Ashima Amar Portfolio ashima.amar@gmail.com

Brand Stories, Communication and role of Design Thinking

The word brand has become very popular in recent years. Everyone talks about brands they like. Why these brands are becoming popular? Wally Olins in one of the guest lectures gave a simple answer to that; according to him brands are the

cultures people want to belong. People get emotionally attached to the stories related to these brands which in-turn makes them brand loyal. Laurence Vincent said in his book, ‘Legendary brands’, that a brand becomes legendary only if it

can communicate its stories successfully to its consumers. My research starts from here. So far it’s clear that every brand needs a story and it has to be told nicely to the consumers.

But does it happen with every brand all the time? Through much literature review I got to know about many successful stories of great brands like macho image of Harley Davidson, Kodak moments, McDonald’s I’m loving it etc. There are innumerable popular brand stories in the market, but the salient fact prevailed on surface with few case studies that,

there are as many negative brand stories as positive. KFC stuck in PETA chicken cruelty allegations for over a decade now and still losing valuable consumers worldwide because of that. There are many stories like this where brands have paid

hefty amount to recover goodwill from stories against them. Very often many brands get trapped in negative stories. Taking in consideration of few more in-depth case studies the way to come over negative story is to tell consumers the

better, believable and favourable brand stories. So how brands can create favourable stories and how these stories could be effectively communicated to the consumers? There are many communication models which explain how a message

could be delivered utmost successfully. But none of them are appropriate for brands stories. Even though Brands communicate through mass media models designed for mass communication could not be applied to brand stories because brand stories never say generalised message rather they always communicate with the consumer on inter-

personal level. Even most popular inter-personal Shannon-Weaver communication model could not be applied as it is for brand stories because it doesn’t cover the risks of mass media as a medium. Basically there is no communication model

which could be utilised by brands to create fruitful favourable stories. In second stage of research with the tools like comparative case studies, story boarding, expert opinions, consumer

surveys and focus group a set of management strategies were proposed to help brands to overcome negative stories through design process.

~Ashima Amar

Personal project Artwork on how Starbucks could get into Indian market.

Leonardo-da-Vinci : Scientist and artist. Amaze me.

Hindu Prayer. My strength.

London, here I am.

A rule still true; to my knowledge.

Jamini Roy : Indian contemporary artist. Colours I relate to.

Branding strategy, I am interested in.

- Ashima Amar

ashima.amar@gmail.com Thank you!

Every colour in between white and black lives in harmony. All you need to look for a balance.