Storytelling is the essence of marketing. All marketing decisions can be made by asking the simple question, “what story am I telling?”

If I raise my price by $3, what story am I telling?
If I show up to work unshaven, what story am I telling?

So, what story are you telling?

Ever wonder why you wince when you see somebody get punched? Or, why watching a complete stranger cry can bring one to tears?

If so, check out Buyology – Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom. In his book Martin discusses mirror neurons and their importance to marketers (turns out they are very very important).

Essentially, a mirror neuron is one that fires both when an human acts and when the human observes the same action performed by another human (thanks Wikipedia). Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of another human, as though the observer were itself acting. For example, when we see somebody get hurt, our brain reacts as though we were hurt (just through observation), causing us to mimic the reaction of the person being hurt.

This is a powerful knowledge. Apparently just watching somebody make a happy purchase can cause our brain to want to mirror this behavior. So, if we see somebody buying an ice cream this can be enough to cause us to stop and buy an ice cream (mmm that looks good). Implicitly this makes sense – we all seem to be drawn to the popular restuarant or the club with the line.

If you don’t believe how powerful this knowledge is then put a smile on your face and walk around smiling at people. You’ll notice that it takes people a deliberate effort not to smile back.

Many organizations don’t put enough thought into their brand architecture. It’s a esoteric discussion. However, as a rule of thumb there are only to basic brand architecture structures, with each occupying opposite ends of a continuum.

On one side sits the ‘house of brands’. This is where an organization has many different brands which are seemingly independent from their parent organization. A good example would be Proctor and Gamble’s Tide, Charmin and Crest.

On the opposite end of the continuum is the ‘branded house’ structure. In this structure the organization’s brand is the most prominent among their product/service line. One example would be General Electric.

Most large organizations use a blended-model, with their structure classified as somewhere in the middle. For some this can work well, but for most it leads to confusion. The best brands are singular and audience focused. And if your brand structure doesn’t aide in achieving this goal, then you are probably living in a brand house made of glass.