Like con­sumers, every brand has a sto­ry. And, sim­i­lar­ly, some are bet­ter than oth­ers. But unlike peo­ple, per­haps, who may be hard-pressed to change their per­son­al­i­ties and/or back­sto­ries and retain authen­tic­i­ty, brands have an advan­tage in that they can hone their sto­ries to per­fec­tion and sub­se­quent­ly use them as mar­ket­ing tools.

Like any kind of intro­spec­tion, the task of boil­ing one’s essence down to a sim­ple state­ment and/or ide­al can be remark­ably dif­fi­cult, par­tic­u­lar­ly for brands that have con­duct­ed busi­ness with­out one – or a clear­ly defined one – for any length of time. Here’s why it’s worth the effort to invest resources to real­ly nail your brand’s sto­ry.

1. Connections

A brand sto­ry has the pow­er to forge valu­able con­nec­tions with con­sumers. “For brands start­ing out, an ori­gin sto­ry is imper­a­tive to estab­lish the emo­tion­al tra­jec­to­ry of the brand,” said Sean Miller, chief strat­e­gy offi­cer at dig­i­tal agency Rokkan. “When we meet new peo­ple, we often ask, ‘Where are you from?’ fol­lowed by, ‘What do you do?’ Know­ing the ori­gin of a per­son or a brand helps to cre­ate com­mon ground and estab­lish trust. It shows that the brand … is more than a sales pitch. It’s an enti­ty that has shared val­ues and beliefs.” Richard Jones, CEO of mar­ket­ing engage­ment plat­form Engage­Sciences, agreed. “By shar­ing where you came from, where you’re going, and what your world vision is, cus­tomers can more eas­i­ly iden­ti­fy with your brand per­son­al­i­ty,” Jones said. “In this way, your brand’s sto­ry is your most impor­tant mar­ket­ing cur­ren­cy.”

2. Affinity

What’s more, Mar­tyn Tip­ping, CEO of busi­ness intel­li­gence ser­vice Sto­ryScore, notes sto­ry­telling is impor­tant because con­sumers don’t want to feel they’re being sold to or preached at any longer. “They want to buy a brand that rep­re­sents their val­ues, or that embod­ies their aspi­ra­tions. And the best way to show peo­ple what you believe in and what you’re aim­ing for is to tell sto­ries,” Tip­ping said. “Sto­ries are made to be shared, and they’re more mem­o­rable than sim­ple facts.”

3. Distinction

These con­nec­tions are also essen­tial for brand recall, accord­ing to Cyn­thia Sred­nic­ki, CMO of Dreamweaver Brand Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Sim­i­lar­ly, Roger Wu, founder of spon­sored con­tent plat­form Coop­er­a­tize, said the key is to tell a sto­ry that is mem­o­rable enough so that when the time comes for a con­sumer to pur­chase, he or she can remem­ber enough of the sto­ry to prime Google into telling him or her the name of the brand. “Mar­ket­ing is get­ting more com­plex and while Google is the great last mile, no one is typ­ing ‘device that is made a by a com­pa­ny [found­ed] by Steve Jobs that con­nects me to my friends and fits in my pock­et’ in a vac­u­um,” Wu added. Fur­ther, mean­ing­ful sto­ries and con­nec­tions are par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant when it comes to – no sur­prise here – Mil­len­ni­als. “They’ve come of age in a tough econ­o­my and have seen an incred­i­ble boom in apps and ser­vices that do many of the same things,” Miller said. “When there are so many redun­dant offer­ings, which would you be drawn to? The one you can relate to and like the most.” In addi­tion, the shift in the way brands and con­sumers inter­act to more of a two-way exchange means brands must have a stronger sense of iden­ti­ty and devel­op a con­sis­tent per­sona as they nav­i­gate the myr­i­ad ways cus­tomers will seek inter­ac­tion, said Lily Croll, strat­e­gy direc­tor at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Wire Stone.

4. Advantage

A sto­ry-derived con­nec­tion can ulti­mate­ly prove a key com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. “With the vast amount of choice we have today as con­sumers, it’s often not the ratio­nal dif­fer­en­tia­tors that make a prod­uct or ser­vice stand out. It’s how it makes us feel, which comes down to the brand’s sto­ry,” said Kris­ten Nozell, brand strate­gist at Red Peak Brand­ing. Digital/mobile cre­ative direc­tor and con­sul­tant Tom Eslinger agrees brand sto­ry can be an impor­tant com­pet­i­tive dis­tinc­tion – even when a brand may not be the most com­pet­i­tive in oth­er respects. “Brand sto­ries are impor­tant as part of a brand’s over­all pres­ence – think Toms, War­by Park­er – where they use their brand phi­los­o­phy and sto­ry as the sharp end of their mar­ket­ing – they aren’t the best mate­ri­als, best con­struc­tion [or] most orig­i­nal, but they do good things for peo­ple,” he said. “I think that brands who have more ‘open-end­ed’ sto­ries that have their fans and cus­tomers weav­ing the sto­ry are more impor­tant.” A brand sto­ry pro­vides mean­ing­ful con­text, which, in turn, spurs com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, said Jamie Rodriguez, part­ner at dig­i­tal agency Tilt­ed Chair Cre­ative. “Peo­ple seek more than util­i­ty in a pur­chase these days,” Rodriguez said. “The best brands – and the ones set up to thrive in the 21st cen­tu­ry and beyond – are those savvy enough to wrap their brand or prod­uct in a more mean­ing­ful con­text. To tell a sto­ry. Doing so pro­vides cus­tomers with added val­ue beyond the sim­ple util­i­ty of their pur­chase: mean­ing.” Tip­ping agreed. “Sto­ries are also a great way of con­vey­ing a brand’s her­itage, back­sto­ry or crafts­man­ship,” he said. “Across every cat­e­go­ry, from beau­ty to beer, con­sumers are shift­ing from big glob­al mega-brands in favor of small­er brands with a unique sto­ry to tell.”

5. Focus

Dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant Bitu­in Callan­ta notes brand sto­ry helps brands fil­ter out ideas or upgrades that are not right for a giv­en brand. “My favorite clas­sic exam­ple is Dove and their tagline, ‘Real Beau­ty,’ because it reflects both the main prod­uct fea­ture – mois­tur­iz­ing cream – and the idea that real beau­ty is sim­ple, like the soap,” she added. But brand sto­ry can also help set con­sumer expec­ta­tions, notes Ben­jamin Nathan, direc­tor of pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Footage Films. Fur­ther, Bran­don Peach, brand strate­gist at mar­ket­ing agency EZMar­ket­ing, said a brand sto­ry is mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial because it “[gives] the brand key insights into how to best sat­is­fy its tar­get cus­tomer and [turns] that cus­tomer into a brand evan­ge­list.”