Our Story
Our Process?
A voyage of discovery
We won't bore you with the details, suffice to say that we started by studying the process of storytelling and then applying it to brands.
We needed a test bench to measure our findings. So we selected the Superbrands 500 and said to ourselves that we needed to make sure that our process would work for all of them. That's what we mean by rigour.
Of course we needed a model to measure against. We needed to describe a brand’s story in a clear and concise way. The model we established is simple but powerful and will challenge any brand to clarify their point of view. Our three point model is a title, a plot and a twist.
- THE TITLE is close to the original concept of positioning. What is it about the brand that
uniquely differentiates it expressed succinctly. - THE PLOT is the skeletal storyline that the brand adopts to engage consumers.
- THE TWIST is the memorable surprise that disrupts your thinking making the story unforgettable.
The most challenging of these was the plot. You might be aware of the seven basic plots that authors have debated for many centuries. We studied them closely but of course they were developed for fiction NOT the reality of brands. We needed an equivalent. So we started to cluster the Superbrand 500 to discover how many definitive plots we could uncover. The answer might surprise you – there are 5.
- Transforms
basic into luxury
For brands that seek to change preconceptions. - Makes life simple
Behind every simple solution often lies a long road of toil and failure. The solution, once found, can have a mystical synchronicity. - Impossible
made possible
For brands focused on invention and innovation. - People’s champion
For brands that tap into the common consciousness and earn respect by meeting needs and solving widespread problems. - A different
view of life
Brands that break from
the norm, set trends and reinvent categories
Every brand can be matched to one of these basic plots. It is the title and twist that creates the diversity of brand stories and of course one other ingredient. That ingredient is the characters that drive the storyline. You'll have heard a great deal about brand archetypes as they have had enormous attention from both clients and their advisors. We concur they are extremely valuable but in our view are not the whole answer. We have adapted them to our storytelling process and in this way given them relevance, meaning and balance that we believe more powerfully exploits their potential.
