Tag: ads

Story-telling for a Price

Ever since we were kids, fairy-tales seemed to be our only refuge and escape from reality.  We used to constantly read and listen to stories. To say the least, stories have played a crucial role in our lives since our childhood. Till this very day, stories still affect us tremendously, and this resulted in many companies using them across their various touch points. Marketers seem to have found the best way to exploit and to use them in their marketing efforts.

Based on several studies, stories showed the tendency to resonate with consumers the most. When listening to a story, several parts of the brain are activated. This leads the customers to visualise what they’re being told.

 This has led many advertisers to resort to story-telling in ads and when trying to talk about their products with the customers. Stories are used as an attention-grabbing method since it happens to have a high impact on the consumers. Instead of using a traditional method, advertisers resort to storytelling for consumers tend to relate to it and remember it the most.

Storytelling has also made its way in sales. Sales-people started to talk to the customers about their products in the form of a story. In sales, it’s all about solving the people’s problem and making the customers the heroes of their own stories. To demonstrate this, the salesperson might act up as a sage who offers help to the hero aka the customer in order to solve their problem.

Through stories, marketers have been able to captivate and grab the customers’ attention. They also managed to motivate them and to drive them to take actions and pay a higher premium.

Some customers are willing to pay more for a cup of coffee from Starbucks than for a regular one. However, they would not be paying for the coffee’s quality or the product’s features; but rather, they’re paying for its story. A story which Starbucks constantly communicates whether about its products, its cosy place that feels like home, or about what it should symbolise to you. Such stories of value have merely made products become an extension of our own identity.

Stories help build a special bond and relationship with the customers. They tend to resonate with them the most. By putting a high emphasis on storytelling, it certainly allows for further communication of value.

At the end of the day, are we actually paying for the actual price of the item or for its story?

Teaching the World a Lesson, One Burger at a Time

(The ad can be found in this link; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erSgUag9F_4 )

To answer the question in my previous post, let’s have a look at how a brand managed to teach its customers a lesson and to increase the people’s awareness in the society.

As a method to criticise some regulations that were going on concerning Net Neutrality, Burger King created an ad aiming to teach its customers about this concept. This social experiment by Burger King was done to criticise the repeal of Net Neutrality regulations and to showcase to the people the impact of such regulations on their lives.   

To those who are not familiar with the concept, Net Neutrality refers to having equal access to the Internet. Without it, the internet service providers will have the sole power to charge people more for higher speed and to control the content shown on their web pages.

As an opposition to the repeal of Net Neutrality, Burger King created the “Whopper Neutrality”. Burger King stated that “the brand believes the Internet should be like the Whopper sandwich; the same for everyone.”

This creative method by Burger King to explain the effect of an event going on in the society made a strong impact on the consumers. Such usage of the brand’s products helped to increase its customers’ awareness as well as to attract many people’s attention to the brand’s efforts.

By making use of on-going events in the society, brands can help stir up change and create social movements. When doing so, it certainly helps in creating a long lasting impact in the consumer’s lives and in developing a positive relationship with them.