The pandemic brought new ways of building relationships with consumers. People are intentionally reducing the number of physical meetings with others, whilst they are tending to connect to others in the virtual space. MZ generations feel comfortable with contactless relationships, and organisations are looking for new business models to effectively engage consumers through completely new media in a contactless world. Social media marketing is considered the easiest way to connect people. Nowadays, it is not only about simply searching for products, selling them, and purchasing them, but companies are using to consider engaging consumers from a personal perspective when they act in terms of e-commerce shopping in a contactless era.

Social Media Marketing is the process of creating tailored content for social media platforms to drive consumer engagement and promote the brand. This mainly happens through social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WeChat, YouTube, etc. Social media marketing includes sharing content and photographs by interacting between potential buyers and sellers and has become more popular and more important during the pandemic as an expanded format of e-commerce as consumers have spent more time enjoying social media at home.

When shoppers spend time browsing social media platforms, they are drawn to informative and interesting stories, which can ultimately lead them to make purchasing decisions based on these stories. Consumers are becoming more and more accustomed to this shopping pattern, so organisations are considering not only which social commerce is suitable for selling, but also how to attract consumers of selected social media platforms with engaging stories. Organizations are looking into a wide variety of stories around their brands that can connect with customers and are heavily investing in social media platforms to develop these stories as a channel that they trust and can have a significant impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Brand Storytelling is the cohesive narrative that weaves together the facts and emotions that the brand evokes. It gives the customers reasons to buy a product or service, helps to build the image of a brand, and engage customers at a deeper level. Brand storytelling is the key differentiator in today's data-driven world and the power of engaging stories are unleashed by its ability to create connect with the audiences As there is high accessibility to multimedia through mobile phones among consumers of all ages, organisations have started to invest in making visible marketing activities with touching and fun storytelling through video media platforms such as YouTube.

Dry facts and figures become interesting when moulded into a relevant story, which grabs the audience's attention and enhances the learning mechanism. Many research studies have shown that emotionally charged situations lead to create long-lasting memories and help consumers to memorise the details of such events. Brand stories generate emotions and increase the inclination towards a recommended decision or action. Emotions generated through a story make an impression on the audience, facilitating retention and higher brand recall. The audience may forget what the brand communicates, but they will not forget how the brand made them feel because the emotional connection makes it easier to persuade consumers and motivate them to drive purchase and ignite brand loyalty.

The question arises- how to make brand stories more powerful, engaging, and impactful with the desired audience?

The simplest way to grab customers' attention is to give them what they need. The storyteller will have to hit the bull's eye by aligning the story to the target audience's needs. The brand must have a value proposition that it can turn into a story that resonates with the desired audience. This helps the brand to become the "Brand with a Soul”. The few creative successful AD stories that resonated with the desired audience and helped brands to become power brands are as follows:

Samsung India’s AD of 2017 was on the long side, but it’s worth watching to understand the importance of brand storytelling. They showed a TV technician travelling miles cross-country to get to a remote home to fix a TV before a certain time that evening. Samsung India used this touching story to convey their dedication to its customers. They wanted to reflect that they care about what matters to their customers, no matter who they are or how far away they live. This was the most-watched ad in 2017.

In 2020 the COVID’s economic disruption adversely impacted the consumer sentiments and Diwali brought an opportunity for brands to reconnect with their consumers, especially the working class who were badly impacted by the pandemic. Most brands emerged and took over the advertising canvas and used the power of storytelling with common themes of “togetherness and inclusiveness”, compassion, positivity, generosity, uplifting each other, and supporting small businesses. Brands reminded their desired audience to help bring light and joy not just inside their homes but also outside their lives by sharing a little part of their happiness to enjoy the festive season once again.

The Cadbury's brand has taken the idea of togetherness to a different level by involving and doing something meaningful for a segment of society that has been badly impacted by Covid - the local neighbourhood retailers with India’s biggest brand ambassador Mr SRK for small, local stores. It has played the role of a truly responsible, inclusive brand that believes growth is sustainable when the ecosystem grows together. The idea was not just on brand but its simple message of buying local capitalised on the predominant sentiment of the nation, at a time when it was needed most. Ogilvy created the ad and it went viral across social media platforms and got more than 1.37 million views on YouTube alone. The idea came alive with most of the consumers stepping outside to shop for Diwali, went to all local stores, a conscious action sparked by a simple and insightful campaign. 

Coca-Cola has a long history of celebrating hope, positivity, and togetherness. The brand launched its message of thanks to people helping to make the world a better place during Covid-19, in celebration of International Workers' Day. The film tells a powerful story of two sides, presenting the negative representation of a world during the Coronavirus pandemic and very interestingly compared against the messages of hope and positivity. The story used short video clips and images from around the world of real people that keep others safe through the crises

using their humanity to overcome the difficulties, from frontline workers to people celebrating elderly relatives’ birthdays by socially distancing. The film was called ‘For The Human Race’ and was made by Merdeka LHS, Dentsu Group Malaysia, for Coca-Cola. 

The HP India campaign of 2021 ‘DiyeSeDiyaJalao’ celebrates the festive spirit of Diwali, which offered a message of hope to businesses and reassurance to stay afloat during challenging times. The brand story emphasised the value of community and reminisced the essence of the festival-happiness, prosperity, and mutual support which was brought to life by featuring an elderly shopkeeper and his young peers in a bustling Indian market. The selfless and unmeasured giving of his peers, enabled by technology products such as HP laptops and printers, spread the light of Diwali, bringing joy to the hearts of everyone. Truly echoing the tagline “To Iss Diwali diye se dia jalao aur kissi ka dil roshan karo”, the film captured the true essence of Diwali and conveyed a message to brighten the celebrations of those around everyone. The 4.5-minute ad film garnered 60 lakh views on YouTube three days since its release.

Dove’s “Stop The Beauty Test” another powerful storytelling campaign of Ogilvy India stayed true to the brand of using real stories of women, a film which was born out of conversations with real women from across the country, captured some raw situations where women are judged by prospective in-laws for not being slim, tall, fair, and straight-haired enough. It goes on to emphasise the unspoken impact of this judgment on their self-esteem and confidence. Through real stories enacted by a real rejection of women, Dove sent a powerful message that there cannot be one definition of beauty and beauty comes in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Dove asked through this storytelling campaign how much beauty is enough and conveys to stop this beauty test. The brand made beauty a positive experience for the women going through these types of experiences and created a brand love in every woman’s heart.

Storytelling marketing opens up a world of creativity for marketers and enables brands to communicate key messaging in a way that needs no explaining. An authentic story involves the audience participating in the story by agreeing with the conclusions and starting thinking from the storyteller’s perspective. To keep the story interesting, the brand needs to keep the story real, relevant, maintain the rhythm and continually surprise the audience with interesting insights. As it is easy to understand the brand story, regardless of the age of the customers.

Remember: The above pointers can help you to bring brand storytelling in a way that will resonate with consumers, win your loyal customers, and create a lasting brand.