CSM Final Synopsis

How can biography story telling be used for brand development?

The use of women’s biographies, aged 25-35, creates stories that potential customers can relate to and associate with brand image.

The starting point of this project came from my personal biography and how dancing in this setting helped me to overcome personal challenges. I have attempted to re-create the tools I used in this process and apply them to a wider audience.

My first artefact was a short biographical movie. Feedback was positive and emotional but without clear direction. On reflection I realised I needed to portray the biographies of others to convey a clearer message.

To experiment with this I worked in collaboration with a professional photographer, capturing the stories of people from small towns in Holland (from successful business people to transvestites in a club) who had transformed their lives in some way, and seeing how the contrasts in their life stories could be portrayed and inspire others. Feedback suggested that a static 2d image expressed a situation but did not convey the transformative elements of a story and did not enable people to engage closely enough with that story.

 (Campaign artefact "Travel Back Home" Model: Lesley Korpos)

I decided next to explore the story of a brand or an institution and using my previous learning’s to examine how that story can be expressed or personified through multiple dimensions.

I researched contrasting perceptions of different branches of The Supper Club (one in Amsterdam and one in London) by asking people to create imaginary biographies of the club as a person.

               (S.C LONDON)

             (S.C AMSTERDAM)
In Amsterdam the biographies described by the respondents were aligned to the brand values of the club, but in London responses were confused and did not convey a coherent story.  I approached the Creative Director with my findings and agreed to try an experiment to see how the club values could be expressed to their customers through a biographical experience. We started from a fictional character and aimed to create an environment which would immerse customers in the character’s life, re-designing the whole Supper Club as a girl’s room and communicating the brand values through her personal objects, diary and visual narratives. We did not succeed in implementing this, however as the gatekeepers withdrew their support at the last moment.

However, I found another collaborator who was trying to establish a new business but needed to create a strong identity to promote and develop it in a highly competitive market. She wanted to create a dance studio for women only with the prime objective of building their selfconfidence.  We identified the demographic and researched people’s concerns and responses to key features of the concept.

During this research[1] several key points were taken into consideration: 

·       Teenage insecurities;

·       Who did they become by overcoming obstacles?

·       The safest environment every woman feels secure in?

·       Favourite objects they had or wished they had in their teenage room.

The collated information from over a hundred women in the target audience was analysed by looking at similarities and transformed into one coherent story. We created a fictional biography and built a room decorated with the favourite objects identified in the research to re-create the safe and cosy environment as if it was their teenage bedroom. The reactions were positive and many responded that they could relate closely to the variety of objects and the story behind them.

As a result it helped me understand the importance of engaging with the target community to look for similar experiences and events in their biographies and the ability to transform that into services.  As people start to relate their own experiences and biography that engages them into the process and makes them feel much more part of it.

This entire process has taught how individuals can be engaged in a transformative way and strong emotions evoked through personal biographies.  By fictionalising biographies I learned how to craft and direct those emotions. Applying this to a brand or institution I have learned how to communicate brand values by associating them in a sympathetic story and embodying that story in a multi-dimensional immersive environment.  The story, environment and brand are required to align in order to create the clearest impression.