Beyond the Viral Spot: How to Craft a Brand Story With Substance
In the grand scheme of things, brand propaganda can be built without substance. It is possible, even though it is not advisable. Propaganda works majorly for ideology, especially when you are preparing people for a certain level of actions in the future. You cultivate the atmosphere with a certain level of narrative over time to prepare the coming of something else.
But for product or service businesses, which is where I have spent a good part of my work life, there is only so much propaganda can do. After a while, the things you do will catch up with you. The best you can do is fight a race against time—acquiring new users fast enough to replace existing ones, and doing messaging that influences users to commit early. In that way, you are growing Processing Volume with little or no long-term value.
Why is all this introduction important?
I am of the school of thought that a brand person must understand the product, influence culture, and manage all avenues of crisis exposure for a business. This means ensuring that the right product is launched, listening to customers and passing the feedback along to the product and business team in refined format (for example, instead of asking for faster horses, you can map data points to understand that the complaint is speed, so you suggest making cars instead). It also means seeing to it that even firing is done in a way that is empathetic, and many more responsibilities along that line.
In the grand scheme of things, you may see startups that don’t do X, Y, Z in terms of building a solid brand, and take them as a reason not to do same. But if you don’t understand the leverage they have to afford this as an opportunity cost, I don’t know if that should be something you are optimising for—especially when you have the means to bring on someone to manage that front for you.
I am saying: you are not building a solid brand if the quality of work does not substantiate the image and perception you are trying to drive. You are one use away from people finding out that you are a fraud. And if people don’t have an option but to use you for now, any serious business that has distribution, value for people, and equal or better quality of service will take your customers in no time.
So, when I talk about storytelling or building narratives, it is about telling stories of what is happening, what you are doing, the people you are doing it for, why it is important to them, and how your work affects the grand scheme of things with the little efforts you are making every day to ensure it compounds into your bigger picture.
It is not empty fables, and it is not viral spotting.
3 Pillars of Brand Storytelling
To make this practical, I see storytelling for brands resting on three pillars of narrative:
- Truth of the Product
- The story must begin with the product itself.
- What it does, how it works, and why it matters.
- If the product cannot stand up to scrutiny, no amount of narrative can save it.
- Connection with People
- The narrative must show who you are serving and why they matter.
- It is about listening, refining feedback, and reflecting the customer’s reality in your story.
- This is where empathy comes in—even in hard moments like layoffs, the way you communicate becomes part of your brand story.
- Vision of the Bigger Picture
- Every small effort should compound into a larger vision.
- The narrative must tie daily actions to the grand scheme of things.
- This is how you move from propaganda to substance: showing that your brand is not just chasing volume, but building value that lasts.
When these three pillars are aligned—product truth, people connection, and bigger-picture vision—storytelling becomes more than marketing. It becomes the substance that sustains a brand, even in the face of competitors who may come with distribution, value, and quality