Storyteller - who said it?

A good script is like a fully loaded gun, but one needs an ace marksman to execute that perfect shot. That's exactly the role played by a Storyteller. Before an audience can correlate with a brand, they first (consciously or unconsciously) try and identify with the storyteller. An ideal storyteller should fulfill the following criteria:

- Wide reach
- Appeal and acceptability by the audience
- A strong brand image

But most importantly she/he must "suit" the brand being endorsed. The risk then would be to have a mis-match between the storyteller and the brand because values and attributes of the storyteller get imposed onto the brand itself. Traditionally we have seen celebrities, sports stars and virtual celebrities (like cartoons) endorsing a brand and it still continues. The audience have become so immune to the onslaught of celebrity endorsements, especially to those ads where a single celebrity endorses inner wear, to resorts to cars to cell phones and everything else under the sun. Because of these one-to-many and many-to-many associations, the advertisement becomes entertainment and the message is lost in the drama.

However, the subtle change that is occurring can be easily caught by the perceptive eye. Focus is shifting from standard "endorsers" to the ones that the everyday man can connect with - take for example the recent Maggie campaign of everyday families narrating their 2-minute Maggie "experiences". This has lot to do with the psyche of the audience as such direct "connects" give the audience a feeling of authenticity and trust.