As the web of marketing agency disciplines slowly knits together, PR agencies are turning to storytelling to create brand identity.

But there's a big difference between storytelling and spin, says Senior Consultant at Cherish PR, Julie Thompson-Dredge.

As consumers and people who consume media become ever better at spotting a ‘blatant pitch’ or plug, marketing agencies and PR people have had to become cleverer at telling stories.

Know your buzzwords

Storytelling is very different from fabrication though. It’s often thought to be a subtle synonym for that much-maligned PR phrase, spin, but in fact a good PR agency will view storytelling as using a real-life trend or story to set a client’s product or service in a cultural context. It’s a way of making a brand relevant and authentic – which is the only way a journalist worth his or her salt is going to cover you.

At Cherish PR, we’ve told the story of erotic writing through erotic writing workshops we’ve held for journalists for our client Mills & Boon. A 150 year old romance brand, brought up to date, we tell the story of the history of erotica up to the modern day. This has resulted in first person articles by journalists which told a story, and brought the brand bang up to date.

A picture is worth a thousand press releases

Infographics are also a simple and extremely effective way of telling brand stories through pictures, often setting the brand in a historical context. A recent infographic for the online dating industry on BBC online set various online dating agencies within a context of a timeline and told the story of the industry through statistics and images that made immediate sense at a glance. Another currently popular journalistic trend is the first person story, or ‘immersive journalism’.

Journalism vs. PR

National features writers such as Matt Rudd at the Sunday Times often work with companies’ PR departments to experience a brand first hand and in his case, write their own wry take on their experience. Matt recently worked with Thomas Cook to trial the package holiday with his family to see whether it still had relevance today. It resulted in an amusing article which didn’t look like a huge plug for the brand but instead opened up a debate.

This type of storytelling can be risky as many brands are wary of being made fun of or portrayed negatively. However, without being bold and taking a risk, there is no chance of getting talked about.

And that’s surely what PR’s all about.