Brand Guide
Brand Messaging
Storytelling
Storytelling is one of the most effective ways to communicate. Instead of focusing on our products and their benefits, put the customer at the center of the story. Make the customer the subject, not the object. In this way, the customer becomes the hero who takes action and overcomes obstacles to achieve an objective
Overview
Power of storytelling
Good stories involve people overcoming challenges in a way that communicates a compelling message or makes an impression. We are fortunate to be surrounded by fascinating employees, leaders and customers—the building blocks of good storytelling. By connecting our products to their problems, we illuminate the intersection of people, public safety and our technology. This section will help you understand how to use the power of good storytelling to engages our audiences and add value to our business.
Components of storytelling
Components of storytelling
Before engaging with your audience, you must first clearly define your storytelling objective. To begin, create a problem statement that our brand solves. Defining the problem may begin with asking yourself a series of questions: who is using this product? What factors are affecting the user? What is the ideal solution for this problem? The process of defining the problem will focus your story, offering context and clarity from the outset and ensures you arrive at a succinct solution.
Creating a problem statement
To create a problem statement include the who, what, where, when and why of your issue. Clearly defining these elements will align all stakeholders on the issue at hand.
- Who: Define the individual or groups that the problem affects.
- What: Define the impact of the problem, what will happen if it is solved?
- Where: State where the issue is occurring, being as specific as possible.
- When: Clarify the timeline for when the issue needs to be fixed.
- Why: Describe the business or organizational impact the solution will have.
Customer personas
To craft an effective narrative, it is helpful to define your audience. Understanding who the story is being told to is essential when communicating key information. Begin by defining your audience’s needs, barriers, assumptions and language. This will ensure that key information is emphasized and no important elements or details are overlooked.
Beginning
Exposition: First, define the current state of the concept or story. Who is your consumer and what is their goal?
Inciting Incident: Within the story there must be an event or experience that triggers the need for the given product or service. This may be an emotional trigger point within the narrative.
Middle
Rising action: Define how the audience will discover the solution to the problem, i.e, the product or service.
Crisis: Showcase what resistance might stand in the way of your persona accomplishing their goals.
Climax/Resolution: The peak experience that resolves the crisis and showcases why your product or service is the solution to the persona’s problem.
End
Falling action: After the problem is resolved, the individual takes an action, often aligned with the proposed call to action, for example: completes a purchase, a sign-up or tries a demo.
End: The final scene of the story results in the persona meeting their goal and resolving the issue at hand. The end should succinctly tie the resolution back to the story origins, rearticulating the problem/solution dynamic and completing the circle of logic for the entire story.
Storyboarding
Our storyboarding framework
Our storytelling framework positions our customers as the hero of the story and our products and services as the solution to their core problem. Storytelling frameworks provide a guide for crafting a story from end to end that will resonate with your audience. Once you’ve established the core components of your story, audience persona and the problem and solution statement, you are ready to fill in the journey. In order to create a compelling story arc, we combine data, visuals and language that inject the right balance of logic and emotion. This combination drives engagement and motivates our audience to take action.
Storyboarding
Storyboarding is a tool that helps guide you in putting all of the pieces of your story together in a chronological order. It establishes a clear timeline of events and allows you to identify key scenes in the narrative. All major moments and scenes should be laid out in a format that follows the emotional arc. This arc follows the rise and fall of action, building up your character to the point of climax and resolution. Once these elements are established you may add all visual elements. This can be done initially with sketches, photos or iconography and then filled in with detail. Think of this process as your final map or blueprint for telling your story from end to end.
