How to humanize your brand stories
Remember the old adage, "The fastest way to a man's heart is through his ribcage," or whatever? Well, the fastest way to your audience's heart is to tell stories with emotion a.k.a., to humanize your brand stories.
Humanize brand stories with humans, not entities
What gives? Why do so many professionals avoid talking about humans in their brand stories?
Here are the three most ineffective protagonists that professionals cast in their stories rather than using humans. Introducinnnnnnng the usual suspects:
The institution: e.g., this division, the enterprise, our market
The thing: e.g., our product, the platform, this program
The concept: e.g., asset-building, cloud computing, our model
PRO TIP: If your protagonist has an acronym and you're not talking about The Notorious B.I.G. or it has a hyphen and you're not talking about Mary-Kate Olsen, that's a red flag your protagonist isn't human. Now, if you have a brand story with both of these humans in it, START TELLING IT RIGHT NOW AND POST PICTURES.
Brand stories without humans can lack humanity
Institutions, things, and concepts are fabulous and useful for messaging but in storytelling, they're too hard to convert into a protagonist your audience can root for.
No rooting means no emotion. No emotion means no buy-in.
To humanize your brand story and your data stories tell your audience about the humans running this program or designing that model.
Vague terms like “stakeholder” don't count
In stories, avoid terms like stakeholder, partner, or community member because they're too generic for the audience to feel emotionally attached. To learn more on why they don't work, click those links for all my unhinged rants coolheaded advice and you'll soon dodge those jargon monsters.
Here's how to find the humans for your brand stories
You can fix it. Prepare your favorite cocktail or smoothie (or both; you do you), grab a sharpie, and start listing everyone you know. Name names of humans (not where they work) as you brainstorm. Think quantity now, culling later. Here are some prompts starting with who:
Do you work with (name colleagues)?
Do you serve (name the clients, participants, users, etc.)?
Refers clients, participants, and users to you?
Is a vendor, consultant, supplier to you?
Intersects or collaborates with you from outside your organization?
Mentors, advises, or invests in you?
Inspired you to do something challenging or unusual?
Now go beyond the usual suspects in your brand stories
Next, start picking names from your lists. Be smart about who you make the star of your story. Nonprofits, are all your stories about your program participants? Firms, are all your stories about “deep partnerships” with your clients? Companies, let me guess, you are customer-obsessed, right?
Skip the first two groups from the list above for now and look at 3-7. What if you talked about a different relationship from one of those other lists—one with a new protagonist or even an unlikely beneficiary?.
Have someone else tell stories about you
To seal the deal, take that supa-dupa-fresh humanized brand story and have an unusual messenger tell your story for you.
By the way, I know the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but that just makes me think of sci-fi horror movies, not the perfect meatball sub. Let's stay focused and keep this professional.