Storytelling is a powerful medium that is ingrained in humanity since the earliest times.
Today, social media provides an opportunity to connect with audiences like never before. However, unlike much media of the past, that engagement is now a back and forth, which could hijack your story if the crowdculture goes left when you wanted them to go right.
There’s an insightful HBR article that discusses this in depth.
Today’s technologies make avoiding ads easier than ever before, so when brands create content for ads, it’s really hard for them to tap into the crowdculture online. If you look at where the attention is on YouTube, there are many top channels that are individual personalities with subscriber counts that put Fortune 500 companies to shame – spending a pittance in comparison.
So how does a brand tap into this crowdculture? To me, there is a quandary for companies to make the leap as it may require some eschewing of the brand names that have been so crucial to their success historically. But it’s much harder for Crest toothpaste to connect a brand story to the crowdculture as it’s still Crest that we are talking about – a nameless, faceless entity. Think about brands forged on YouTube like PewDiePie who have billions of views, millions of subscribers. His story is obviously resonating far deeper with audiences than many popular brands.
Are there any brands that are telling stories that resonated with you?
Drop a line about it – I’m curious to hear from you.