StoryBranding 2.0: Creating Stand-Out Brands Through The Power of Story

Advertising executive Signorelli was tired of the traditional approach to his craft, which he feels resulted in soulless hyperbole and mindless drivel. When preparing for a client meeting, he had an epiphany. Rather than doing a traditional brief for the client, identifying its brand's unique selling proposition, he wrote a story: a first-person narrative told from the prospective customer's point of view. Customers have problems they want to be solved, and their stories provide clues to understanding how the brand can solve them. Signorelli compares the "StoryBranding" process, which helps brands understand themselves, to the way stories teach us about the people in them. VERDICT Since advertising is, among other things, about building and nurturing relationships between the brand and the customer, the timeless tradition of storytelling is a natural approach to facilitate the process. Signorelli skillfully coaches his readers through understanding a brand's core values and aligning them to customers' needs. While branding and advertising books are a dime a dozen, the author's original approach and competent storytelling skills serve his topic well. -Carol Elsen, (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, StoryBranding 2.0 is a second edition of the award winning, best selling book that has sparked enthusiasm among marketing luminaries, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and personal branding advocates. In this book, Jim Signorelli, a 30-year veteran of major branding campaigns, challenges the myth that causes brands to hide behind a mask of ineffective artificiality. It is the myth that pushes brands to be something they arent, or something they simply will never become. It is the long-standing myth that the customer is King. Every year, brands spend billions of dollars fashioning their identities in order to walk, talk, and act the way customers want them to. Much like the insincere politician who merely manufactures his or her identity to gain votes, motives become transparent, especially as information sharing opportunities gain traction. The truth about any brand is its foundational story. Its the one about universal beliefs and values that customers will readily identify with. Its the one that is propelled by a brands internal cause that is passionately and irrevocably adhered to. Unfortunately, many brands are not in touch with who they are. Instead of using the voice of the consumer as a feed- back mechanism, they put the consumer in charge of their story. In turn, this drowns out the brands true voice - the voice that has always been there but merely needs a surge of confidence and passion. Oftentimes the only fundamental change any brand needs to make is an improved sense of the values and beliefs that havent changed. StoryBranding is not another - how to book about using stories as a way to create advertising messages. Instead, it is a book for anyone who has asked the question, what do we stand for? And to get at the answer it draws on story structure as its toolkit. It does this in order to show how any brand is like the protagonist setting out to deal with certain struggles on its journey towards certain goals. And it provides some valuable and proven navigation tools The ultimate how-to book about brand storytelling Brand storytelling is all the rage in marketing. But few books explain how to go about cultivating and promoting that story. This is the book that does. StoryBranding 2.0 is an updated edition of the award-winning, best-selling book that has sparked enthusiasm among marketing luminaries, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and personal branding advocates. Developing your brand's story must start with an understanding of what a story really is and how it is structured. Then, using this essential structure as scaffolding, you can begin to answer specific questions that will help you develop your brand's most authentic story—the story that will do the most to capture the hearts and minds of prospects. As your brand sets out to overcome obstacles in order to achieve its goals, you will: • be guided every step of the way towards defining who your brand is and why it exists. • learn how to use a... The Best Marketing Doesn't Feel Like Marketing. It Feels Like A Story. Filled With Even More Branding Tools And Examples Of How To Use Them, Storybranding 2.0 Will Show You How To Make Your Brand Stand For Something Meaningful And Gain Strong Customer Affinity.