Forbes says brand storytelling is the future of marketing. But what does that actually mean in practice? And what can we learn from the people who do storytelling best, Hollywood?
Great writing, whether it’s a screenplay, a novel, or a brand narrative, is a function of upfront planning. Compare Batman Begins with Batman v Superman. The first had a clear, emotionally grounded arc. The second threw spectacle at the screen without earning it. The difference wasn’t budget or talent, it was narrative discipline. The same principle applies to brands. A product launch without an overarching story is just noise.
Novel and script writers understand the difference between plot, story, and character arcs. Plot is what happens. Story is why it matters. Character arcs are how people change along the way. There’s a direct parallel to how brands should think about product launches and brand narratives. The features are the plot. The customer transformation is the story. And the emotional journey, from problem to resolution, is the arc that makes people care.
The Return of the King won eleven Oscars. It was criticised for having too many endings. But Frodo’s quiet smile as he boards the ship at the Grey Havens is more memorable than the destruction of the ring, because it’s more emotional. The spectacle resolves the plot. The smile resolves the story. Brands that only resolve the plot, that only talk about features and outcomes, miss the emotional beat that makes people remember them.
Good writers are empathetic. They fire emotions in their audience because they understand what their audience feels. Brands need emotion too. Binet & Field’s The Long and the Short of It demonstrated that emotionally driven campaigns deliver significantly stronger long-term business effects than purely rational ones. Empathy is not a soft skill, it’s a strategic capability that separates brands that are remembered from brands that are merely seen.
Think about Game of Thrones and the Jaime Lannister bath scene. In a single monologue, the audience’s perception of a character shifted entirely. Empathy, engineered through great storytelling, changed the arc of a character and the direction of the entire series. That’s the power of narrative. And it’s available to any brand willing to do the upfront work.
