A Longitudinal Study Of The Drivers And Effectiveness Of Brand Storytelling

With the ever-increasing number of advertisements in the market, consumers are becoming bombarded with messaging, and brands are trying to find ways to break through it all to reach consumers on a meaningful level. Marketing experts recommend brand storytelling as a way to improve the effectiveness of advertising by increasing the emotional appeal. However, the theory of brand storytelling and implementation among brands does not align; oftentimes in practice, brand storytelling merges into a blurry distinction between its core concept and simply narrative stories. This study set out to discover the differences in persuasion between brand storytelling and narrative advertising within marketing efforts. I explore which driving forces – narrative transportation and cognitive evaluation – lead to consumer persuasion in brand storytelling and how those effect long-term brand perception. The results show brand storytelling creates shortterm effects on cognitive evaluation and narrative transportation, but does not cause a significant difference in persuasion. Across time, brand storytelling does not differ from narrative advertising after a single exposure. Therefore it is recommended, among other things, that organizations utilize brand storytelling in an omni-channel strategy to increase impressions while integrating narrative advertising for repeat exposure as it offers less structure and lends to greater innovation.