6 Keys To Make Your Brand Storytelling Surprisingly Simple and Effective Like NIKE.
Sy Minh Thang Chu
Master's Student at Warwick Business School | Product Marketing | Digital Marketer | Build customer-centric strategies for sustainable growth
Last month, I did a quick survey on LinkedIn asking professionals about a skill they would desperately strive to master if they restarted their careers.
The 4 options are storytelling, market research, content creation, and positioning.
Surprisingly, 37% opted for storytelling.
Frankly, this is absolutely unexpected for me. But here's some research on this matter.
According to cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner, stories are remembered 22 times more than facts alone. Research on the role of storytelling advertising discovered that story-driven video ads increase brand awareness, loyalty, and perceived worth through narrative transportation (the audience immerse themselves in a fictional world created by the story).
That said, it's not always easy for brands, especially small ones, to develop and communicate their stories with the audience due to the lack of universal storytelling framework and technique.
In this newsletter, I'll introduce a new storytelling infographic that breaks down the complicated storytelling process into key simple components, all written in a digestible way using the latest Nike's commercial - "WINNING ISN’T FOR EVERYONE" as a prime example.
After the article today, you'll:
1. Understand exactly what story to tell and who it's for.
2. Figure out why storytelling matters and what makes it different from ordinary communications.
3. Stop being afraid of telling a boring story and start building a better story for your brand.
Please watch the commercial carefully before moving on to the analysis of the infographic.
Let's get started!
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1. Brand Essence
To know what your brand story is, you MUST understand the core purpose that justifies your brand's existence beyond just selling products and earning money.
Brand essence includes your brand's fundamental beliefs and the change it seeks to bring in the world. In other words, it's your vision, mission, and value proposition.
Understanding your brand essence means identifying the central promise and belief that drive your brand's actions and messages. It's the emotional heartbeat of the brand that consumers connect with on a personal level.
Please read my recent blog on how to craft vision, mission, and value statements for the foundation of your brand strategy.
For example, here's what Graham Hooley, John Saunders, and Nigel Piercy defines a great mission statement.
Throughout the commercial, Nike has clearly tried to tap into its core brand essence: "To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world" by portraying a character who confronts negative traits like selfishness and obsession.
This confrontation comes from Nike's conversations with hundreds of athletes to learn more about their thoughts and mentality.
For example, "I’m addicted to winning," says NBA phenom Victor Wembanyama. "The chase is what I love and what I live for."
The brand embraces the unvarnished reality of competition. Winning isn't just for everyone; it's for those willing to embrace their darker side to achieve their goals. Nike believes in pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo.
2. Plot
A plot is the backbone of any story, it involves transporting the audience into the narrative and immersing them in a fictional world promoted by the brand.
The plot often follows familiar structures like "The Hero’s Journey," which involves overcoming obstacles, facing villains, and achieving transformation.
A well-constructed plot keeps the audience engaged by creating tension and anticipation.
2.1 The Hero's Journey
The hero is typically the character the audience roots for, or someone they can relate to or aspire to be. Simply, it's an ideal customer persona.
Marketers should choose a journey that mirrors the challenges and aspirations of their target audience. This involves identifying a relatable struggle or goal that resonates with the audience’s real-life experiences.
I highly recommend you to read The 20 master plots by Tobias (1993) to better understand what journey/plot you should choose for your brand.
Nike's heroes in the ad include professional athletes, showing raw ambition and relentless drive. The journey is one of self-confrontation and resilience, challenging the audience to embrace their darker, less talked-about motivations as part of their drive to win.
2.2 The Villain's Nature
The villain in a story is the biggest opponent or antagonist forces that the hero must overcome to reach his goals. That said, the villain isn't necessarily a person; it can be anything from societal pressures or even self-doubt.
In the ad, the villain isn’t a person but rather internal flaws: selfishness, obsession, and a lack of empathy.
These are portrayed as antagonistic forces that our society typically hates and condemns, yet they are framed as necessary traits in the pursuit of greatness.
2.3 Internal vs. External Conflicts
Internal conflicts act as battles within the hero's mind such as self-doubt, fear, insecurities, and ethical dilemmas. They add depth to the hero and make their journey more relatable.
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In contrast, external conflicts are outside, out-of-control challenges caused by the villain that the hero must deal with during the story.
As we can see in the ad, Nike has presented us with a series of internal conflicts to emphasize the harsh self-assessment and societal judgments, while the external ones highlight the pressure to win and the society's tendency to criticise the winner's methods and motivations.
The repeating "Am I a bad person?" aims to challenge what the public typically think of people with the winning mindset.
2.4 The 'God' Moment
The ‘God’ moment is the turning point where the hero has a revelation or a decisive moment of action.
For brands, this could be a moment of realisation for the hero, typically triggered by the benefactor (the brand), which inspires action or a significant change.
Again, this moment occurs when the protagonist repeatedly asks, “Am I a bad person?”, which serves as a challenge to the viewer to reconsider their own values around winning and embrace their drive unapologetically.
2.5 The Winning Award
This is the ultimate outcome of the hero's journey, ending as a victory, transformation, or resolution. This is where the brand helps the hero achieve their goal, reinforcing the brand’s role as a crucial enabler of success.
Nike's commercial doesn’t explicitly depict a traditional win; rather, it redefines winning as the sheer willingness to pursue success despite societal judgment.
The real victory is in embracing one’s own ambitions fully, aligning perfectly with Nike’s brand essence: "Just do it."
3. Purposes
The purpose behind a story is what it seeks to achieve.
Ashley Fell, in her TED Talk on storytelling in the digital era, has identified the 4 I's purpose of storytelling, namely Inspire, Instruct, Involve, and Interest.
A storyteller's role is to provide value, making the audience feel involved and connected. A storyteller is a value giver, not an annoying salesman.
The purpose of Nike's ad is clearly multifaceted. The brand wants to provoke, inspire, and challenge the audience. Nike doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable truths about the nature of winning and competition.
By asking, “Am I a bad person?” repeatedly, the ad inspires viewers to confront their own judgments and biases. It’s not about encouraging bad behaviour, but about questioning societal norms around ambition.
4. Problem & Pursuit
At a very profound level of storytelling, the brand MUST tell its audience about a problem that needs to be solved and a dream that drives the narrative forward.
It’s about articulating the problem clearly and mapping out the pursuit. What steps are needed, what roadblocks might appear, and what the desired outcome looks like.
This helps in creating relatable and engaging narratives that mirror the audience’s own experiences.
The problem presented in the ad is not just external competition, but internal conflicts, including the harsh self-criticism and societal judgment faced by those who pursue greatness with ruthless intensity.
The pursuit, therefore, is twofold: overcoming the external odds and the internal doubts. By focusing on the protagonist's obsession and drive, Nike highlights the pursuit of winning as a relentless, almost pathological journey.
5. Relatability
A great story must make the audience relatable, as it’s what makes a narrative resonate on an emotional level with the audience.
When a story taps into universal feelings such as pity, fear, or catharsis, it creates a bond between the storyteller and the audience.
Julian Friedmann’s TED Talk provides a great framework to help storytellers engage their listeners on a deeper level. Julian posits that storytelling should trigger the following emotions among the audience:
Throughout the ad, Nike uses relatability by tapping into common yet often unspoken feelings of self-doubt, obsession, and the fear of judgment.
In the ad, the protagonist repeatedly questions, “Am I a bad person?” This relentless self-doubt and harsh self-critique pull the audience into a space of empathy.
He tries to present the inner dialogues many face in their own lives. The ad doesn't try to depict a rosy life of success; instead, it shows an honest, almost uncomfortable look at what it takes to reach life success.
At the end, the bold and challenging request: "Tell me. Am I? Does that make me a bad person? Tell me. Does it?" subtly aims to persuade viewers to embrace their full selves and even flaws. It’s a powerful message of self-acceptance and defiance against conventional moral judgments.
6. Data
Data isn't necessarily about raw statistics. Instead, it refers to meaningful and surprising insights that add credibility and relatability to the narrative.
Data-driven storytellers are all reliable change makers. They know what they're doing and how they're changing people's lives with proven insights.
The case of Nike doesn't overtly show us numbers or hard data, but the underlying message about the rarity of true competitive drive implies a state of exclusivity that can be backed by data on the small proportion of athletes who are able to achieve greatness.
Nike’s strategic use of the ad reinforces the idea that not everyone is cut out for winning, representing the unspoken data about how hard and stressful it is to win and pursue winning.
For those who want to learn more about integrating figures into storytelling, I'd recommend analysing Dove campaigns for Real Beauty (I've written a post summarising Dove Campaigns for the last 20 years with clear data and insights).