The role of the storytelling on brand preference in advertisements

Storytelling, which has an important place in communication throughout the history of humanity, is used more and more by brands to convey corporate values, to establish bonds with their internal and external target audiences, and to build loyalty and trust. This narrative format, which simplifies complex messages and facilitates them to reach the consumer, has turned into a powerful tool used to share brand stories, personalities and promises with the target audience and to realize marketing communication in today's technology and visual age. At this point, storytelling comes to the fore as binding the consumer and the brand. So, it is aimed to humanize brands through storytelling and to establish more emotional, deep and long-term relationships with the consumer. In this study, evaluations were made about the use of storytelling, which has existed in our lives throughout the historical process, in advertisements. With this aim, one of the special days that storytelling is used intensively, March 8, 2022, "Mother's Day" was chosen, and advertisements of three brands that manufacture small household appliances were selected among the 2022 Mother's Day advertisements published in Campaign Turkey. Within the scope of the research, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 students selected from different departments at the undergraduate level who were educated at Istanbul University and received gifts for their mothers on Mother's Day. After explaining the concepts of advertisement, story and brand, the findings and results of the research conducted on the role of stories used in advertisements in brand preference are presented. Keywords: Advertising, Story, Storytelling, Brand, Brand Preference, Consumer Behavior