures, Voldemort remains Voldemort. Jaws is still not vegan in the fourth part, the aliens in "Independence Day" change just as little as the ice age in "The Day After Tomorrow".
If the antagonist changes, he may in some circumstances - and in the worst case for the story - be the protagonist himself.
You can read more about this in my blog article "The effect of storytelling - beyond good and evil.
This is one of the most important reasons why your competition can never be the opponent in your story. Your competition is constantly changing in a completely unpredictable way. They become stronger or weaker, they relaunch, imitate you, new competitors come along... If your brand story would see the competition as antagonists, then your story would constantly change, your brand would be unmanageable, or you would suddenly even lose your story when your last competitor gives up and disappears from the market.
Your competition may well be part of what are called antagonistic forces, representing or mirroring these forces, but the competition is never your opponent in your story. The antagonistic forces are your real opponent.
Let's take "Rocky" as an example: Apollo Creed is not Rocky's opponent. He is his rival - rivals want to defeat each other. But you can beat your rival and still not have won. Or: You can not defeat your rival and still win. Just like Rocky.
The world championship fight ends in a draw, but Rocky is the winner because he defeated the real opponent: the antagonistic force - his inferiority complex. On his winner's belt it says "You are worth loving!" - and therefore his redemptive cry of triumph, "Adriaaaaaaan!" was directed at his beloved, whom he now finally deemed himself worthy of.
Rocky is not a story about boxing, but a story about hope. About the hope that even an underdog can become a champ if given the chance. His true opponent, the antagonistic force, is in Rocky himself, personified by Apollo Creed, the competitor. He dedicates the victory to "Adriaaaaaaan!".
Recently I zapped into the casting of "Deutschland sucht den Superstar". Take a look and you'll discover something: a good 90 percent of these contestant stories are also Rocky stories. After all, "DSDS" is not about music, not even if the freaks could really sing. It is about the hope of the candidates for the chance to make it to the top as underdogs - that is their shared story with their audience.
Great brands need great opponents.
When you work on your brand story, choose your opponent with care, because he is crucial for your success. It must therefore be big and powerful and universal, because the bigger the opponent, the bigger the victorious hero.
Apple once chose small-mindedness, know-it-allism and despondency - the big no-go - as its adversary. Then Apple mentored the Crazy Ones, sided with those who want to change the world, said "Think different!" and had the right PCs ready for them.
Under the claim #OptOutside, the US outdoor brand REI has dedicated itself to the fight against couch potatoism and has set itself the goal of encouraging people to engage in more outdoor activities. In 2015, REI took on the Black Friday shopping frenzy and has since then closed its shops every year on this most important shopping day of the US shopping dream with the recommendation to rather spend time actively outdoors instead of shopping. And with phenomenal success for the brand, its audience, its shared story and, last but not least, for the sales curve despite the closed super shopping Friday. Here is the case video about it, here an article about the success story.
Nike has chosen an opponent who appears under various names: laziness, the "inner bastard", self-doubt ... As a mentor, Nike stands by his - future - heroes, says "Just do it" and has the appropriate equipment ready for them.
Merlin probably also whispered an encouraging "Just do it" in the ear of his protégé Arthur and pointed to the stone with the sword. Arthur pulled Excalibur out of the stone and became king.
Now we also know what function your product has in history: It is the sword Excalibur . Product and brand are two different things that are just as often confused as brand story and advertising campaign or brand and logo. But more about that elsewhere.
Every story is fighting for something big.
I am often asked what storytelling is really about and why I always warn against the storytelling hype. The answer is simple: the storytelling hype creates a buzzword vortex of misunderstandings and destroys this wonderful method because storytelling is confused with storyfying and action with story. The term storytelling is applied to everything, but hardly anyone knows what story really means.
So, storyfying means: you wrap your logical arguments in an emotional story that is relevant to your audience.
Storytelling means: You develop a good emotional narrative around your values, a perspective, a narrative that is relevant to your audience.
Storysharing means: you find - archaic - values that you share with your audience, that you fight for together, that you defend and that you win others for. Your audience uses the shared story, makes the brand's story their own, to tell about themselves and learn about themselves. Together, you are part of something bigger.
That, and that alone, is the powerful core of Story. Replace the word "story" with purpose, meaning, mission or values and you know where the hammer is hanging.
Everything else is necessary craft, the better mastered the better the effect, but it is not the magnetic momentum that creates resonance. Well-told stories are necessary, shared stories are essential for survival - for us humans as well as for brands. Every story needs a narrative, but not every narrative has a story. Unfortunately.
Only through a story does a product become a brand worthy of the name. A brand is more than a logo and well-made marketing communication.
Products are needed, but brands are loved. Products are created in factories, brands grow in the heart. Products are based on facts, some of which will even be remembered. Brands, on the other hand, come to life in a story that you will never forget.
Regardless of whether you are a global corporation, an SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) or a heroic lone fighter as an EPU (one-person enterprise) - every person, every brand, every company has and needs at least one archaic value that is worth fighting for, the matching antagonistic force and the story activated by it around which everything revolves. If you don't have a magnetic value as a living theme, you have no story and only one possible opponent: the prize. When it is defeated, everything is lost. Among other things, your company. And then no "Adriaaaaaaan!" will help you.
So to all those who say "It doesn't apply to me and my brand!", I would like to recommend the words that my grandmother, old Story Dudette, embroidered on Apollo Creed's silk bathrobe: "No Story. No Glory."