Brand Narrativing Theory Which Is Composed Of Story Constructing And Story Communicating

Storytelling has become an important topic in the marketing area, and some scholars and marketers have suggested that it is an effective way to branding. But there is still a blank for us to know how to do branding through storytelling. Through the literature review in the 3 domains of narrative theory, story management and storing marketing, this research summarize and developes an initial theoretical framework of "branding by storytelling". Then, based on the normative case studies of 10 famous brands such as Coco-cola, Haier, LiNing, Mersedes-Benz and so on, this study developes a "Branding narrativing theory" framework, which contains two aspects with 6 dimensions and 17 specific items. The framework suggests the essence of the two aspects of good brand storytelling—one is what elements should a good brand story contains; the other is that what problems should be taken account in the brand storytelling process.This paper comprises four parts of introduction, theory development, case studies and conclusion. The introduction part includes the 1st chapter which mainly clarifying the background and significance of this research as well as the research purpose and contains. Theory development comprises the 2nd and the 3rd chapter, in which we bring forward a theory framework based on the review and analysis of the present literature such as narrative theory and branding research. Chapter 4 and 5 consist of the case studies and its finds. Chapter 6 consists of the forth part. We conclude the results and management and practice meaning. We also point out the limit in our research and make some suggestions to future research.The outline of each chapter is as follow:Chapter 1 is introduction. It points out the background and significance of the research. Storytelling has become an inevitable trend of branding. Many famous companies have succeeded in branding their brands through telling stories to consumers. Large bodies of research in narrative theory and story management have also proved that storytelling is a effective way to branding, while there is still a blank for us to how to branding through storytelling. Chinese brands are especially bad in branding through brand narratives. Based on above, we present the research topics and methods in the study. We take efforts on developing a systematic framework of branding narrativing and testing it by multiple cases research.Chapter 2 is literature review. We review the important literature at home and abroad that is related to the research topics such as story, narrative, branding and brand narrative. We also collect and analyse the research about the relationship between narrative and communication, narrative and marketing, and storytelling and branding.Chapter 3 is theoretical deduction. In this chapter we introduce an initial theoretical framework of "branding by storytelling", which is composed of brand story's constructing and brand story's communication, based on literature in the area of narrative theory, story management and branding. Brand story's constructing contains the work of creating story themes and brand content, and brand story's communication should act up to the principles of systematization, differentiation, simplicity and integrity.Chapter 4 is research methods. This chapter introduces the method of multiple case studies and explains why we choose to use it in this research. Then we determine 17 problems to be concretely analysed. We also display sample's selection process and the results. In addition, we display the methods for data collecting and data analysis.Chapter 5 is the case studies. Based on the coding framework in chapter 4, we analyse the brand narrativing practice of Coca-Cola, Haier, LiNing, Mercedes-Benz, MaoTai, Huang Helou 1916, Louis Vuitton, Tong Rentang, Starbucks and Daphne, using both data from enterprise and consumers. We conduct the analysis based on the 17 problems in Table 8, and find out all the 10 selected brands are good at branding narrativing and have achieved high marks in market. We summarize and demonstrate valuable findings in this chapter.Chapter 6 is research conclusion and prospect. Based on the before-mentioned theories and demonstrations, this chapter concludes the whole research result and gives discussion. The study makes the following academic contribution:firstly, this research puts forward an integrated theoretical framework of "branding narrativing", which is the most important contribution of this study. Secondly, this research enriches the research of brand story's construction and communicaion. The study also makes the following management contribution:if a brand wants to be good at storytelling, it should at first create a good story with positive themes, appropriate subjects and engaging content; then the brands should tell the story following the principle of systematization, differentiation, simplicity and integrity.In brief, this reviews the relevant theories and literatures on narrative theory, story management and marketing area, and systematically developes a theoretical framework for teaching brands to branding by telling stories. Then we test the framework by multiple cases studies of Coco-cola and other 9 brands. Finally, we develope a systematical theoretical framework of "Brand narrativing".