The Art & Science Of A Good Story
At the heart of the practice of branding is the creation of powerful stories. A powerful story for a major consumer goods company. A powerful story for an AI startup. A powerful story for a successful entrepreneur. A powerful story for an aspiring artist or creator. For the purposes of this article, the who matters less than the what.
And the what is great storytelling.
Great branding requires a mastery of storytelling. And master storytellers use a bit of art and a bit of science.
The science is easier to explain.
The Science Of Storytelling
Let’s use an AI startup as our example. Last year, we worked with a startup developing the next generation of AI inference hardware and software.
To identify the roots of a great story for our AI startup, we do four things. First, we look at what makes the company special and unique. What do they do incredibly well?
Second, we look at the competitive landscape. Who do they compete with? What do those competitors, in turn, do really well? What are their weaknesses? And what are they communicating from a branding point of view? What’s their story?
Third, we look at their customers or potential customers. What do they need? What are their unmet needs that are currently unaddressed in the space? If they’re working with a competitor, why? What would make them change?
Fourth, we look at the market. What big trends are impacting the industry? What trends are impacting customers and potential customers? Does the startup have an emerging advantage in a new technology?
These four things help us identify the business and brand opportunity space. This is the foundation of the story.
The science above helps us understand the foundational story for our AI startup client.
They excel at making hardware purpose-built for AI inference. Their chips supplement, rather than replace, GPUs (which were invented for a previous era of computing), solving many of the compute and economic factors holding back mass AI inference. Their software allows the hardware to thrive.
Their competitors largely extend legacy CPU-centric architectures, often creating closed systems that leave GPUs underutilized. NeuReality differentiates by complementing existing GPUs with a new technology and a new type of architecture that outperforms the legacy approach.
Their customers and potential customers struggle with AI inference that is too complex, costly, and inefficient to deploy at scale.
The market is hitting an inflection point as AI inference outpaces infrastructure designed for a pre-AI era. Rising cost, energy, and performance demands are driving a shift.
Now that we’ve used the science of storytelling to create a foundation of knowledge, it’s time for the art of storytelling.
The Art Of Storytelling
In the branding world, that means the name of the company, the tagline or positioning, the logo and brand identity, and the narrative storytelling.
For our AI startup client, we created the brand positioning and tagline, “We Make AI Shine.” This is the creative headline that sits above their points of difference: their role as an enabler of the AI ecosystem and the performance benefits that come from their novel approach. Additionally, this is the creative headline that rallies their internal teams—creating unity of purpose and message.
We created a powerful logo and brand identity that visually conveys the idea of “shine.”
And we created the narrative storytelling through messaging frameworks and web copy that established the internal consistency needed to tell a powerful, uniform story that stands apart externally.
At its core, the story is simple. Our client makes the AI ecosystem shine, allowing customers and their solutions to perform at their full potential. That simple story galvanizes internal audiences first and then reaches the market through powerful branding and communications.
That is the art and science of storytelling – and the primary job of a brand agency.
