Owing to an increase in the expectation level for brands, consumers seek satisfaction through the value of a brand image as well as the simple functions and benefits the brand has to offer. Consumers recognize brand as representative of their culture ...
Owing to an increase in the expectation level for brands, consumers seek satisfaction through the value of a brand image as well as the simple functions and benefits the brand has to offer. Consumers recognize brand as representative of their culture and their self-value, and not just a simple trademark. Therefore, it is necessary to provide emotional and creative experiences for a brand by comprehending consumers’ emotional needs that rises anew due to changes in the times, and by creating new concepts based on unique ideas and creativeness. By doing so, we create an intangible value through which consumers and brands communicate with each other.
Marketing through storytelling is an emotional marketing activity that attracts the sympathy of consumers for a brand through meaning and the story that is implied in the product rather than explaining the functional properties of the product. Owing to the increase in emotional consumption by consumers, the significance of brand-storytelling marketing has obviously been enhanced and the brand-story gains power and thus, intensifies the emotional ties between consumers and a brand. Through the brand-story, relationships between consumers and brand are not that of a subject and an object but as partners exchanging emotions on an equal level and such familiar relationships that have been formed between customers and brand unconsciously influences the judgment of customers over brand image. The customer creates inherent value that only he/she can feel through a unique brand-story. Although a brand itself is an intermediary thing between product and consumers, the story in a brand is “a tool for creating a relationship” between them. Therefore, the brand-story takes on the role of connecting each to the other strongly in order to form a communication relationship between consumers and a product in a correct way.
Successful marketing through brand storytelling takes on the role that forms a special relationship between consumers and brand through a consistent campaign and through communication strategies over a long time and therefore, maintains a lasting relationship that leads to brand loyalty and eventually forms “brand power”. That special relationship firms up the brand image and it becomes an unforgettable one combined with the memories and imagination of a consumer. Modern consumers are not satisfied with advertisements that simply express the functions of products or the practical value of a product; consumers pursue identity through symbolic value that comes from the brand itself. They tend to equate themselves with brand image.
Currently in Korea, active use of marketing through brand storytelling in the business field has been accepted more positively. A few researches have been made but there is a lack of more objective empirical study. Therefore, in this study, two issues were selected for research.
First, the types of brand stories were classified according to brand history and consumer lifestyle story and the influence of brand stories was identified in the consumer-brand relationship.
Second, by empirically analyzing the influence of types of brand storytelling on the consumer-brand relationship, this study aims to study effective ways for marketing through brand storytelling.