Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future. Patrick Hanlon. Free Press. 2011. Excellent companion to storytelling as it covers the important ways you can support your stories through words, visuals, rituals, icons, and other primal methods.
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Random House. 2006. As a business person you are always trying to communicate ideas to your prospects, partners, and customers. This book gives you a strategy for making sure that these ideas stick in the minds of your intended target. Of course, story is one of the strategies. An enjoyable read.
All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World. Seth Godin. Portfolio. 2000. Godin was one of the early evangelists for using stories in marketing. Learn why brands, such as Fiji Water, are winning the marketing wars through their use of stories. Typical Seth Godin pulls-no-punches writing style.
Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince. Roger Dooley. John Wiley and Sons. 2011. How neuroscience and behavior research can explain consumers decisions patterns, and how you can apply this to improve your marketing. Goes beyond storytelling to discuss pricing, loyalty rewards, and other marketing efforts.
Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing. Douglas Von Pros. Palgrave Macmillan. 2012. Another book that presents current findings in neuromarketing. The author’s basic thesis is that the majority of our decisions are made by our unconscious. He feels that consumer research is wasted asking people what they prefer or what they would do. Those decisions are made by our unconscious minds, not our rational minds.
