2021-09-10 - Essential Brand Persona Storytelling and Branding - Stephen Herskovitz-Malcolm Crystal
2021-09-10 - Essential Brand Persona Storytelling and Branding - Stephen Herskovitz-Malcolm Crystal
2021-09-10 - Essential Brand Persona Storytelling and Branding - Stephen Herskovitz-Malcolm Crystal
and branding
Stephen Herskovitz and Malcolm Crystal
DOI 10.1108/02756661011036673 VOL. 31 NO. 3 2010, pp. 21-28, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0275-6668 j JOURNAL OF BUSINESS STRATEGY j PAGE 21
‘‘ When it comes to creating a powerful brand narrative, the
persona – the articulated form of the brand’s character and
personality – comes first. ’’
Persona archetypes
What does persona-based storytelling involve? One of the most important things it involves
is quick and easy recognition, and that comes from drawing on archetypal personas whose
value is seen through long use and familiarity. For example, when George Lucas was
developing the script for Star Wars, he did extensive research into folklore, fairy tales,
mythology, and classic elements of storytelling to shape a story that could be both
breathtakingly fresh and comfortingly recognizable. The freshness came from the science
fiction and special effects, but the comforting recognition came from the fact that the story
relied on archetypes (personas) that the audience was already familiar with. Lucas drew on
works such as Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces to insure that the
classical motifs were treated consistently, whether it was through major figures like the
protagonist, Luke Skywalker, his antagonist, Darth Vader, his mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi, or
through minor parts like C-3PO or R2-D2.
To take just one of these as an example, Obi Wan plays a key role as Luke’s mentor. He
clarifies mysteries, provides guidance and wisdom at key turns, and protects Luke from
harm while he is still finding his way. The role of mentor is itself so ancient that it precedes
written records. Homer, and generations of poets before him who worked in an exclusively
oral tradition, recounted the story of Mentor, the trusted friend of Odysseus, who was placed
in charge of Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, while Odysseus was gone fighting in the
Trojan War. Variations on this theme of experienced teacher, protector, and trusted advisor
can be found throughout history, in literature and film in such figures as Gandalf from the
Lord of the Rings trilogy or Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series.
It is little wonder, then, that the persona of ‘‘mentor’’ – one of the most easily recognizable
and powerful personas around – can and does work effectively as a brand persona.
Companies that provide goods or services that place them in a role of teacher or guardian
with respect to their customers can appropriately use this persona, as in fact happens in
fields where trust is an essential element of the relationship (e.g. in healthcare or in financial
services). The ‘‘mentor’’ is just one of a number of potentially useful archetypes. The list of
possible archetypes can be long; some that might feel familiar to us include such
recognizable roles as:
B the ‘‘rebel’’ who stands up to authority;
B ‘‘mom’’ who provides nurturing and safety;
B the ‘‘rugged individualist’’ who listens to the beat of his own drummer;
B the ‘‘champion’’ who battles against opposing forces on a regular or predictable basis; or
B the ‘‘underdog,’’ the tireless and scrappy fighter who takes advantage of the fact that he
or she is consistently underestimated.
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In the brand world, the rugged individualist has been used by car manufacturers (trucks)
and blue jeans, and, perhaps most famously by Marlboro cigarettes, who turned a failing
brand around by creating (in their case both strategically and visually) the iconic Marlboro
Man. Using the rebel persona as a focal point has been successful for brands like Virgin
America airlines.
A brand narrative without a well-defined, recognizable, memorable, and compelling persona
can become a series of disconnected adventures, jumping from narrative to narrative in
search of something that might resonate with its audiences. This happened with John
McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign, as Robert Draper pointed out in his October 22,
2008 New York Times Magazine article analyzing candidate McCain’s problems. Draper
found that a big part of the blame was to be found in the inconsistent story lines that seemed
to feature very different personae, leading to confusion and unease on the part of the
electorate.
That flexible stability has contributed greatly to GE’s staying power over the years.
The centrality and strength of the brand persona can be seen in the fact that two brands
could exist within strikingly similar types of plot, while the differences in their individual brand
personas will be what changes the story and makes each uniquely memorable and ownable.
Both GE and Apple, for example, have strong innovation stories, but the personas are so
distinct at this point that there is no confusing one story with the other. Their core narratives
place them in an innovative intellectual hothouse, whether Edison’s lab in Menlo Park or
Steve Jobs’ garage. Similarly, what they produce is aimed at becoming part of our everyday
lives, and not just creating innovation for innovation’s sake. But they diverge precisely
because their personas are different, with Apple as the hip, counter-culture renegade and
GE as the American solid citizen. So while their stories have similar themes, each distinct
persona drives the particulars of tone, language, and attitude. Both brands succeed
because they tap into well accepted archetypes of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Sometimes, however, brand managers neglect or lose sight of their brand’s persona. This is
a continual danger that typically comes to a bad end. Take New Coke for example. In 1985,
after extensive research into consumer taste preferences, the Coca Cola company
introduced a new, sweeter formulation of their flagship product, which came to be known as
New Coke. Did all the market testing indicate that people preferred the taste of New Coke
over the traditional formula? Yes. Was it a sure-fire winner? Not so fast. The Coke persona is
all about tradition and belonging: Coke is a member of your family. How does the ‘‘new’’ part
fit it? Would you feel comfortable with a ‘‘new mom,’’ or a ‘‘new dad’’? That could feel scary
and upsetting. Regardless of the story you are trying to sell us, the audiences said, I want my
old mom and old dad back! They are who I grew up with. I want my family back! Coke had
stepped too far from its persona and paid the price.
People naturally connect and identify with a believable and consistent brand persona – one
whose words and actions are well matched. Without that essential identification, any action
the brand takes will be of little interest to your audience because it will seem disconnected,
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out of synch. The brand’s actions are compelling when its persona is one that people can
recognize, care about and develop a relationship with. An internally consistent brand
persona is one that you come to ‘‘know’’ as you would a family member or the beloved
character in a favorite novel. While a good brand persona remains true to its core, it is also
able to grow with the times and changing situations. As this happens, good brands come to
evoke strong emotional responses from their customers, including loyalty, trust, and even
devotion.
Implicit trust
Loyalty and trust develop over a long time, and result from hundreds, even thousands of
small acts, well performed. If your words and deeds are well matched – which a strong
brand persona will make happen – you will create in your customers a crucial, intrinsic, and
implicit emotional connection that will form the basis of a long-lasting relationship built on the
predictability of the brand’s behavior.
Because strong feelings like these are typically unconscious or not articulated, they do not
show up in standard surveys or focus groups, which tend to measure and record ‘‘top of
mind’’ thoughts, things that people can readily articulate. Traditional branding research that
focuses on such explicit measures is disappointing, not because it is wrong, but because it
is incomplete. People are seldom truly candid in focus groups or interviews (there are
various pressures to fit one’s expressed views to suit the situation). Storytelling that starts
with the persona allows us to tap into these deeper recesses, where the influence of attitudes
and emotions is greater. Loyalty and trust are found there, not in the ‘‘top of mind’’
recollection of taglines or features.
That long-lasting and implicit trust is what distinguishes the great brands, like J&J or GE,
from the rest of the pack. It will also protect the brand when it makes a misstep. Nike, for
example, has a strong brand persona that is all about performance and winning. Their
long-used tagline, ‘‘Just do it,’’ is instantly recognizable as is their logo, the swoosh.
In 2006, Nike teamed up with skier Bode Miller, which seemed like a good idea at the time.
After all, he had won two silver medals at the Olympics in 2002, four gold medals and a silver
medal at the World Championship in 2003, and in 2005, he became the first American in 22
years to win the World Cup title. His performance trajectory was clear. If anything, it seemed
that the difficulty would be in finding words to match his expected performance.
There was no shortage of words: in TV spots for the 2006 Winter Olympics, Miller was shown
talking about performance, talking about his attitude, and talking some more. But there was
not much ‘‘doing’’ – he fell short in all five medal attempts. Worse, he did not even seem
concerned with winning, an attitude that did not match well with the Nike brand persona. This
created a disconnect between the audience and the brand, since the fit between Bode and
Nike clearly was not right.
A weaker brand might have suffered lasting harm because the plot went off course. Nike’s
persona was not built on the achievement of a single athlete, however. Instead it draws on a
heritage of performance and winning that started with Ilie Nastase and Steve Prefontaine,
that grew to include Carl Lewis and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, that reached new heights with
Michael Jordan, and that continued with Serena Williams, among other top performers. It is
the combined effect of these champion performers that has contributed to the impressive
loyalty Nike enjoys from its customers. In the end, Nike succeeds not because its taglines
and logo are memorable, but because it forms enduring associations between its products
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and the aura of successful performance that surrounds those who use them, whether top
athletes or weekend warriors. The Nike persona, and its various success stories, is built on
thousands of victories, large and small.
The importance of this kind of association, so key to the brand persona and the art of
storytelling, can also be seen in the fact that it is an observable and measurable
phenomenon, a fact that has been explored by neuroscientists and other researchers.
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‘‘ Sometimes, however, brand managers neglect or lose sight of
their brand’s persona. This is a continual danger that typically
comes to a bad end. ’’
Character traits
One pitfall that companies commonly experience is when they focus on plot before persona
in brand storytelling. This can easily happen when the cleverness of an ad campaign
overshadows the persona of the brand. How often have we seen commercials that have a
cute premise and a surprising punch line, only to forget completely what they were selling?
They lost sight of who they were. Marketing communications that start by focusing on
persona, on the other hand, will always be memorable, regardless of the different plots that
are involved. Those approaches that help us to know our brand better now will be particularly
valuable during times of crises and sudden change. This is where understanding the brand
persona pays off, because it lets us know how the brand will behave in different
circumstances.
The persona includes attributes such as courage, decisiveness, determination, work ethic,
honesty, flexibility, responsibility, and curiosity. Your audience will attribute those traits to your
brand persona by comparing what you say about yourself with what your actions say about
you. You may say you are courageous and cool in the face of risk, but if your actions prove
otherwise, your brand persona will suffer.
The world of commerce provides plenty of things for companies to respond to as well, and
the way they respond reveals the company’s strength of character, as the following two
examples illustrate. In 1982, bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol laced with potassium cyanide
caused the deaths of a number of people in the Chicago area. Tylenol sales plunged. The
manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, responded quickly by recalling 31 million bottles of
Tylenol and suspending advertising for the product. When it did reintroduce the product, it
did so using a newly developed triple-sealed package, underscoring its commitment to
consumer safety. Both the product, Tylenol, and the company, J&J, recovered nicely
because what the company did matched up with what the company said, which in effect
was, ‘‘You can trust us.’’
On the other hand, when benzene, a carcinogen, was found in bottles of Perrier in North
Carolina in 1990, the company responded by saying it was just a local problem. But soon,
benzene was found in Perrier bottles in Denmark and The Netherlands. To make matters
worse, investigators also uncovered the awkward fact that Perrier was artificially carbonating
its supposedly ‘‘naturally carbonated’’ water. In the end, Perrrier suffered because its
hesitant and confused actions didn’t match its words – that they were all about the purity of
their sources. Neither the company nor its product has fully recovered.
In our work, we have found that mapping a brand persona according to select traits can help
clarify our understanding of how the persona works, and what its potential strengths or
weaknesses are. In Figure 1, for example, we have taken two of these character-trait axes
(decisive vs indecisive; and accountable vs not accountable) to illustrate the key differences
between J&J and Perrier with respect to persona. These particular axes relate most clearly to
the type of situation that these two companies found themselves in, one in which some sort of
flaw, error, or unacceptable state of affairs came to pass. This state of affairs presented the
company with an opportunity to make decisions and also to own up to its role in the situation.
We can best understand how the stories played out as they did by understanding the
persona of each of the companies. On the one hand, J&J’s persona was decisive,
accountable, and steadfast (trustworthy), while Perrier presented a persona that was
indecisive and, by its actions, not accountable.
These two examples illustrate the importance of persona. In the case of Perrier, the occasion
of a serious test showed the weakness of the company’s character and their ultimate lack of
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Figure 1 Johnson & Johnson and Perrier: the character of company decision-making
Decisive
J&J
Not Accountable
Accountable
Indecisive
Perrier
commitment to it. Spokespeople for the company shaded the truth, tried to downplay or
obscure the facts, and it showed the Perrier brand to be lacking in what strong brands need,
namely, greatness of character. J&J, on the other hand, recognized that it was responsible
for its product, even if it had done nothing to cause the situation that occurred. Having
acknowledged its responsibility, taking decisive action was a natural step.
In both cases the plot of the story – a happy ending for J&J; a sadder ending for Perrier –
flowed from the strength or weakness of brand’s persona.
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books all show. And there are plenty of people who have formal training in this area, though
many of them probably might not have recognized it as such.
Conclusions
When it comes to understanding and developing your brand, you need to focus on brand
persona before placing the brand in a story. Key character traits, such as honesty, curiosity,
flexibility or determination, are those that come into play when important decisions are made.
Keywords: The strength of your brand will come from the strength of its persona and your commitment to
Brands, its behavioral implications. Your audience will be interested in the brand story and its actions
Storytelling, because they understand the persona. The emotional connection that the brand persona
Management strategy, creates with your audiences is based on its ability to address deeply felt, though often poorly
Attitudes articulated, implicit needs and attitudes.
As a result, more and more companies are monitoring forums and chat rooms for consumers who
might be talking about their brands. That is because those places reveal how the brand persona is
truly perceived in the target audience, and because negative comments or reviews from actual
consumers carry much more weight, pound for pound, than any company’s attempts to create a
positive image.
A strong brand persona will be even more important in such an environment where your voice is only
one among many, and may not be the most trusted among them – unless you adapt and develop a
reputation for addressing brand issues in a direct, very timely, straightforward, and humble way.
Further reading
Campbell, J. (1972), The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Draper, R. (2008), ‘‘The making (and remaking) of McCain’’, New York Times Magazine, October 22.
Escalas, J.E. (2004), ‘‘Narrative processing: building consumer connections to brands’’, Journal of
Consumer Psychology, Vol. 14 Nos 1/2, pp. 168-80.
Hall, J.M. and Johnson, M.E. (2009), ‘‘When should a process be art, not science?’’, Harvard Business
Review, Vol. 87 No. 3, pp. 58-65.
Twitchell, J.B. (2004), ‘‘An English teacher looks at branding’’, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31
No. 2, pp. 484-9.
Wolstonholme, B. (2008), ‘‘Brand narrative: the never ending story’’, Brand Strategy, Vol. 36, March 7.
Corresponding author
Stephen Herskovitz can be contacted at: [email protected]
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