Storytelling brand: An experience that creates a path for brand loyalty?

Abstract

Storytelling brands are able to build meaningful consumer-brand relationships, due to their capacity to evoke emotions, create attachments and accomplish remembrance through symbolic contexts and powerful metaphors. The present study aims to evaluate if these relationships can constitute a path for brand loyalty. To evaluate this possibility, qualitative research was undertaken with 15 participants. They were asked to have an online brand experience with Ben & Jerry´s, a company that uses stories to transmit its values and corporate strategy. Later, they were interviewed to share their impressions, reactions, feelings, connections and memories that the interaction with the corporate website was capable to induce. Specifically, the intellectual and emotional dimensions of the brand experience were evaluated to determine if participants´ effects built bases for emotional and cognitive loyalty. The findings showed that effectively most of the participants were creating a path for brand loyalty through a storytelling brand experience. This empirical evidence supports the efficacy of storytelling as a communication tool. Furthermore, it makes marketers and managers think whether brand loyalty is more than repurchasing. Instead, it is becoming a relationship between consumers and brands, mediated by experiences.