Storytelling and marketing: examples of how companies use these tools to create their identity

This thesis aims to represent a journey through the practice of marketing and storytelling to understand, with concrete examples, how companies and consumers can build their identities through these tools. Storytelling and marketing shape a company's identity, allowing the company to focus its resources on both the technical and emotional attributes it wishes to offer their customers. Identity is created and modified based on the company's offering and the ability to craft a unique story that identifies the brand and differentiates it from competitors. At the same time, these two tools also help consumers build their identity through their consumer experiences with brands. The work began by analyzing marketing, specifically distinguishing between traditional marketing and experiential marketing. Traditional marketing is a tool that companies have always used to position themselves on the market, build customer loyalty, and create a lasting competitive advantage. It is a type of marketing that focuses heavily on the product, sales, and differentiation from the competition through the quality of the products or services offered. The company must analyze the so-called 7Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Process, People, and Physical Environment. These aspects must be taken into account to create an effective marketing plan that can help the company generate profits and maintain a competitive advantage in its segment. Experiential marketing focuses on the consumer's experiences the company creates to present its products to potential consumers. Consumers are considered empowered because they have access to much more information and can make more informed decisions, especially through the use of the Internet. Today, consumers have the power to change the market, and companies must strive to build relationships with customers to offer them pleasant and satisfying experiences, both in terms of product quality and emotional impact. The company must analyze the so-called 7Es: Experience, Exchange, Extension, Emphasis, Empathy Capital, Emotional Touchpoint, and Emic/Etic Process. These aspects replace the 7Ps of traditional marketing, focusing more on the customer's experience during the experiential journey rather than the product itself. Lastly, it is important to analyze the practice of storytelling. Storytelling allows companies to tell their story and their values to potential consumers, seeking to create a strong emotional bond between the brand and consumers, who, thanks to the brand's story, can feel identified with it and shape their own identity. Thanks to storytelling, the company can share its identity with its target audience. The message the brand seeks to share through its narrative must convey sincerity; that is, it must be seen not as an advertisement, but as a communication in which a brand shares its story with like-minded consumers. With the advent of technology, companies have discovered new opportunities to share their stories, especially thanks to digital storytelling, that is, the possibility for companies to tell their story across various digital platforms with the potential to reach a wider audience. Storytelling, both offline and digital, is a way for a company to make itself known while simultaneously creating a relationship between the brand and consumers, and between consumers themselves, who will feel part of a community that shares the same ideals. Buying a product today no longer means buying it simply because consumers need it and are interested in its technical qualities. It means identifying with the brand's story and sharing its values. It is the experience a brand offers customers, both before purchasing the product and while they are actually purchasing it, that creates a positive memory of that brand and encourages them to come back the second time.