{"id":1696,"date":"2016-04-18T10:36:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T10:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.bevologyinc.com\/blog\/?p=1696"},"modified":"2016-04-18T14:19:38","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T14:19:38","slug":"brand-story-vs-narrative-why-the-difference-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/18\/brand-story-vs-narrative-why-the-difference-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Brand “Story” vs. “Narrative”: Why the Difference Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"iStock_tell-your-storySmall1\"<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s hyper-connected world, brands are no longer rooted in feature-based USP\u2019s or Positioning Statements.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about how a brand connects with consumers in a meaningful and motivational way by way of their story.<\/p>\n

A lot of folks look at the words \u201cstory\u201d and \u201cnarrative\u201d as synonymous, but they are most decidedly not.\u00a0 Both have their uses, but it is important to understand the difference.\u00a0 The story is simply the sequence of events, with a beginning, middle and end.\u00a0 A narrative tells those events in a way that creates a dramatic effect and response.\u00a0 Further, great narratives are usually open ended and invite the reader to become engaged, participate, and personalize an idea.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s look at an example of how I turned my story into a narrative.<\/p>\n

Here is my story: <\/strong>\u00a0I spent the first decade of my career in PR and advertising.\u00a0 I began to acquire an interest in wines and took a couple of courses at the local university.\u00a0 My job included a fair amount of travel, and I discovered another passion \u2013 to learn about other places, cultures and people. \u00a0\u00a0During the most recent years of my career I have been in marketing spirits and wines, with an emphasis on helping brands enter and succeed in the US market.\u00a0 With my consulting company, Bevology Inc., I am able to combine my passions for wine and travel with my expertise and experiences in marketing and act as a guide to help wine and spirit producers who want to break into the US market.<\/p>\n

Here is my narrative:\u00a0 <\/strong>My wife and I were vacationing in Italy and went to a small restaurant recommended by the clerk in a wine store.\u00a0 The d\u00e9cor was faded pictures tacked on the walls, mismatched chairs and cheap flat forks, but the food smelled great. \u00a0We were seated right next to two older Italian gentlemen.\u00a0 I, of course, used my best Spanish (yes, Spanish\u2026it\u2019s closer to Italian and it was either that or just speak English louder) to order a nice bottle of red.\u00a0 The wine was fantastic; after all, we were in Italy, on the vacation of our dreams, how could it be anything else?\u00a0\u00a0 The two gentlemen were clearly not impressed by us or our wine selection.\u00a0 We were Americans intruding in their neighborhood restaurant, spoke lousy Spanish in Italy, and couldn\u2019t even order a decent bottle of wine.<\/p>\n

They insisted we try theirs, which they had brought with them in a brown paper bag.\u00a0 Wow, turned out our wine was not so great after all.\u00a0 By the end of dinner we had learned that they were old friends who dine together every Thursday evening and have done so for decades.\u00a0 They left a few coins for the waiter, and the bottle of wine for us.\u00a0 That was 12 years ago, and I think of that dinner, those two old men, and their fabulous red wine every time I embark on a new journey with a new winery hoping to make it in America.<\/p>\n

So marketers, your challenge is to figure out how to articulate a brand\u2019s narrative in a way that\u2019s so meaningful and motivational that it makes people, smile, laugh and maybe even cry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Narrative” tells a story in a way that creates a dramatic effect and response. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[257,258,259],"class_list":["post-1696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-narrative","tag-story","tag-wine-story","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/iStock_tell-your-storySmall1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7k1BV-rm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}