Simon KellyWhile I may not be introducing a new idea here, in today’s post-advertising world, where interruption is dead, the only way brands can connect with consumers is through useful, relevant and entertaining content — in other words, storytelling – online or off. For the sake of this post, let’s discuss incorporating storytelling into your brand’s web strategy.

Brands no longer need to rent time and space on someone else’s channel (whether print, online or broadcast), but can and must create their own.

Last year, Garmin, a maker of car satellite navigation systems, experimented with a live skit on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Apparently awareness levels were much higher than for their average 30-second spot. Obviously, right? While this was certainly a step in the right direction, simply providing entertaining content is still not enough. It perpetuates the old model of renting property — in this case, Leno’s stage. A fleeting spike in awareness can hardly compare to the enduring level of engagement that storytelling allows. Garmin squandered an opportunity to build on that initial awareness by creating its own channel, through which it could have created more skits, curated user-generated content and filtered it using Digg-style voting. Now that, I wager, would create more than just a fleeting buzz.

Examples of online content marketing initiatives that capitalize on interactivity abound. Every day there are more than you can throw a stick at, so how do you separate the good from the bad? Every time I come across one of these new initiatives, I try to measure its “authority to publish.” In other words, what is the connection between the brand and its content and its credibility with its target audience?

I’ve been putting this theory into practice, and a few sites have really caught my attention. A couple of months ago Directdaniella.com from Taco Bell grabbed me for four very engaged minutes. Then I got bored. Why? A failure to completely engage, limited interaction with the consumer and, most importantly, a stretched authority to publish. What possible connection does a taco have with a male fantasy of directing a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model? Think outside the bum, Taco Bell.

On the other hand, around the same time, I was drawn to petcharts.com, Purina’s brilliant new content play. Purina hits the ground running with a great story platform — connecting pets and their owners. This site goes a long way to showcasing some of the best features of a post-advertising site — from curating user content to filtering out the best and worst via Digg-style voting. Similarly, AgentProvocateur.com has brilliantly used erotic narratives to establish its brand from inception, and it clearly has an authority to publish steamy stories. (Full disclosure: It’s a client.) Eroticism sits at the very heart of the brand and sets it apart from Victoria’s Secret, which announced it was moving away from ads that might be deemed “too sexy” — a move, for a lingerie brand, that strikes me as being a bit ironic.

Clearly, if marketers want to engage consumers repeatedly and for any length of time, they have to give them reasons to come back. Toyota has done that brilliantly with its new online serial, based on a fictional assistant fashion designer, Bianca Turner. The serial fiction approach to storytelling is something that Spraychel, Unilever’s personification of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, has been doing for years with great success, the latest iteration of which launched recently.

So back to “What’s your story?” and why CMOs need to be rethinking their brands from a narrative approach, rather than rearranging logos, taglines and color palettes — which is akin to arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic in beautifully orchestrated reds, greens and aquamarines. Now you have your authority to publish, you can tell your story through channels you own and turn your brand messages into great media.

Simon Kelly is COO of brand storyteller Story Worldwide.