Business Today - Dec 2022 - Jan 2023 issue

Face of Business
When we say “creating meaningful brands
through stories,” it’s all about the value; and
this value can be financial and non-financial.
The brand is pretty much a promise [to the
consumer], and the main reason why a value of
a brand could go so high is because it is driving
value for a lot of key stakeholders and shareholders.
When we ask “what really builds the brand
in a meaningful way,” one very big pillar is
storytelling… because storytelling is all about
people, so [that] people can create associations
with those brands.
They see the brand as another human disguised
within a brand that connects with them,
and so, here, there are a lot of learnings that we
wanted to share; such as that storytelling, first
of all, is a commitment. It’s not a campaign, it is
not a formula. It is a commitment.
Lastly, stories are about people. They’re not
about products, so we cannot simply go and say,
“listen, here is the bottle and bubbles and all.
Yeah, that’s an ad. And it’s fine to do that as
well, because you need to promote the product
and what it does and the benefits it gives to people.
However, for you to create higher associations,
you need stories.
I’ve shared some key principles of how you
can drive successful storytelling, [but another]
is to take risks, because you can’t please everybody.
[The best examples] are artists.
If you [listen] musicians such as Duke Ellington
who had a phenomenal quote about
it or Dave Chappelle, who is a very polarizing
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