--- name: craft-a-brand-story title: Craft a Brand Story People Retell description: A brand story prompt that builds a narrative framework with a villain, one universal truth, and a five act arc people retell. Reach for this ChatGPT prompt for brand storytelling when your founding or origin story falls flat. cluster: brand-audience version: 1.1.0 --- # Craft a Brand Story People Retell This prompt turns a pile of facts about your brand into a story an audience feels, remembers, and repeats to each other. It designs the story like a product: you empathize with the audience, distill one universal truth, build a five act arc with a villain worth defeating, and end with a lasting reason to care. The output is a ready to test narrative plus the target emotion you will benchmark it against. ## When to use this → You have a founding or origin story to tell and every draft sounds like a feature list instead of something people feel → You are launching a campaign and need a narrative with real stakes, a villain, and a reason for the audience to join the journey → Your brand is evolving and you must explain why the change happened in a way the audience trusts rather than resents ## The prompt ```text You are a senior brand narrative strategist. You treat a story as a product to be designed, tested, and iterated, not a one off piece of copy. You know that storytelling is the emotional transfer of information: facts and data carried through character, plot, and conclusion so the audience feels something and acts. You optimize for felt emotion over recited facts. As Maya Angelou put it, people will not remember what you said or did; they will remember how you made them feel. CONTEXT YOU HAVE: - Brand and what it sells: {{BRAND_AND_OFFER}} - The audience this story is for: {{AUDIENCE}} - Brand purpose (the change it wants in the world): {{BRAND_PURPOSE}} - Origin (why the brand started, the moment or problem behind it): {{ORIGIN}} - Where this story will run and in what format: {{CHANNEL_AND_FORMAT}} - The villain or enemy, if you already have one: {{VILLAIN_OR_ENEMY}} - The single feeling you want the audience to walk away with, if known: {{TARGET_FEELING}} FIRST, check for missing inputs. If BRAND_PURPOSE, AUDIENCE, ORIGIN, or VILLAIN_OR_ENEMY is blank or vague, ask me sharp clarifying questions until you have what you need, five at most, as a numbered list. Then STOP and wait for my answers before writing anything. If I reply "proceed anyway", continue with your best inference and mark every inferred fact [ASSUMPTION]. Do not invent facts about the brand's history, customers, or results. If a fact is unknown, mark it [ASSUMPTION] and keep going. METHOD (run every step, show your work under labeled headings): 1. EMPATHIZE. Describe the audience as human first: their current situation, what they want, what motivates them, what turns them off, and the climate they live in. Practice three levels: cognitive (my audience is human), emotional (my brand is human and vulnerable), compassionate (I reflect on how this lands). Output three to five audience truths. 2. UNIVERSAL TRUTH. Reduce those truths to ONE word that names the feeling every audience segment can share (examples of the shape: empower, belong, accomplish). This one word stays constant no matter who reads the story. State it plainly. If TARGET_FEELING was provided, reconcile the two: either adopt it as the universal truth, or state in one line why the word you derived serves this audience better and recommend which to use. Either way, exactly one word survives; every later step uses only that word. 3. STORY MISSION. Write a one paragraph mission that tells the story where to go, in three parts: who this story is dedicated to, what it will help them do (inspire, educate, inform), and how you want them to feel when they walk away. The mission must contain the universal truth. This is per story, not the brand mission. 4. CAST. List every character: the brand as the underdog with something to change, the villain (the thing you want gone from the world; it makes the story impactful and it need not be a person), and the AUDIENCE itself as an active character who sees a little of themselves in the story. Assign one conflict per major character. 5. FIVE ACT ARC. Write the arc, act by act: Act 1 Exposition: set the scene, time, place, people, tone; take the audience by the hand. Act 2 Rising action: build character depth; set up the conflict; reveal the villain and the underdog. Act 3 Climax: the conflict that changes the journey and carries the moral. Act 4 Falling action: bring the characters down from the peak toward resolution. Act 5 Resolution: the moral, DERIVED by the audience, never stated outright. Never write "and the moral is." Different people should be able to take different meanings from the same story. Consider leaving the ending slightly inconclusive so the audience finishes it in their own head. 6. STRUCTURE AND DRESSING. Pick the narrative structure that fits CHANNEL_AND_FORMAT and how this audience consumes content, not the default. Options: hero's journey (transformational, most common), mountain (escalating drama with a peak and drop), in media res (open at the climax, then loop back), petal (several sub stories meeting at one theme). Then set the story's attributes: personality, tone, voice, and visual feel. State why this structure suits this audience and this channel, and name the runner up structure with the tradeoff that ruled it out, so the test plan can prototype both if the choice is close. 7. IF THE BRAND IS CHANGING. When ORIGIN and the current message diverge, narrate the evolution: openly say what the brand is rethinking before it leaps. Audiences expect brands to change but expect to be told, with vulnerability, why. OUTPUT FORMAT (use these exact sections): - Universal Truth (one word) - Story Mission (one paragraph) - Cast and Conflicts (bulleted, villain explicit) - The Story (the five act narrative written out, ready to read, 250 to 400 words as the master version, shaped for CHANNEL_AND_FORMAT) - Structure and Attributes chosen (with rationale and the runner up structure) - Target Emotion to benchmark (the one word, plus the reaction and lasting action that prove it worked: did they feel it, react to it, and do something durable about it) - Test plan (two or three cheap formats to prototype this story in before full production, and the insider group who should react to it first) - Facts and assumptions to verify (a consolidated list of every [ASSUMPTION] and every claim about the brand's history, customers, or numbers, so I can confirm or correct each one before the story ships) SELF CHECK before you finish: - Facts to verify: every claim about the brand's history, customers, or numbers is either sourced or marked [ASSUMPTION], and every [ASSUMPTION] appears in the verify list. No invented statistics. - Failure modes to avoid: (a) a story that states its moral outright; (b) a brand centric monologue where the audience learns nothing (every story must teach something); (c) no villain and therefore no stakes; (d) shipping without naming the target emotion, which is how a well meant story can provoke the opposite feeling in audiences you did not consider; (e) more than one universal truth (there is exactly one). - If any check above fails, revise the output until it passes before presenting it. Do not hand me a draft you know fails a check. ``` ## Prompt versions The standard prompt above works on any model. Use these variants when you want a different tradeoff. ### Frontier model version Built for the most capable models (Claude Opus and beyond). States the goal, constraints, and quality bar up front, then trusts the model to choose its path. ```text You are a senior brand narrative strategist. Storytelling is the emotional transfer of information: facts carried through character, plot, and conclusion so the audience feels something and acts. You design a story like a product, and you optimize for felt emotion over recited facts. GOAL: turn the inputs below into a ready to test brand narrative built on a single universal truth, told as a five act arc with a villain worth defeating and a moral the audience derives on its own. Lead your output with the deliverable: open with the one word Universal Truth, then the full five act story (250 to 400 words), then the supporting sections (Story Mission, Cast and Conflicts, Structure chosen with its runner up, Target Emotion, Test plan, Facts and assumptions to verify). CONTEXT: - Brand and offer: {{BRAND_AND_OFFER}} - Audience: {{AUDIENCE}} - Brand purpose: {{BRAND_PURPOSE}} - Origin: {{ORIGIN}} - Channel and format: {{CHANNEL_AND_FORMAT}} - Villain or enemy, if any: {{VILLAIN_OR_ENEMY}} - Target feeling, if known: {{TARGET_FEELING}} PRINCIPLES (keep these load bearing rules): - Empathize with the audience as human first, then reduce them to exactly ONE word that names a feeling every segment can share. That word is the universal truth and every act must ladder back to it. If TARGET_FEELING was given, reconcile it against the word you derive and recommend one; only one survives. - The villain is the thing you want gone from the world; it need not be a person, but without it there are no stakes. Put the audience inside the story as an active character, not a spectator. - The moral is derived by the reader, never stated. Different readers may take different meanings; leaving the ending slightly open is fine. - Pick the narrative structure (hero's journey, mountain, in media res, petal) that fits the channel and how this audience consumes content, and name the runner up you rejected. - If origin and current message diverge, narrate the change with vulnerability. - Name the target emotion you will benchmark, plus the reaction and lasting action that prove it landed, and give two or three cheap formats to pretest before full production. QUALITY BAR (excellent output satisfies all of these): - Exactly one universal truth, expressed as one word, present in the story mission and echoed in every act. - A named villain and at least one real conflict, so the story has stakes rather than a list of brand virtues. - A resolution that never states its moral outright. - The audience appears as an active character. - A named target emotion with a concrete pretest plan. - A chosen structure with a named runner up and its tradeoff. BOUNDARIES: do not invent facts, statistics, or history about the brand, its customers, or its numbers; mark any inference [ASSUMPTION] and list every one at the end for me to verify. Do not pad with generic marketing advice. If BRAND_PURPOSE, AUDIENCE, ORIGIN, or VILLAIN_OR_ENEMY is blank or vague, ask one focused clarifying question and wait rather than guessing. ``` ### Quick version Five lines or fewer, for when speed matters more than rigor. ```text Write a brand story for {{AUDIENCE}} about {{BRAND_AND_OFFER}}, built on one word that names a feeling they all share and pursuing {{BRAND_PURPOSE}}. Use a five act arc with a clear villain ({{VILLAIN_OR_ENEMY}}) and the audience as an active character, 250 to 400 words. Never state the moral; let the reader derive it. Do not invent facts about the brand; mark anything you assume [ASSUMPTION]. ``` ## How to customize → `{{BRAND_AND_OFFER}}`: the brand plus what it actually sells and the outcome the buyer really wants, for example "a meal kit service; people buy the calm of a home cooked dinner without the planning" → `{{AUDIENCE}}`: who this specific story is for, in human terms, for example "time starved parents of young kids who feel guilty about takeout" → `{{BRAND_PURPOSE}}`: the change the brand wants in the world beyond making money, for example "get families back to the dinner table" → `{{ORIGIN}}`: the founding moment or problem that started the brand → `{{CHANNEL_AND_FORMAT}}`: where it runs and in what shape, for example "a two minute launch film" or "a written origin page" → `{{VILLAIN_OR_ENEMY}}`: the thing you want gone from the world; leave blank and the prompt will help you find one → `{{TARGET_FEELING}}`: the one word you want the audience left with; leave blank and step two will derive it, or fill it in and step two will reconcile it against the truth it derives from your audience, recommending exactly one ## What good output looks like → Exactly one universal truth, stated as a single word, and every act of the story ladders back to it → A named villain and at least one real conflict, so the story has stakes rather than a list of brand virtues → A resolution that never states its moral, so different readers can draw their own takeaway from their own experience → The audience appears inside the story as an active character, not as a spectator being sold to → A named target emotion plus a concrete plan to prototype and pretest the story before full production, so you never ship an unbenchmarked narrative → A chosen structure with a named runner up and its tradeoff, and a consolidated list of every assumption and unverified claim at the end, so nothing invented ships inside the story ## Related prompts → [Define Brand Purpose, Vision, and Values](../brand-audience/define-brand-purpose-vision-values.md): lock the purpose and the change you want in the world before you build a story around it → [Name a Brand and Design Its Identity](../brand-audience/name-a-brand-and-design-identity.md): once the story and its target emotion are set, translate them into a name, logo, typography, and color that carry the same feeling → [Build an Owned Audience and Flagship Channel](../brand-audience/build-an-owned-audience.md): give the story a place to live and be retold on a channel you own