From unexpected voila! to an unanticipated brand storyline! One that emerges, slowly but surely, because brandstory partners know how to listen! How to genuinely listen to the brand’s stakeholders. Yes, genuine listening is much more than hearing and taking notes… listening is a skill that can be successfully developed only over time.
We have known some very smart, highly respected colleagues and collaborators over the years who, from our perspective, had become experts at “listening too fast!” Or, in other words, “listening” to what they are hearing, not to register the content for further analysis, but rather to prepare an immediate response to what they were hearing. Complicated? Perhaps, but the objective here is not to win a debate… but rather to absorb what each of the brand’s stakeholders are saying, for future short-term reference and interpretation.
For example, if all the brand’s interviewed stakeholders were to give the same answer to the same question, that would suggest an eventual storyline that familiarly reassures everyone. Almost a no-brainer exercise for story development.
However, as is (almost?) always the case, when the same question elicits a variety of different responses, listening becomes more important than ever! Listening, absorbing, analyzing, interpreting… thereby identifying previously unrecognized connections and an unexpected, unifying storyline. This is what brandstory brings to the party.