Digital Storytelling and Branding has equipped me with the knowledge and skills to effectively utilize digital media for creating compelling narratives and promoting brands in the digital landscape. Throughout this course, I developed a great comprehensive understanding of various concepts, strategies, and tools related to digital storytelling and branding. In addition, I’m very grateful that I have learned so much and have a better understanding in what it takes to be a professional Digital Marketer.
In this course, I was able to explore the core principles of storytelling, focusing on how narratives are structured, characters are developed, and emotions are evoked. I also learned how to adapt traditional storytelling techniques to the digital realm and craft engaging stories tailored to online audiences.
We also explored innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence and learn how to integrate these tools into branding campaigns and was familiarized with several digital platforms available for storytelling and branding, including ChatGPT and the Kaye Putnam quiz that was so helpful with identifying my brands archetype.
In having had the privilege of learning how to better constructed keynote presentations, which I found to be very useful and entertaining to see how much I had developed in the program. For my brand voice presentation that I thought best described my final presentation for Mellow Mushroom was Drew Barrymore. This not only allowed my better insight of who MM is as a brand but also one of my favorite celebrity actresses/ personalities.
Overall, learning how to determine “What is a Brand” was, in my opinion, one of the fundamental lessons learned in the matriculation of Digital Storytelling and Branding. Having to answer the “Three Little Questions”: Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter? was some of the most thought-provoking questions I had to answer out of any of my digital marketing course thus far.
Course Outcomes:
1.0 Students will be able to express the attributes of a brand using concise and engaging language that connects with the target audience in one short paragraph that can be used in a variety of mediums.
Personal Entry: WEEK 1- WHAT IS A BRAND? In this lesson, I learned how to truly analyze a and determine the three little questions from Marty Neumeier’s The Brand Gap of “who you are?”, “What do you do?”, and “Why does it matter?”. I was able to determine what a brand final project, Mellow Mushroom, is.
• 1.1 Students will be able to articulate the answers to the “three little questions” about a company’s brand: who are you, what do you do, and why does it matter?
Personal Entry: WEEK 1- WHAT IS A BRAND? In this lesson, I learned how to adequately ask fundamental branding questions. Although I was allowed to answer these questions regarding my, final project selection, Mellow Mushroom. This lesson also made it easy for me to correlate these same questions to own personal brand, and other marketing campaigns that I am currently working on.
• 1.2 Students will be able to develop a concise yet comprehensive statement to convey their personal brand attributes.
Personal Entry: BRAND YOU- This lesson, simultaneously helping to establish my own personal brand, as well as allowed me to skills to produce a strong brand statement for potential clients.
• 1.3 Students will be able to define the brand’s key points of relevant differentiation from its competitors.
Personal Entry: WEEK 2- DIFFERENTIALTION AND BRAND VOICE- This week was very fun and engaging. This discussion involved determining the astounding differences between Walmart and Target. As a consumer, I’ve always been very vocal about my distain for Walmart verses my preferences for Target. During my research, I found out exactly why this was. It’s because of the spacious and clean atmosphere, their partnership with Starbucks and customer services amongst other reasons.
2.0 Students will be able to define their brand’s unique voice using human personality traits in a twenty-slide digital presentation less than seven minutes in length.
Personal Entry: WEEK 2- YOUR COMPANY’S BRAND VOICE- Here I created a Keynote presentation that broke down the similarities between Mellow Mushroom and Drew Barrymore. It was fun learning more about MM and DB.
• 2.1 Students will be able to identify the human personality traits that are associated with their company’s brand.
Personal Entry: WEEK 2-YOUR COMPANY’S BRAND VOICE- My takeaway from this lesson was my ability to analyze and compare human to brand characteristics to better serve potential digital marketing clients. This allowed me to compound my knowledge to determine Mellow Mushroom and Drew Barrymore were great matches for comparisons.
• 2.2 Students will be able to compare the company’s brand with a well-known television or movie character to define the brand’s unique voice.
Personal Entry: WEEK 2- YOUR COMPANY’S BRAND VOICE- This project also allowed me to inherit another prospective on MM; almost as though bringing them to life by displaying humanistic personality traits, such as their hippie, carefree, humorous characteristics.
• 2.3 Students will be able to use Keynote or another digital tool to create a presentation in PechaKucha style to communicate the brand’s voice.
Personal Entry: WEEK 2- YOUR COMPANY’S BRAND VOICE- This project also allowed me the ability to expand on my presentation and researching skills. In addition to compiling more research for my final project. My overall take away was learning what and how PechaKucha works. I had seen this style of presentation before, but was not familiar with the name, as well as script writing.
3.0 Students will be able to producea brand story in written or digital form no longer than one written page or two minutes in length that can be used on the company’s website.
Personal Entry: WEEK 3- YOUR COMPANY’S BRAND STORY- Here I created a Keynote presentation using GIFs to tell a story of who Mellow Mushroom, as a company, really is. I incorporated the PechaKucha style presentation previously learned in the prior week’s lesson.
• 3.1 Students will be able to analyze the brand’s archetype using an online analysis tool to identify the human characteristics of the brand.
Personal Entry: WEEK 3- ARCHETYPE- By using Kaye Putnam quiz, I was able to determine Mellow Mushroom’sarchetype to be the entertainer. I was blown away with how accurate this quiz was for my fellow classmates’ companies as well as mine. Being The entertainer allows MM’s consumers to grow a better connection with them while at the same time enjoying their array of pizza selections and beverages.
• 3.2 Students will be able to identify and explain the emotional element behind the brand that allows customers to connect with the brand.
Personal Entry: WEEK 3- YOUR COMPANY BRAND STORY- Here I combined Putnam’s quiz and PechaKucha style presentation. This lesson further demonstrated how MM has an entertainer archetype.
4.0 Students will be able to prepare a comprehensive brand strategy no more than fifteen written pages in length that incorporates brand concepts and outside research to support recommendations.
Personal Entry: WEEK 4- BRAND STRATEGY- As I begin to comply research for this paper, I feel at ease that I’m equipped with the necessary tools to incorporate concepts and recommendations.
• 4.1 Students will be able to explain a brand’s customer experience and customer touch points
Personal Entry: WEEK 4- CUSTOMER BRAND EXPERIENCE- Some potential touch points addressed in this lesson was considered inconsistencies between in-store presence verses online for Mellow Mushroom.
• 4.2 Students will be able to analyze the brand’s current mission statement and recommend modifications that support the brand’s attributes
Personal Entry: WEEK 4- BRAND STRATEGY-Lastly, being able to analyze Mellow Mushroom’s mission statement, I gained insight on where they could use some modifications. Although MM has a strong mission for their customers, there always room for change.
Program Final Project Preparation
