Authenticity and Storytelling are What that Make Brands Resonate

The United Airlines Incident

Remember the video of a passenger being forcibly removed from his seat on an overbooked United Airlines flight a couple years ago?

Its hard not to. Especially when the motto of United Airlines at that time was “Fly the Friendly Skies”.

The hardest thing to get right when connecting with consumers is authenticity. In fact, brands often try too hard in telling consumers what they want to be rather than being true about who they are as a brand.

It is not wrong for businesses wanting to design a certain brand image via storytelling to elevate their overall branding.

However, when the designed brand image does not reflect the actual experience or the values you are promoting to your customers, it may backfire badly instead.

How can we gain trust from our customers?

How to improve branding through storytelling?

Founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson once said, “Too many companies want their brands to reflect some idealized, perfected image of themselves. As a consequence, their brands acquire no texture, no character, and no public trust.”

It has to be genuine and authentic.

Rather than just a story told to the consumers, the values of the business has to permeate to the rest of the organisation which includes the CEO, the management and its employees.

It’s about the organisation wanting to be honest about the ups and downs of the business and share what they think with the people who matter most.

What do you think? Share with us your thoughts and opinions below.