Podcast

Park Howell

#427: Ch. 6, Mentor: How to Humanize Your Brand With its Promise, Gift, and Personality

As founders/co-creators/owners of our brand, we love to share stories about the wonders of our product or service offering.

It’s understandable.

We created an offering that solves a real problem our customers care about so why not show our provide to the world?

They only care about the outcome: what’s in it for them!

That’s why the first five chapters of the 10-step Story Cycle System™ are pretty much all about your audience.

Sure, you focused on your core brand story in Chapter 1 called “Backstory,” when you determined your #1 position in the marketplace: what you do differently and more distinctively than your competition.

But this is written from your audience’s perspective. Again, what’s in it for them?

In chapters 2 through 5 you prioritized your top three audiences. Clarified their emotional “wishes” and physical “wants” that fulfill their wishes.

You crafted your unique value proposition that connects with their view of the world.

You determined what is disrupting their world that shakes them out of the status quo, and how you answer that disruption to make you the most timely, relevant and urgent offering to help them get what they want.

And you increased the brand story tension by embracing the obstacles and antagonists in the forms of villains, fog and crevasses using the energy of these competitive forces to propel your brand forward to faster success.

Now, in chapter 6 of Brand Bewitchery called “Mentor,” it is ALL about you. This is where you formulate your brand personality, the themes of your brand storytelling, and essentially the character of your mentor/guide character that your customers will seek out to help them on their journey.

Discussed in this episode:

Reveal your authentic brand personality through universal archetypes.
Hear examples of personality archetypes that define iconic brands.
Find your brand descriptors using the “OOOH” exercise.
Learn from the nine one-word descriptors for the Business of Story and how to use them as the themes of your brand storytelling.
Embrace the emotional promise you make to your customers.
Present your brand gift.