Storytelling primer
An actionable world-building cheatsheet
Welcome to the Sociology of Business. In my last analysis, The cultural influence funnel, I linked cultural influence to its financial impact. Buy my book The Business of Aspiration and find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Threads. With one of the paid subscription options, join The Sociology of Business WhatsApp Community. Starting this week, I will feature a guest post on Thursdays.
The specifics of building a brand’s narrative world are threefold: there is a world-building cheatsheet, which specifies a series of questions to help brands tell their story; there is a story map, which connects the main theme of the brand story with its sub-narratives aimed at different audience segments and cultural audiences into a narrative universe; and the narrative rollout, which specifies the sequence and the connection between the story elements and connects brand story with its financial returns. The story rollout is considered in regards to the financial investment a brand makes into its narrative, and it has defined KPIs to make it financially accountable.
These three narrative pillars are detailed below.
World-building cheatsheet. Every brand has its own creative universe. The way this universe is experienced by a brands different audiences is a matter of storytelling. Most appropriate narrative format for the modern culture is interstitial storytelling, where there are continuous narrative bursts that are connected into a web of a wider story.
