Visual storytelling is one of the innovative approaches in the era of digital marketing. Today, most leading businesses include visual content for promoting or building their brand identity. This gives authenticity to that brand helping build their customer trust. A recent survey by Stackla suggests that 86% of the audience looks for authenticity in a brand before putting their trust in its service or product.
In this blog, we will explore how storytelling helps to create brand identity, along with real-life examples on the use and impact of storytelling for brand identity building.
What is visual storytelling?
Visual storytelling is a process that uses rich visuals to communicate narratives, emotions, and messages in a compelling way. The visuals are not only attractive but also an efficient way to make information digestible. Nowadays, the visual way of storytelling is used in various industries for creating brand awareness, promoting a product, and so on.
What is brand identity?
Brand identity refers to the company’s personality/image that a business creates for itself. This includes the values, mission, and beliefs of the company. One of the key aspects of a brand identity is brand visual identity. And to establish this identity, a company can leverage storytelling and other methods of promotion.
Importance of Visual storytelling in creating brand identity
Storytelling through rich visuals is an effective way to establish a brand’s persona or identity. Here is why storytelling matters:
Emotional resonance
It is crucial to create visual narratives that can have emotional resonance with your audience. And visuals can evoke emotions better than text. Visual storytelling leverages the use of powerful imagery combined with strong messages that can create emotional resonance and make a message memorable.
Simplification of complex ideas
Many people find visuals easy to understand. Also, storytelling with visuals helps to simplify complex ideas. This is important specifically for industries that offer sophisticated and complex products and services.
Establishment of brand identity
Storytelling is also a compelling way to establish brand identity. Powerful visuals help brands drive their USPs, personality, and value creatively and cohesively.
Boosts engagement
Visual content also helps to improve brand engagement. As they generally have higher chances of getting shared than other kinds of content. This also helps to enhance brand visibility.
How to use visual storytelling to create brand identity?
Storytelling can be used to effectively establish a strong brand identity. Here are some ways to use visual storytelling for creating a strong brand persona:
- Know your audience
Before creating any visual content to establish your brand, it is crucial to know your audience and their expectations. Research about your audience’s tastes and values. Your visual communication must address their expectations for a better outcome.
- Use shared experience to connect with your audience
The best way to create emotional resonance in your audience is to tap shared experiences. This will help to create a sense of understanding and empathy, improving brand trust. Connecting with the audience over a shared concern will make your storytelling powerful.
- Use storytelling to communicate brand values
Brand value is an essential part of a company’s brand identity. One can use visual content to create narratives or stories that can easily communicate a brand’s values, beliefs, missions, etc, to the audience.
- Create a consistent visual brand identity
Using visual storytelling for brand establishment and promotions also includes creating a consistent narrative across various platforms. Remember that consistent visual stories can create a strong brand presence.
- Use storytelling to differentiate yourself from your competitors
Visual storytelling can be a powerful tool to differentiate your brand from your competitors and create a unique identity. Create visual narratives by highlighting aspects that set you apart from other businesses in your field.
- Create a brand persona through storytelling
Your brand persona makes your brand feel more relatable and human to your audience. Visual content can be an effective tool to create a unique and strong brand persona. By creating a reliable brand persona, you can improve your brand trust and identity.
- Focus on quality storytelling
Quality is key. And visual storytelling does not mean a series of images. It means merging a strong narrative with powerful images to create effective visual content. You will not be able to convince your audience if you do not use quality storytelling.
- Appeal to emotions
Use storytelling to appeal to emotions such as nostalgia, inspiration, delight, and compassion to make them easily connect with your brand. Visuals can more effectively appeal to emotions.
- Adapt to platforms
There are various platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more, where visual content can be promoted for your brand. However, your content must adapt to different platforms to ensure reach and engagement.
- Innovate with technology
One can also use innovative technology, such as artificial intelligence and AR/VR systems, to enhance the quality of your brand’s visual content. This will also help you in establishing a strong persona for your brand.
- Measure the impact
It is also important to measure the impact of visual storytelling for establishing your brand’s identity. Use KPIs such as conversion rate and website traffic to measure quantifiable growth.
Case studies: Successful use of visual storytelling for building brand identity
Here are some real-life case studies of the successful use of visual content for building brand identity:
- Nike
Nike is a prominent storyteller. It uses the empowering stories of athletes with powerful images of athletes, which is relevant to its audience.
- Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola celebrates the themes of togetherness and happiness. It generally uses images of sharing a bottle of Coke, which is true to its motto, “share a Coke”.
Conclusion
Brand identity building is essential for any business, and visual storytelling is one of the most popular and effective methods today, widely used for this purpose. Visual form of storytelling is one of the most innovative marketing approaches that involves dynamic visuals to promote any idea in the most appealing way. Above, we have discussed how storytelling helps in creating a brand’s identity. Also, companies like Nike, Apple, and Coca-Cola show the power of storytelling for brand identity building.
