Embracing Conflict: The second C of brand storytelling.

What would Romeo and Juliet be without the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets? At best, maybe a bad John Hughes teen angst flick?

Fortunately, Shakespeare didn't have anyone offering suggestions for improvement:

"Why do they have to be feuding?"

"We're making Verona look like an unfriendly place. That's bad for tourism."

"Couldn't we make it more...I don't know...uplifting?"

It would have deprived the world of one of the great stories of all time. Because at the very center of every great story is a conflict. Take away the conflict, you take away the story.

This is exactly where many brands stumble in telling their stories. They water down the essential conflict that defines them as a brand. Yes, you'll often see challenger brands who are trying to displace a more established competitor embrace the conflict between themselves and the competition. But Coke vs Pepsi or McDonald's vs Burger King is not the kind of conflict that delivers a powerful brand story.

What was the central conflict in Love Story? Life vs. Death. Moby Dick? Man vs. Nature. Star Wars? Good vs. Evil. 1984? Individualism vs. Authority. These are epic conflicts. They're far more interesting than shelf-space pissing matches. Because they give us a rooting interest in issues that matter to us.

Which is why many brands shy away from conflict. It invites people to take sides -- to choose a brand in part based on the epic conflict at the center of its story -- and that can have a limiting effect on the potential size of the market. This, as you can imagine, is something corporate bean counters are not fond of. But smart marketers understand that a narrow but highly engaged market is worth more to a brand's success than a broader, disinterested one.

Building that engaged market is one of the key reasons for a brand to find the epic conflict that defines it, and embrace that conflict. That's when you have a story people care about. That's when you have a real story to tell.