Branding strategy through storytelling in marketing : The other side of the story

Sammanfattning: Background - What a company wants to communicate is today more correlated to their core values and within storytelling it is no exception. Storytelling is the art of using a story in focus in televised commercials and the products are used in the peripheral. Storytelling in televised commercials can create positive association and experience towards the brand and therefore increase the value. A pre-study was done to find suitable brands to continue the study with. The selected brands were Volvo Cars, IKEA and H&M since they were seen to be using storytelling and were high-valued brands in the Swedish product-oriented segment. Purpose - The purpose of this thesis is to examine brand identity through storytelling. This is exemplified by Swedish product-oriented companies. More specific, to investigate the coherence with consumers’ brand image and existing gaps. The companies that will be covered in this study are Volvo Cars and IKEA, whereas H&M did not meet the requirements for further analysis in this thesis. Method - To conduct this study, a qualitative research method was adapted. The research was done with a philosophical mindset of interpretivism with an inductive research approach. The data for the empirical chapter was collected by a qualitative multi-method where the first set of primary data came from a content analysis of commercials. The second set of data came from semi-structured interviews. The sampled respondents were chosen to match the companies’ target segments. It was handled as a multiple case-study where each company was their own case. The data was later analyzed through the Brand Identity Prism and its six facets for both the companies’ brand identity and consumers brand image. Results and Conclusion - The results in this thesis showed that the brand identity of the analyzed companies using storytelling were overall coherent with the brand image consumers had of them. Some gaps occurred for the brands, however not within the same facets of the Brand Identity Prism. Due to this no general conclusion could be drawn specifically for Swedish product-oriented companies. Overall, the researchers concluded that the use of storytelling could both develop and reduce gaps, depending on how it is done. Developing storytelling based on a clear brand persona and the core values of the specific brand would help companies to reduce gaps. Practical Implications - This thesis is providing useful information to managers and business leaders by showing how they can compare and analyze the coherence of brand identity and brand image when using storytelling as a branding strategy. Furthermore, the researchers give insights for how to manage and reduce gaps between brand identity and brand image.