The Magic of Role Casting

I have just finished my Brand Storytelling class I teach every fall at the University of Miami’s Business School which gives me the exciting opportunity to work with fresh minds.

The course is offered as an elective as part of the marketing track.

This time around I decided to do something different and use a simple story students can play an active role in.

I divided the class into startups with 2 co-founders each. So they have a tight ownership on the whole process.

Their mission was to dream up new products and plan brand storytelling strategies to bring them to market using my?visual storytelling framework.

Throughout the course, I refer to them?as co-founders of startups,?not students working in project teams.

The high level of engagement and passion they put into coming up with timely product ideas and innovative visual storytelling approaches to bring to life their brand narratives - taught me an important lesson.

The co-founder role magically allowed them to?get into character?and behave like one, even though it was just a simulation.

The Right Name Builds Identity and Engagement

To boost engagement you first want to tell a relatable story where you not only give your customers the?hero roles?but also use a?meaningful?naming strategy for their leading characters to motivate them even further.

Are you casting your customers in?meaningful roles?

Extra Three Examples

Healthcare

This reminds me I once attended a talk by a guy who wanted to revamp the healthcare experience for visitors by starting with a simple naming change.

How about replacing the label ‘patients’ that conveys helpless passivity with?‘athletes’?that is all about being proactive and gives the whole experience wellness and spa vibes?

Why focus on the negative if you can boost moral and overall culture with a positive name?

Software

Another example comes to mind from the time I lived in San Diego and was working in a startup with the ambitious mission to take a bite from the Mac and Windows market and adopt a Linux based OS for their computers.

As part of marketing strategy we identified our diehard product fans and created an advocacy program with custom content to arm them in spreading the word out.

And guess how we called these super fans, not brand advocates, loyalists, evangelists or ambassadors but?Lraisers?(L for Linux but also jives with hellraisers).

This simple label, anchored on the metaphor of Hellraisers Motorcycle Club ignited their enthusiasm, built their identity, exclusive community with special perks to keep them going.

NFTs

Maybe the most vivid example of the power of story and naming strategy to build engagement, identity, utility and exclusive community - is the insane success behind?The Bored Ape Yacht Club’s NFT craze, last year.

The narrative premise is about bored crypto billionaires that hang out in a swamp club with a bunch of apes and get weird.

If you read how they describe their NFT collection on their website, you’ll find a detailed world-building strategy with a consistent naming approach for all the digital collectibles, activities, and members-only benefits.

For a deeper look, check out this insightful interview with Nicole Muniz, Yuga Labs CEO on Bored Ape Yacht Club’s backstory and its unique community dynamics

Co-founder Wylie Aronow says they chose the ape for their NFT mascot to echo in the cryptocurrency phrase?aping in,?which means placing a huge bet on a new cryptocurrency or NFT.

This allowed people to?easily picture themselves?in this unique world by simply buying a computer-generated digital collectible of a bored ape to give them more than just access to a membership club.

The project was released on April 23rd, 2021 for a mint price of .08 ETH, which was $200 US dollars at the time. Bored Ape Yacht Club sold out within 12 hours since it started minting. As of 2022, sales have totaled over US$1 billion with a ton of celebrities jumping in.

True, additional success drivers were the rule of scarcity, the perceived artistic value, the elaborate community marketing roadmap, and the status symbol to the point where owners posted their NFTs as their headshots on Twitter profiles.

What Could This Mean to Your Brand?

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