The future of a brand is dependent on its transparency and commitment to social responsibility and ethical behaviors. To reach new customers and gain the trust and loyalty of existing customers, brands must evolve and adapt their storytelling practices to reflect these values.
This article explores the key principles of ethical PR storytelling as part of a broader PR strategy, outlining the need to align brand narratives with genuine social responsibility efforts. We will discuss how to craft compelling stories that can resonate with target audiences, ethically, without exaggeration, and free of manipulative techniques.
The overall goal of the article is to outline how ethical considerations can be integrated into every aspect of brand storytelling, from initial concept to final delivery.
Understanding brand storytelling
Brand storytelling involves using a narrative driven by values, often taking an emotional angle. This helps to create a connection between a business or organization and its customers, emphasizing brand values interestingly and authentically.
Many brand narratives take a human edge, with most consumers more likely to respond well to or be influenced by stories that feature real people and real challenges. An effective brand story manages to link this narrative with the overall brand, and the business’s services and products.
Successful brand storytelling helps to create positive brand associations and an identity that is well-perceived in the public eye. To achieve this, it is vital that a business fully understands its customers, including what they expect from brands in terms of ethical and social commitments.
The key principles of ethical storytelling in PR
In PR, ethical storytelling has become an essential tool in putting across a brand’s identity and values. Whether a company has a deep commitment to protecting the environment or a small business makes a continued effort to help the local community, it is important to reflect these core values in marketing campaigns to connect with customers.
Typically, ethical storytelling will adhere to 5 key principles to ensure narratives are appropriate, convincing, and factually correct:
- Stories should be authentic – Any brand narrative needs to be completely authentic and built around genuine brand values. If a business is committed to a real cause then this should be reflected across all marketing material and the message should be consistent throughout.
- Ensure messaging is respectful – All storytelling must be respectful towards a broader audience, from customers to the wider community. This means campaigns should include a diverse range of people, including different genders and ethnicities.
- Be transparent – Successful brand storytelling requires transparency and truthfulness, avoiding any exaggerations or misleading information that could be questioned later.
- Avoid stereotypes – Portraying harmful stereotypes can significantly damage a marketing campaign and ethical storytelling should take measures to break down such barriers and be as inclusive as possible.
- Respect different cultures – Brand storytelling needs to be sensitive toward cultural contexts, showing an understanding of different beliefs and cultural nuances, that could otherwise leave some minorities feeling undervalued.
Examples of great ethical brand storytelling
Some of the biggest brands in the world place great importance on ethical storytelling, establishing themselves as trustworthy and reputable organizations that care. This includes:
- Patagonia – The American outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia is famed for its commitment to environmental sustainability, constantly sharing stories of its sustainable practices and launching new initiatives to help protect the planet. Patagonia also excels at encouraging user-generated content, sharing the experiences and adventures of its outdoor-loving customers to create an emotional connection.
- Allbirds – The ethical shoe brand, Allbirds prides itself on using responsibly sourced materials, emphasizing its strong commitment to sustainability and the environment. This message is continuous in all of its marketing material, with its visually stunning advertisements embodying its strong values.
- Away Travel – Away is a luggage and travel accessories brand that focuses on ‘thoughtful travel’ and has created a strong sense of community. Away’s customers regularly interact with the brand by sharing travel photos, stories, and inspirational quotes.
How to craft an ethical brand story
There is no exact formula for crafting a successful brand story and each brand needs to assess its strengths and weaknesses before designing a narrative that meets the expectations of its customers. However, there are some guidelines and best practices a PR team should follow when developing their ethical storytelling strategy.
Be organized and develop a narrative framework
Before the finer details of a brand story can be considered, it is recommended to develop a narrative framework to outline the overall goals of the story, what needs to be included, and how it will be structured. Various platforms can assist PR teams in developing a framework, making it easy to collaborate and share ideas with the wider business.
When creating the framework, you should approach things like a traditional story, with a start, middle, and end, key characters, and an overall plot. Of course, elements of the story can always be reviewed and refined, but it is important to stay loyal to the narrative and not deviate away from the core values of the business.
For large businesses that have complex brands that can sometimes overwhelm PR teams, you could need brand management software, but most narratives in the context of social responsibility or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), can be managed, executed, and repurposed with just the right organizational framework.
Once you have a narrative framework that works, you should store it as a backup in Sharepoint, G-Drive or another cloud platform to keep your notes and ideas secure. Organization is key to great PR, so give your notes titles that are easy to recognize and ensure folders are password protected, only using strong passwords.
Focus on building trust
Brand storytelling needs to be genuine to develop the trust of the audience and maintain ethical integrity. A genuine and authentic brand story can build strong connections between a business and its customers, highlighting the efforts that are being made to apply social values and look beyond the four walls of the business.
Authenticity can also help to differentiate your business from its competitors, sharing unique content involving real people, such as customers, employees, or business stakeholders. This could be in the form of volunteer days at a local charity or fundraising events for a worthy cause. Highlighting how the actions of the business are having a real-world impact.
Be transparent and avoid spin
Transparency and honesty not only help to build trust, but they can also avoid issues further down, even legal issues if it is discovered that you have posted false or embellished information online. Openness needs to be the foundation of any brand storytelling, creating a culture that favors honesty and contains no fabrication.
A brand that is found to be loose with the facts, embellishes stories or alters figures and statistics can suffer significant consequences, losing the trust of its customers and being looked upon unkindly by the public. A simple social media faux pas can be extremely costly, with news now traveling faster than ever, brands can suffer irreparable reputational damage and trust erosion if discovered to be untruthful.
Construct a narrative with SEO and social media in mind
PR and digital marketing go hand in hand which is why any brand story needs to take into account search engine optimization (SEO), creating highly searchable content and on-trend to drive web traffic.
Blogs are one of the best ways to drive a narrative, while also being an effective SEO tool. Blog posts can be easily shared across social media and also target keywords and phrases to form part of a wider SEO strategy. If the narrative is weaved through blogs consistently, and the traffic rises, this can be an effective form of white hat link building—the act of earning links to reputable sites through content that is of high quality and organically findable.
Social media platforms allow brands to engage with their customers and target audience, with user-generated content now becoming the holy grail of online marketing. Encouraging customers to share photos and videos of them engaging with your brand and product is the key to building a trustworthy and caring brand image.
Conclusion
Ethical brand storytelling is a PR art form that allows businesses to connect with their target audience in a compelling, interesting, and engaging way. To ensure the narrative is ethical it is crucial to make sure it is always honest and transparent while focusing on building trust and customer relationships.
With an effective brand that portrays a company’s social and ethical values, businesses can outpace their competitors and reach new, previously untapped audiences.
