Emotional Branding Overview

Storytelling

Stimulating consumers' imagination and involving them emotionally, storytelling is a powerful marketing strategy that uses narratives to appeal to or inspire consumers. Given that well-told stories are better remembered and more convincing than facts, narratives enhance consumption experience in a way that influences consumers' feelings, opinions, or lifestyles. Through this emotional influence, storytelling creates a holistic brand image and can relay to consumers the desired information. However, Holt cautions that the relayed story must be perceived as authentic to avoid consumer suspicions of manipulative marketing efforts.

Storytelling can be used via digital media as well as traditional media. Valck and Kretz conducted a netnographic study on fashion and luxury blogs to examine whether fashion opinion leaders use their blogs for narratives about fashion consumption practices and self-brand association. Based on the result, they promoted fashion blogs as a new method for advertisement. Successful fashion brands using digital storytelling include Louis Vuitton, Stuart Weitzman, and Under Armour. The following are examples of fashion brands that successfully incorporate storytelling in their brand strategy.

Lululemon Athletica

Lululemon Athletica manufactures and sells yoga related sportswear and gear. Lululemon positions its brand as a way of life and uses targeted messages in a narrative for its consumers, which are about connections between yoga, spiritual living, and products. The result is transformative lifestyle that defines its consumers and enables a deep bond between customers and the brand. The brand story successfully embeds its message in all communication and media strategies, as well as store interiors. For example, it's newly opened New York store uses "zen pods" and self-guided meditation to immerse customers in its brand story line and experience.

Burberry

Since Thomas Burberry started Burberry brand in 1865, his company was known for high quality trench coats and its signature plaid. However, Burberry became a stodgy, lackluster brand and was in need of a new way forward. In 2006, Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, guided the company through a massive revitalization of the brand, rediscovering the brand's story that centers on its iconic trend coat and moments in history. Its trench coat is pivotal in communicating the brand's authenticity and quality. For example, Shackleton (the British polar explorer) wore Burberry's trench coat to the Antarctic, and Lord Kitchener (the British Secretary of State) carried it across Africa during World War I. Heritage is central to the brand's story, as told on social media and an augmented reality app targeting millennials. Burberry also uses RFID chips that turn mirrors in its stores into screens to engage customers in its brand story. As such, its brand narratives are reinforced with emotive, unique but consistent messages that appear in different channels.

Junk Gypsy

Junk Gypsy Co. began as a pop-up store at flea markets, expanded through e-tail, and opened its first brick-and-mortar store in 2013. Repurposing junk items ranging from fringed lamp shades to clothing and home furnishings into new items, its novel concept resounded with its loyal customers. Junk Gypsy's retail spectacle, Junk-o-Rama Prom, celebrates old prom dresses under the Texas stars one night. Junk Gypsy incorporates its guests' life stories in the brand's narrative about two Southern, free-spirited sisters whose love of junk idea for a business led them to a life they love. Their WOM led to a television show aired on the lifestyle channel Great American Country. In 2016, Jolie Sykes and Aimee Sikes published a book Junk Gypsy: Designing a Life at the Crossroads of Wonder & Wander. Their book described their life journey and embellished upon Junk Gypsy's brand narrative. It connected with their fan base and made the New York Times Best Seller list.