The power of story in advertising

One of the most powerful elements of a successful creative campaign is the story the campaign tells–how it connects with the audience on a far deeper level than just pure value exchange. Yet sometimes, this can be overlooked. While ads are often seen as in-roads to profit, the ability of an engaging story to build customer loyalty, not just revenue, is often overlooked.

Read on to learn why you should be pushing stories, not ads, in your upcoming media buy.

Stories > Ads

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell”.
-Seth Godin

If you want to start seeing real engagement from your advertisements, stop thinking about them as ads and start thinking about them as emotionally engaging vignettes. Consumers go to great lengths to avoid advertising, but those same people intentionally seek out rich and relatable storytelling content.

Take P&G’s spot for the Rio Olympics as an example. This powerful piece of branded content is a master class in how creating an emotional connection goes miles beyond just straight product marketing. By homing in on motherly love, protection and unyielding support, the brand sends a thank you to their primary customer base, moms all over the world, while itself taking the back seat.

If you leverage your ads as a medium through which to tell emotional brand-building stories, you'll likely notice that your levels of customer engagement, whether it be on social media platforms or your website, suddenly start to spike.

This is because individuals who may otherwise have completely ignored your brand will check it out if they can empathize with the messaging you're creating. People are hungrier than ever for brands that they can ethically and emotionally connect with and support.

Using ads as stories allows people to not only understand what you offer but also what your brand's ethical values are.

Building loyalty and engagement through advertising

Video advertising provides companies with a unique platform on which to grow communities around their products and services through the power of storytelling. For proof, just check out the Nike ad featuring Colin Kaepernick.

Not only is this ad an emotional gut punch, but it's also a political and ethical statement by the Nike brand. Was it a risky move? Sure, and plenty of people started burning Nike gear in protest when it aired. But it gained the company far more than it lost them–Nike's revenue spiked by $6 billion after the ad ran and their stock rose by 5 percent, contributing heavily to the 9.56 percent year-over-year revenue increase that Nike saw at the end of 2018.

Advertising has far more potential to meaningfully affect a company's brand image than many businesses give it credit for. If your ads tell emotional, interesting stories that convey what your organization cares about, they'll also be stories that your ideal customers will care about.

Not only can storytelling increase your customer base, but it can also improve your brand image, providing you with loyal customers and the revenue to show for it.

If you want to create meaningful content with your ad dollars, get in touch. flourish helps companies tell their brand’s story with true authenticity.

To learn more about what flourish can do for you, click .

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