Do You Need a “Brand Story?” Sort of.
Updated September 20, 2025
“Storytelling” is the word of the day in marketing. My social media feeds are a constant stream of ads for narrative-based brand strategy frameworks, all guaranteeing massive success. If they’re aimed at me as a strategist, they promise a full client pipeline. If they’re aimed at me as a business owner, they promise clarity and growth. The premise is often the same: use a "proven framework," often a productized kit, and watch the magic happen.
Most of these popular models are based on a similar idea: position your client as the "Hero" on a quest, and your brand as the "Guide" who helps them succeed. You’re Gandalf to their Frodo. You’re Morpheus to their Neo. Your role is to provide the plan or tool that helps them pull the sword from the stone. Quest achieved.
It’s a compelling and tidy package. But as a communications strategist, I have to ask: Is this specific, character-driven formula always the most effective way to build a brand message? I believe there's a more flexible and powerful approach, and my reasons are rooted in a long history of communication theory.
I’ve Seen This Movie Before
To understand my perspective, you need to know a bit about my background. My PhD is in a field called homiletics: the academic study of preaching. And decades before marketing fell in love with narrative, preaching had its own affair with storytelling as the ultimate form for a sermon.
This trend peaked in the 1980s. An entire generation of preaching thought leaders encouraged a move away from linear, deductive arguments toward inductive, story-shaped journeys where the congregation would "discover" the truth together. You didn’t make an argument; you just told an extended story and trusted that everyone would follow along with your allegory. Does that sound familiar?
But eventually, the phase passed. Practitioners realized that while story is powerful, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. The "allegorical story" wasn't a silver bullet that guaranteed transformation. Other rhetorical structures moved in, some incorporating story-like elements, and others using story in its more traditional role as illustration.
The lesson was clear: communication trends happen. Today in marketing, a specific kind of storytelling is the celebrated model. Tomorrow it will be something else. This history makes me hesitant to adopt any single framework as the final answer.
The Limits of a Structuralist Story
My primary critique isn’t that brand stories are bad, but that the popular frameworks rely on a particular structuralist approach to story that can be incredibly limiting. Models based on the "Hero's Journey" are excellent tools for literary analysis—for taking apart a myth or a movie after it’s been created. But they can be a clumsy blueprint for building persuasive communication from scratch.
When you force every brand and every customer into the rigid roles of "Guide" and "Hero," you often lose the very texture and nuance that makes a brand unique. Is every customer a "hero" on a "grandiose quest of self-discovery"? Sometimes they just need a shovel. Is every brand a "wise guide"? Sometimes a brand is an innovator, a partner, or a simple provider of a quality product.
This structural rigidity can lead to bland, one-dimensional output. For fun, I ran my own brand through a popular AI-driven tool based on this model. I filled its input boxes with detailed, value-rich text. What it produced was generic. My unique values around sustainability and inclusion vanished. My deep background in narrative theory was nowhere to be found. Why? Because those crucial details didn't fit neatly into the pre-defined boxes of its structure. The framework got in the way of the actual story.
From Structure to Experience: A More Rhetorical Approach
Craddock and Lowry influenced a whole generation of preachers to focus on narrative.
This is why I advocate for a different model, drawn from my academic background but perfectly suited for brand messaging. Instead of a rigid structuralist model, I prefer a more flexible, rhetorical approach to creating a "story-like" experience.
The tool for this that best balances power with accessibility is Eugene Lowry's "homiletical plot." (David Buttrick expanded on these ideas in his work Homiletic: Moves and Structures; I use his insights to further deepen Lowry’s thinking. But Buttrick’s book is, in his own words, “a doorstop” at just under 500 pages of often heavy-duty phenomenological theory. But I digress.)
Lowry’s model isn't about casting your brand and customer in pre-set roles. It’s about guiding an audience on an intentional psychological and emotional journey using story-like movements. The goal is to move them from a state of dissonance to a state of resolution, using five key stages:
Upsetting the Equilibrium (“Oops!”): Movement doesn’t begin with a satisfying status quo. You need to disrupt the equilibrium by articulating a problem, kick-starting the client’s realization that the current situation is undesirable.
Analyzing the Discrepancy (the “Ugh!”): You explore the complexity of that problem, showing you understand the "why" behind the developing tension as well as its effect on them. In Lowry’s imagery, it’s the slide downward.
Disclosing the Clue to Resolution (“Aha!”): You introduce a new perspective, an insight, or a possibility they haven't considered. This is the turning-point moment. This is where you introduce the solution to the problem.
Experiencing the Resolution (“Whee!”): You reveal how your product, service, or idea resolves the initial tension in a satisfying way, the upswing of relief and excitement. This is heavily reliant on imagery and imagination, painting a picture of possibility.
Anticipating the Consequences (“Yeah!”): You call the audience to action: click the button, subscribe, book an appointment, etc.
What could this look like in marketing? You could market a meal prep kit service this way:
Your evenings aren’t relaxing, and you find yourself more stressed than anything even after you get home from work. (Oops!)
The problem is you’re torn between wanting to spend time relaxing, playing with your kids, etc., but you have to get in the kitchen and cook. (Ugh!)
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were someone who could do the meal prep work for you? That’s what we do! (Aha!)
X Meal Prep sends you healthy meal kits every week, so you don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen. You can spend that time with your family, reading a good book… (Whee!)
Sign up for a discounted trial to discover how much better your evenings can be. (Yeah!)
This is, of course, a gross oversimplification. The process requires deep audience analysis and a combination of rhetorical content to really work. You need to know when to employ data, counterpoints, and other information. But you get the idea.
This approach uses the powerful dynamics of storytelling: building tension, reversal, discovery, and resolution. And it does that without being trapped by a rigid character structure. It’s actually as much musical as it is narrative, drawing from the experience of tension and resolution that drives music like jazz. It’s a framework for thinking about the audience's experience, not just your brand's role. It creates space for nuance, for unique values, a bit of argument and logic when necessary, and for a message that feels authentic and deeply resonant.
That is how you get effective, human-centered marketing. It's not about fitting your brand into a story. It's about using the power of story-like rhetoric to tell your brand's truth.
Interested in a more robust and rhetorical brand model? Let’s talk about building your brand’s message.
