by Lake

Your Brand Has a Backstory—Are You Telling It?

Why Brand Storytelling Strategy Starts Long Before the First Sale

Every great brand has a beginning, meaning a backstory.

Just like the most compelling characters in fiction, the brands we love didn’t emerge fully formed. They were shaped by need, fueled by pain, or sparked by rebellion. Yet so many businesses skip this essential part of their brand storytelling strategy.

If you’re struggling to connect with your audience, don’t start with more features.
Start with your story.

🧠 What Is Brand Storytelling Strategy?

At its core, brand storytelling strategy is the deliberate use of narrative to communicate your brand’s identity, values, and vision.

But here’s what often gets missed:

The most important part of any story isn’t where the character is now. It’s what happened before page one.

That’s your brand backstory. And it’s one of your most underutilized assets.

🪞 Backstory Builds Connection

In fiction, backstory shapes everything.
We understand Batman because of the alley.
We root for Frodo because he never asked for the ring.

Your brand is no different.

  • What did you rebel against?
  • What struggle shaped your values?
  • What pain were you born to solve?

🎯 How to Use Your Brand Backstory Strategically

Whether you’re a startup or scaling enterprise, your brand messaging should reflect your origin story. Not in a nostalgic, overlong About page, but in your voice, your tone, your promise.

Ask yourself:

  • What moment changed everything for us?
  • What belief drives our decisions?
  • What scars do we still carry and why do they matter?

These aren’t fluff. They’re brand differentiators.

💡 Why Emotional Branding Starts With the Past

Strong emotional branding comes from vulnerability. Picture young Bruce Wayne losing his parents to violent crime. But your backstory doesn’t need to be dramatic. It needs to be true.

Because when your customer hears what you’ve been through, they start to believe you can help them through what they’re going through.

🛠️ TL;DR: Your Brand Storytelling Strategy Checklist

Use this to shape your narrative across messaging, web copy, and campaigns:

✅ What pain sparked the brand?
✅ Who did we want to help?
✅ What value did we refuse to compromise?
✅ What was the turning point?
✅ How do we show that in tone, visuals, and messaging today?

📢 Final Words

  • Every hero has a backstory.
  • So does every brand worth following.
  • Your brand identity isn’t just your visual design or voice guide.
  • It’s your emotional blueprint, built from your past and lived through your messaging.
  • If you don’t tell your story, your competitors will tell one for you.

The brand story that drives this blog is here. For help telling your brand’s story, click here.

by Lake

The Long Walk of Marketing, Part 2

What to Do When You Realize You’re Just Walking

In part one, we explored what Stephen King’s bleakest novels teach us about brands, life, and marketing. Read it first. Click here.

There’s a reason The Long Walk lingers. It’s not because of the violence. King’s done worse. It’s not because of the dystopian world. It’s barely sketched. It’s because it feels like us.

It’s the crushing grind of a game that seemed so worth it – and winnable – when you started, and the realization that there’s not a finish line.

Fortunately, you’re not like the boys in Stephen King’s novel. You’re allowed to stop. Nobody’s going to shoot you for stepping off the road. No crowd is waiting to cheer your collapse.

So, if you’ve realized you’re not really marketing anymore—you’re just keeping pace to stay “alive”—here’s how to find your way back:

First, STOP

Breathe. You can’t strategize when you’re stuck in survival mode. Stopping is not failure. It’s the first step to clarify.

Change Paths If You Can

Sometimes you need a new adventure. Take a cue from Ansoff’s Growth Matrix:

  • Explore a different audience with market expansion
  • Add or evolve your offering with a new product
  • Or take the same product to new segment
  • Or go bold with a major diversification

Big changes require a million small ones. If you start on one of the small ones today, you’re no longer “just walking” but heading to a new destination.

Get Back to the Basics

If new products or markets are too far away or out of your control, get back to marketing’s foundation:

  • Who are you helping?
  • What’s their pain?
  • Feel it. I mean REALLY feel it.
  • How is your product or service the way out?

Great marketing isn’t about being the last brand standing. It’s about knowing and never forgetting why you’re doing the work in the first place.


by Lake

Sometimes Dead Is Better:

What Stephen King’s Pet Sematary Can Teach Marketers About Brand Resurrection

In Pet Sematary, Louis Creed learns the cost of ignoring natural endings. The death of his son is unbearable, so he turns to an ancient burial ground that promises resurrection. But what comes back isn’t what was lost.

The real horror of King’s novel isn’t the reanimation of the dead. It’s our refusal to let go. To accept loss. To allow something to stay buried.

Marketers are no different.

We cling to old campaigns, tired taglines, and “legacy products” long past their expiration date. Why? Because they used to work. Because we spent too much time and money on them. Because, like Louis Creed, we’re too close—too emotional—to see the truth.

And so we dig them up. We give them a fresh coat of paint. We whisper, “Maybe it’ll be different this time.”

But the truth is what King told us decades ago:

Sometimes dead is better.

💀 The Curse of Nostalgic Marketing

Maybe it was a killer campaign back in 2016. Perhaps it’s the product helped build the brand’s name. Maybe it’s something that the top exec simply loves . None of that means it belongs in your playbook.

The reason is simple: time marches on and everything changes. The moment has passed. The market has changed. The consumer is no longer the same.

Trying to revive a message, product, or anything that’s no longer relevant is like bringing back a body without a soul. It looks familiar but your audience can smell the rot.

At left, the cover of Stephen King's 1883 masterpiece Pet Sematary. At right, Church the cat, just back from the dead, shares a moment with Ellie.
At left, the cover of Stephen King’s 1883 masterpiece Pet Sematary. At right, Church the cat, just back from the dead, shares a moment with Ellie.

🧟‍♂️ Zombie Campaigns and the Illusion of Safety

Zombie campaigns are easy to spot:

  • They reuse old headlines that once converted but now fall flat.
  • They cling to dated visuals or voice because “it’s always been our look.”
  • They repeat the same brand story even though the customer’s pain point has evolved.

It feels safe. But it’s as dangerous as bringing back a loved one from the dead.

Because nothing eats marketing credibility faster than false storytelling, AKA lying. When you’re dragging the corpse of past success through your current messaging, the audience knows it; and assumes you’re stopped caring.

🪦 Ask Before You Resurrect

Before you dig up that old campaign, that classic tagline, that beloved-but-dusty brand mascot—ask yourself:

  • Why did it die in the first place?
    Was it the wrong message, or just the wrong time? And has that changed?
  • Has the customer changed?
    What mattered to them then might not matter now. Don’t assume they’re still grieving the same pain.
  • Can it come back better—or just back?
    There’s a difference between evolution and resurrection. One moves the story forward. The other reanimates the past.

🕯️ Let It Go, or Tell a New Story

The best marketers know when to close the book. Not every campaign deserves a reboot. Not every brand is meant to be eternal.

Sometimes the best way to honor a product, a campaign, anything is to acknowledge what it taught you and let it rest. Then come up with something new. Because in branding—as in horror—resurrection without reflection leads to monsters. “What you bring back may not be what you lost.”

Sometimes, dead is better.