Let Us Tell You a Story: Signature Stories – Strategic Messaging in an Intriguing, Authentic & Involving Way
(2020) BUSN39 20201Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Thesis Purpose: The main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the academic literature on signature stories. This will be done through three main aims. Firstly, by exploring if there are additional ways in which organizations can find and identify story heroes. Secondly, by exploring how organizations can communicate signature stories in different cultural contexts in order for them to be perceived as intriguing, authentic, and involving. Lastly, by demonstrating why the brand identity must be used in conjunction with the strategic message.
Methodology: A qualitative desk research has been carried out, where empirical data has been gathered through three methods, firstly, keywords search. Secondly, we looked at strong brands as... (More) - Thesis Purpose: The main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the academic literature on signature stories. This will be done through three main aims. Firstly, by exploring if there are additional ways in which organizations can find and identify story heroes. Secondly, by exploring how organizations can communicate signature stories in different cultural contexts in order for them to be perceived as intriguing, authentic, and involving. Lastly, by demonstrating why the brand identity must be used in conjunction with the strategic message.
Methodology: A qualitative desk research has been carried out, where empirical data has been gathered through three methods, firstly, keywords search. Secondly, we looked at strong brands as literature supports the assumption that they would have a signature story. Thirdly, the cultural context was considered in order to find signature stories prevalent in society.
Theoretical Perspective: The main theories that this thesis is based upon have been selected in order to shed light on how signature stories should be adapted to fit the cultural context. This will be done using theories of cultural influence, encoding and decoding, cultural branding, and archetypal branding.
Empirical Data: The empirical data was gathered through desk research, where 90 signature stories from 77 different brands were collected and gathered in an appendix by actively seeking out illustrative examples following determined criteria of what constitutes a signature story.
Findings/conclusions: The research resulted in the finding and identification of three new story heroes and indicate that there are story hero sources outside of the organization and that the cultural context plays a significant role in how well a signature story is perceived. The study suggests that a signature story can be spun around additional elements of the brand identity and that an understanding of the alignment between brand image and brand identity is essential, for a signature story to be perceived as authentic.
Practical implications: This study shows how signature stories are strongly connected to the brand purpose, the brand identity, and the brand image, and how these can be used to find and create signature stories. It contributes to existing academia by demonstrating further aspects that need to be accounted for in order for a signature story to be perceived as intriguing, authentic, and involving. We have been able to facilitate a more structured description of signature stories as a tool that can be applied practically in order to create and define signature stories. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9020056
- author
- Vaknine, Ella LU ; Olsson, Therese LU and Sjöblom, Johanna LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BUSN39 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Storytelling, Signature Stories, Strategic Message, Cultural Context, Brand Identity
- language
- English
- id
- 9020056
- date added to LUP
- 2020-07-08 10:48:47
- date last changed
- 2020-07-08 10:48:47
@misc{9020056,
abstract = {{Thesis Purpose: The main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the academic literature on signature stories. This will be done through three main aims. Firstly, by exploring if there are additional ways in which organizations can find and identify story heroes. Secondly, by exploring how organizations can communicate signature stories in different cultural contexts in order for them to be perceived as intriguing, authentic, and involving. Lastly, by demonstrating why the brand identity must be used in conjunction with the strategic message.
Methodology: A qualitative desk research has been carried out, where empirical data has been gathered through three methods, firstly, keywords search. Secondly, we looked at strong brands as literature supports the assumption that they would have a signature story. Thirdly, the cultural context was considered in order to find signature stories prevalent in society.
Theoretical Perspective: The main theories that this thesis is based upon have been selected in order to shed light on how signature stories should be adapted to fit the cultural context. This will be done using theories of cultural influence, encoding and decoding, cultural branding, and archetypal branding.
Empirical Data: The empirical data was gathered through desk research, where 90 signature stories from 77 different brands were collected and gathered in an appendix by actively seeking out illustrative examples following determined criteria of what constitutes a signature story.
Findings/conclusions: The research resulted in the finding and identification of three new story heroes and indicate that there are story hero sources outside of the organization and that the cultural context plays a significant role in how well a signature story is perceived. The study suggests that a signature story can be spun around additional elements of the brand identity and that an understanding of the alignment between brand image and brand identity is essential, for a signature story to be perceived as authentic.
Practical implications: This study shows how signature stories are strongly connected to the brand purpose, the brand identity, and the brand image, and how these can be used to find and create signature stories. It contributes to existing academia by demonstrating further aspects that need to be accounted for in order for a signature story to be perceived as intriguing, authentic, and involving. We have been able to facilitate a more structured description of signature stories as a tool that can be applied practically in order to create and define signature stories.}},
author = {{Vaknine, Ella and Olsson, Therese and Sjöblom, Johanna}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Let Us Tell You a Story: Signature Stories – Strategic Messaging in an Intriguing, Authentic & Involving Way}},
year = {{2020}},
}