Brand stories define your customers and business

There was a time, not so long ago, when we didn’t quite mind having the same stuff as everyone else and we bought products and services, not the brands that offered them. That was when the market was being treated as a commodity, but no more. More and more, we are seeking out brands that define us, reach out to us, speak to us, that seem to be us in many ways rival brands just cannot be. Everything we purchase has a ripple effect. And what it’s saying is this is who I am, or in a more aspirational sense that this is who I want to be seen as. The brands we associate with are the brands that mean something to us, the brands that stand for something, the brand that suits our personality to the hilt. And all of them have terrific brand stories to talk about.

As consumers, we are just so much more proud of a brand when it comes with a story that is worth retelling. Consumers don’t just buy the brand, they also buy (and buy into) the brand stories that come along with it. This could be simply because we feel a connection with it or because we want to be associated with it or simply because we want the bragging rights that go with it. Everyone has a different rationale. Customers are increasingly seeking a meaningful connection with their brand, to know something about it no one else does, something truly memorable. And brand stories can be that thing because it humanizes a previously inanimate thing (the brand itself) with a more personal touch, thus making the product or service offered more valuable. That’s an instant edge over competition that you just can’t buy.

Brand stories are a reason to believe in a brand, and they are generally things that hold true to the brand’s values yet will always excite customers and make them feel as if they have experienced something truly fantastic, that they have been part of something magical. Let me make an example of my favorite brand, Apple. Long ago, before Microsoft became the Microsoft we know it to be today, Apple was the up and coming star of the tech industry. But Microsoft was gaining rapidly and their meteoric rise to prominence in the last half of the ’80′s and the 90′s is well-documented. But fans of the Apple brand were thrilled when Jobs returned in 1997, replacing Gil Amelio. Everyone had one simple question to ask Jobs (in my eyes, the best brand manager of his generation); how are you going to win the OS wars with Microsoft?

Jobs’ reply was stunningly simple; the OS wars have been lost. He went on then to compare Apple to BMW (another iconic brand) and said that they too don’t hold large market share, but command a premium and respect because they are constant innovators. And that’s where Jobs wanted Apple to be; at the forefront of innovation. How true his words were. From Ives’ first colored iMac, that stunned the world with its un-PC looks, to the iPad, he has had a string of hits all because of this emphasis on innovation. Jobs, and by extension Apple, is the classic iconoclast; they never conform to the norms and they always challenge the status quo.

That is what Apple users buy into, that subculture is what has given rise to what is known as the Cult of Mac. Any company would die to have users as loyal as Apple’s, but Apple could do so only because they have a story to tell, and because their brand stories touched a chord somewhere with their customers. That is what your brand should aspire to; to get a place in the hearts and minds of customers everywhere to make them into more than just users. They need to be evangelists and true devotees of your brand. Go spin some great brand stories, your customers lie in wait.