It’s becoming more common nowadays to hear commentators refer to a political leader’s or candidate’s “narrative” message. This concept, however, is yet to take deep hold in the business world, though it soon will.

A story, or narrative, in the general sense of the word is an explanation of events that can be recounted in detail through a series of connected occurrences. Narratives are essentially simple explanations that establish meaning; rather than seeing disorder and chaos, they pull apparently disjointed pieces and make them part of a whole. The story makes them whole. In politics, a candidate’s narrative may shift from foreign affairs to job creation. For an executive, it may center around innovation or expansion. Narratives can shift but always need to be a central force to organize and simplify what people are hearing. In either case, there always needs to be an explanation that addresses “why” that is simple and powerful – and preferably true. In politics, credibility of the narrative is often the subject of great debate. In business, it is the domain of extensive research, analysis and planning. Most businesses focus too much on underlying details and do not elevate the message to the level of corporate story or strategic narrative. That’s a mistake.

Creating or refreshing a brand is so much more than “look and feel”, color schemes, typography or a logo. In doing some research on exemplary brand guidelines recently, I saw a small blog post that I liked that lamented the challenge of getting good guideline examples. I am not sure if he ever succeeded. There needs to be a blend of the message and story (it’s voice and tone; what the brand says) and how the brand looks, feels and portrays itself.

When an organization wants to go down the path of strengthening, refreshing, repositioning or redefining its brand, the process can typically be long, painful and fundamentally confusing. Brand essence, positioning, promises, attributes, architecture, pillars, value drivers. It is no surprise that the process can leave most executives scratching their heads. What does all of this mean? It turns out it can mean almost anything depending on who you ask? This is not to say it is isn’t important for an organization, especially one that is growing, to consider what its strategy is and how this all fits together.

I feel unqualified to give a discourse on the difference between brand essence and brand pillars; I’ll leave that to a branding expert.

However, I feel that if you ask an organization to share its brand story in plain language, they will be forced to make something utterly complex and unintelligible simpler, and more meaningful. Or else, they risk wasting all the time and money they’ve invested.  A story, especially one about about a brand, needs to be strong and credible if it hopes to move people to action and mean anything to them.

The art of visual storytelling requires not only creating an interesting narrative flow but also the right combination of imagery, movement, music and text to sustain someone’s attention for a short time. Visual narratives do that with few words and a lot of motion. I recently ran across an example that we would classify as a Hybrid - Flash/video narrative because it uses video and animation together with voice over to tell a story. Worth watching: Click here