Johan Snällfot

Storytelling is essential, but cannot be limited to a narrative in text or a verbal storyline. Your brand is competing for consumers' attention with a myriad of alternatives. Thus, the elements that tell your story must be visual, experiential and evoke strong memories or the urge to learn more. To achieve this, structure your storytelling around a consumer decision framework such as AIDA. For example: what part of your story, and in which touchpoint, will raise Attention?

Focus foremost on the monetary benefits that build your business case, typically increase in retention/frequency * total spend/net revenues/contribution. It is crucial to segment your customers, to provide proper incentives that generate these benefits. For example, a classic mistake is to provide loyal customers with discounts on their frequently bought products (which they would happily have paid full price for). Thus, be clear on your baseline case and the opportunity cost of your program.

Use your audience's expertise to involve them in defining relevant actions. When your audience co-creates the recommendation, it will be more aligned and you avoid the "not invented here" barrier. Present indisputable facts, the type of change required, and be clear on the value of acting on your findings. Then, introduce a useful format to work jointly on action planning. Keep in mind that the type of actions discussed, and the proper format, will differ vastly depending on your audience's roles and expertise.

To find your key message, start by pin-pointing the overarching change you want to achieve. Your key message needs to drive action toward this change. Even when change consists of many seemingly diverse parts, it will help to find a single theme to build your call-to-action around. Also, keep in mind that change is hard - but every journey worth pursuing starts with a first simple step.

Be your future customer's and society's voice in every interaction. Relentlessly start your planning, ideation and leadership in insights about what people and the world need from your business.

Brand management is an outside-in way of running your business. The first priority is actually to generate a solid market view, to understand which possible and current customers exist, and your brand's priorities to grow with them. Quantify the commercial opportunity of those customers, understand what they value from a brand, their current relation to your brand(s), and how you may cater to their needs in a better way than any other option they have.