Personal Reflection: Business Storytelling & Branding

This last month, I took a class about business storytelling and branding in the entertainment industry. It was an incredibly enlightening experience, and I came away with a lot of valuable insights.

One of the key takeaways from the class was the importance of storytelling in the entertainment industry. My instructor, Ken DeGilio, emphasized that storytelling is a powerful tool for building a brand, connecting with audiences, and creating emotional resonance. He explained that effective storytelling involves understanding your audience, crafting a compelling narrative, and delivering that narrative in an engaging way. I practiced these methods by conducting research on my defined target audiences, and creating target audience profiles that identify key consumer behaviors and characteristics. Additionally, I demonstrated my abilities in business storytelling by creating my own storyboard for a 60 second commercial promoting a United States tour for the world renowned producer and touring artist, Fred Again... It was especially challenging, but rewarding to connect my market research to a creative project (creating a commercial). (Side note: it was so fun experimenting on Adobe Illustrator - for my first time - and creating the tour poster).

Another important aspect of the class was the discussion of branding in the entertainment industry. My instructor discussed how branding helps to differentiate a product or service (or yourself) from competitors, and how it helps to establish a relationship with your desired target audiences. He also talked about the importance of creating a strong brand identity, and how that identity should be reflected in all aspects of the organization, from the logo and packaging to the advertising and marketing. With the help of my professor's guidance, I was able to complete a full brand style guide for my future company, Loading.

doc. For those that don't know, a brand style guide is essentially a manual for how an organization should be communicated. This project was incredibly fun to put together, outside of Adobe InDesign absolutely testing my patience (what a learning curve...)! If you are interested in viewing this style guide, it is available on the "Loading.doc Branding & Creative Strategy" blog post on my website.

Finally, this class also touched on the importance of understanding the target audience, and how to create content that resonates with that audience. My instructor explained that understanding the target audience is critical to creating a successful brand and building a loyal fan base. He also discussed the importance of being authentic and true to the brand, and how that authenticity can help to establish a deeper connection with audiences.

Overall, I found the class to be incredibly informative and thought-provoking. I am excited to apply what I learned to my own work in the entertainment industry, and I look forward to continuing to learn more about business storytelling and branding. Next month, entertainment business finance!

Cheers,

Bryson