I was in two minds about writing this story.

​It’s the story of my journey of revamping Story Rules’ brand identity. On one hand, I feel it’s worth sharing since it contains lessons that can be applied by anyone looking to build their personal/corporate brand. On the other hand, talking so much about myself in a post makes me squirm a lot. Some parts are decidedly ‘salesy’, and not the kind of stuff that would normally go in this story-letter.

But eventually, I thought that the benefits outweigh the cons. Let me know if you think otherwise 🙂

Here goes.

It’s been about 4 years that I’ve been working under the brand name ‘Story Rules’ for my storytelling training and coaching services.

When I started in 2016-17, all I did was pick a name and design a simple logo. For the original logo, in fact, I didn’t even bother speaking to a designer. I just created it on PowerPoint using a thick font. 😐

And it worked fine… Until it didn’t!

My logo was simple but dull. And my slides, website and other visual assets did not exactly speak a common visual language.

Which was fine, if I was just going to be doing B2B training. But with upcoming B2C initiatives like a public e-Course, a podcast and an online video series (all to be released one-by-one – patience!), I wanted all my content and visual assets to speak the same brand language.

That should have been simple right? Just get a designer to come up with a new logo, some slide templates and voila, brand redesign done!

Nope.

So after speaking with a couple of friends from the world of marketing and branding, I realised how this is far, far more than just a visual exercise. I had entered into the world of branding.

I needed to know what problem my brand was solving for the customer…. and more importantly, what it stood for in their eyes.

I needed to tell my brand *cough* story through the new identity.

But I couldn’t do it alone. I needed some mentors.

One mentor – who’s been extremely helpful and incredibly knowledgable about this craft – is Vineet Sharma of PepsiCo. He patiently took me through the basics and handheld me through the process.

Vineet is a batchmate from IIM-A, and was always a branding geek. It’s been absolutely enlightening having conversations with him on the topic.

One of his most critical insights was this: “In a space where the product is not very well known, you will end up doing a fair bit of concept-selling. Now here’s the rub. If you spend effort and money selling the concept – but do not clearly differentiate your offering from that of others – then the benefit of any awareness you create about the concept, will not accrue to you, but to the market leader.“

To give an example, say, your product is a new paid online newsletter that covers the startup space in India. Now, paying for news online is still not something that everyone is ok with – and so, let’s say you spend quite a bit of your marketing dollars in raising awareness about the need for good paid reporting and analysis.

Vineet’s point is this: Unless you clearly differentiate your offering from that of other companies in the space, the benefits of any effort you put on awareness-creation, will accrue to the market leader in the space. (Say ‘The Ken’).

Your brand differentiation is your brand identity.

And it needs to come through everywhere – in your logo, in your tagline, in your writings, in any assets that you put out.

And so, one critical exercise I embarked upon was a survey from my existing clients… What is it that they see as my differentiation… Why do they come to me, and not others? To get these answers, I reached out to about 12 clients from diverse sectors.

I had an inkling of what their answer would be – but even I was surprised by how strongly their perception matched with mine. (Score one for self-awareness!)

So here are the two clear differentiators for Story Rules:

1. Holistic approach: Storytelling is both a science and an art. You need a holistic, balanced approach that combines both ‘left-brain’ and ‘right-brain’ elements to make it work well.

I come from the world of numbers and business, given my past as a CA, MBA and management consultant (hey, don’t judge me… we all make mistakes).

But I also understand and appreciate the importance of ‘right-brain’ elements – an understanding that flowered during my years with a social enterprise … and my history-storytelling startup. I’ve also immersed myself in great writing by remarkable storytellers (like Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis, Bill Bryson, Dan Pink et al) – and try to bring that learning into my work.

So, given my exposure to the world of numbers/business and also to the world of stories, I can ensure that the client gets the holistic, complete picture about storytelling.

Story Rules covers the Science and the Art, the Head and the Heart of storytelling. 🙂

(Credit to Vineet for helping me come up with that line!)

2. Customised solution: The world of storytelling techniques can seem like a distant isle, disconnected from your land. Which is why, it is important to build bridges. Bridges between your specific industry or function and the storytelling techniques being taught.

I build these bridges by doing four things:

– Having specialized courses for specific audiences (say Consulting firms, HR teams, Finance teams, Sales, Technology, Leadership et al) rather than a generic, one-size-fits-all course.

– Customization of modules (within those courses) that are most relevant to Client use-cases

– Incorporating specific case-examples on storytelling from the Client’s organization or from the industry.

– Combining this conceptual understanding with individualized coaching on the participants’ specific work stories/presentations

Due to this approach, the participants can connect the concepts with their real-world application and begin using them at work immediately.

Now it was time to incorporate these two insights into the brand identity.

Here I was guided by Shreyasi Singh of Harappa Education. I just love how Harrapa has built their brand identity (a lot of which is Shreyasi’s passion for the subject). She guided me towards two designers – Madhumita Srivastava and Amrita Dasgupta – who had designed the Harappa logo.

Madhumita and Amrita are beautiful souls. Their hearts beat for design and art, and they are a fountainhead of creativity. They immersed themselves into this project and came up with a range of interesting logos, each telling a different story.

But here’s the one that I loved the most:

​

Here’s how this logo tells the ‘differentiation story’ of Story Rules so well:

1. The ‘person’ in the middle is the ‘Sutradhar’ – who indicates that underlying all data and numbers is the human element – that connects the disparate threads and weaves them into a coherent story
2. While the ‘O’ forms the head of the person and signifies the ‘left-brain’ approach, the ‘u’ below is stylised to show the hand on the ‘heart’ – signifying the holistic approach of head and heart. (Interestingly I do a small ritual at the end of my workshops where I get participants to take a pledge with their hand on their hearts!)
3. The balance is also showcased by the word ‘STORY’ being written in caps, while the word ‘rules’ is in lowercase – a balance between structure and free-flowing creativity
4. For the ‘Customised solution’ aspect, there’s a cool element embedded in the logo. The ‘u’ and ‘l’ of ‘rules’ have been stylised to form a paperclip! Now, paperclips are known in the design world for their flexibility and customisability.
5. Finally, the ‘rising’ columns between the ‘u’ and the ‘l’ indicate growth and progress.

​Phew – that’s a lot of story for one simple logo 🙂

​Of course, there’s a lot more to the process – and we are still in the midst of it… but I’ve enjoyed it so far… I hope you also found some value (or at least entertainment) in my journey.

​Best of luck in your own brand-definition journeys – whenever you decide to embark on one!

​Feel free to reach out in case you need any inputs.

Image credit: Photo by Kevin Erdvig on Unsplash