Storytelling: definition and method for your brand

What is storytelling?

Storytelling (sometimes written “story telling” or “story-telling”) is a communication method that gets a message across through a narrative.

The Larousse dictionary clarifies the usage: a political, marketing or management communication technique that promotes an idea, a product or a brand through the story told about it. It seeks to convince through emotion more than through argument. The word also refers to the story itself.

In marketing, storytelling serves three uses: telling the origin and mission of a brand, telling the experience of its customers, and staging a proof (a figure, a commitment, a change). It is part of a content marketing strategy and gives shape to the content that strategy plans.

Why does storytelling work in marketing?

Because a story captures attention and partly suspends critical thinking. Psychology research calls this phenomenon narrative transportation. Its effects are measured, but more modest than most guides promise.

In 2000, psychologists Melanie Green and Timothy Brock defined transportation as absorption into a story: mental imagery, emotion, attention. In their four experiments, the more transported readers were, the more their beliefs matched those of the story and the more favorably they judged the characters.

The table sums up what three reference studies measure.

Two nuances matter. The van Laer meta-analysis measures a link with the degree of immersion, not the difference between a page with a story and a page without one. The Braddock and Dillard meta-analysis points out that earlier tests gave mixed results, and flags factors not yet identified.

How do you build storytelling?

Storytelling is built by starting from the audience and the message, then choosing a structure. The three parts below give the elements, the structures and the steps.

The elements of a story

There is no official list of the “foundations” or “rules” of storytelling. Analyses of narrative do, however, converge on a few stable elements.

The folklorist Vladimir Propp studied about a hundred Russian folktales (Morphology of the Folktale, 1928). He identified 31 functions and 7 character types, including the hero, the villain, the helper and the donor (BnF Essentiels). Transposed to marketing, this pattern gives a useful rule: the customer is the hero, the brand plays the helper who assists them.

The van Laer meta-analysis identifies three factors under the storyteller’s control: characters people can identify with, a plot they can picture, and verisimilitude. Their effects on immersion are small, but significant.

Common structures

No structure is mandatory. The lists of “7 rules” or “7 types of stories” that circulate refer to no official framework that we have identified. Three documented models cover most marketing needs.

The narrative schema is the one taught in French schools (Réseau Canopé, 2022). Bremond’s three stages condense Propp’s functions. The SCQ framework comes from The Minto Pyramid Principle (1996 edition): it is used to state the question the reader is asking before answering it.

The steps to write your own

1. Set the goal: build awareness, reassure before purchase, recruit, get a new use adopted.
2. Choose the audience: a precise segment, with its vocabulary and objections.
3. Phrase a single message: the sentence the reader must remember.
4. Gather verifiable facts: dates, decisions, figures, authorized testimonials.
5. Choose the structure: narrative schema, three stages or SCQ, depending on the format.
6. Adapt to the channel: length, image, call to action, then move on to persuasive writing for the text that drives action.

Step 4 is what separates a brand story from advertising fiction. Without facts, the story does not survive checking by a customer or a journalist.

What is brand storytelling?

Brand storytelling tells why a brand exists, who it acts for and what it has done to prove it. It follows from identity and positioning: before writing, you need to know how to build your brand (mission, values, promise, tone).

The brand story then serves as raw material for brand content: “About” page, videos, article series, executives’ public statements. Each format picks up the same thread, with different episodes.

Storytelling examples, with comments

The three examples below are analyzed from the brands’ own publications. The analysis covers the structure of the story, not its commercial results, which no verified source measures here.

Michelin: a guide to make people want to drive

According to the official MICHELIN Guide page, the guide was born in 1900. André and Édouard Michelin, founders of the tire company, wanted to give drivers useful information for traveling in France: refueling, repairs, lodging, meals. Printed in 35,000 copies, it was “offered free of charge to drivers”. It became a paid publication in 1920; the first star appeared in 1926.

The hero is the motorist, the obstacle is the unfamiliar road, the help is the guide. The product sold, the tire, stays in the background: the story is about travel, on which the brand’s business depends. The official page says so: the idea was to bet on the growth of the automobile, and therefore on that of the group.

Patagonia: a mission story proven by an act

On September 14, 2022, Patagonia announced that the Chouinard family had transferred ownership of the company to two entities (Patagonia Works press release). The Patagonia Purpose Trust holds the voting stock (2% of the shares). The Holdfast Collective holds the rest (98%) and receives the profits not reinvested, to fight the environmental crisis.

The message fits in one sentence from the founder, Yvon Chouinard: “We’re making Earth our only shareholder”. The story rests on a legal decision, announced first to employees and then on the website with a letter from the founder. The proof comes before the story.

Spotify Wrapped: every user becomes the hero

Spotify launched Wrapped in its current form in 2015. The 2025 edition, presented on December 3, 2025 on the Spotify Newsroom, turns each user’s listening over the year into “stories”: minutes listened, tracks, artists, favorite genres.

Here, the brand tells the user’s story, based on their data, then gives them cards to share on social networks. Each story is personal, and its spread goes through the audience itself.

What are the limits of storytelling?

Storytelling is not the best proof in every case, and a story can produce the opposite of the intended effect.

• Numbers convince better for some goals. According to the meta-analysis by Zebregs et al. (2015) in health communication, statistical evidence has a greater influence on beliefs and attitudes. Narratives have a greater effect on intention.
• The effect can be small. Across 25 health studies (9,330 participants), Shen, Sheer and Li (2015) measure a small overall effect of narratives on persuasion. Print narratives have no significant effect, unlike audio and video.
• A story can backfire. Among 256 low-educated adolescents, a narrative anti-smoking brochure did no better than the informational version, and over time made attitudes toward smoking more positive (de Graaf et al., 2017).
• The audience does not sort things out. In Green and Brock’s experiments, presenting a story as true or as fiction generally did not change its effect. Responsibility for accuracy therefore lies with the storyteller.

The French writer Christian Salmon has made a fundamental critique. In Storytelling. La machine à fabriquer des histoires et à formater les esprits (La Découverte, 2008 paperback edition), he describes storytelling taken over by marketing and communication, replacing reasoning.

For a first storytelling piece, start from a real fact about your brand or a customer, write it with the narrative schema, then check every claim before publishing it.