MAGAZINE navigation:

INFO

ISSUES [currently viewing]

AUTHORS

SEARCH

Currently viewing:

Issue 7 > How to develop a brand using storytelling techniques.

How to develop a brand using storytelling techniques.

Richard Fouts on 'telling yourself a story for others'.

Over the years I've used a number of techniques for revitalizing existing brands or building new ones. One particular approach which I've come to call the 'Wall Street Journal exercise' works really well—and delivers results particularly fast.

How it works. Imagine for a moment that it's one year from today. The Wall Street Journal wants to feature your company on its front page. In fact, the reporter and his photographer are in your lobby right now. And they want to run the story in their next edition.

How do want your story to read? How do you want your story to lead? Do you want to feature growth? Your advances in product innovation? Your key to enviable service? As the story unfolds, why do readers want to continue reading? Do you reveal how you lured some prize accounts from your lead competitor? What you did over the past year that is making your competitors especially jealous? And what your customers are saying about you? What you are saying about your customers?

A proven technique. The Wall Street Journal exercise was inspired by one of my first bosses, David Packard, who co-founded Hewlett-Packard. Dave didn't go for whiteboard, pie-in-the-sky exercises that created a bunch of aspirational goals we would never be able to reach. Rather, he asked us to imagine what we would want the Journal to be saying about us in one year. By keeping the timeline to a year in the future, we kept our feet on the ground, but still challenged ourselves with some good stretch goals.

Of course, you're not really going to submit the story to the Wall Street Journal… this exercise simply provides a framework for telling your story. But if you don't tell your story the way you want it to be told, someone else will. And it will most often be told from a negative angle. This exercise gives you an opportunity to write your story, your way.

Give it a try. If you want to give this technique a try, it's not hard.

Get a team together that knows your organization, your company and your industry. Get someone from your public relations staff (or outside PR firm) who writes stories for a living, or has a good journalism background. Tell them to 'play reporter' and take you through a classic news interview.

  next page »

Page  1  |  2  |  3  | all pages

« PREVIOUS ARTICLE  NEXT ARTICLE »

ISSUE 7 CONTENTS »

Currently viewing:

MAGAZINE > issues > 7 > How to develop a brand using storytelling techniques.