The 10 Best Brand Storytelling Examples

The brand storytelling examples worth copying all do the same thing: they pick one true reason the business exists and tell it the same way, everywhere, for years. Below are ten. Five are household names and five are UK businesses we've worked with, each with the lesson it teaches.

Most lists like this stop at the big brands. Airbnb's budget is not a useful benchmark for a business turning over £2 million, so half of these are at a scale you can copy.

The ten at a glance

1. Airbnb: sell what the product gets people, not how it works.
2. Patagonia: proof beats claims.
3. Ben & Jerry's: values only count when they cost you something.
4. Toms: tie the story to why you exist, not to one offer.
5. Sport England, This Girl Can: cast the person you want to reach.
6. Christie Residential: one line can carry the whole service.
7. NuStaff: let the story decide the design.
8. Welch Fitness: say who it's not for.
9. Renold: B2B stories are buried in the engineering.
10. Smoke & Slaw: the voice is where the story gets told.

What makes a brand storytelling example worth copying

A brand story is not your history. Nobody outside your building cares what year you were founded.

A brand story is the reason you exist, told in a way a customer recognises themselves in. It answers three things: who this is for, what you stand for, and why anyone should pick you over the next option. Every example below passes that test.

1. Airbnb: sell the experience, not the mechanism

Airbnb is a software company. Filters, algorithms, a payments system. It owns none of the places it lists.

An ad about the software would be unwatchable, so it never made one. Its channels are full of hosts and the places they open up, and the tech never gets a mention.

The lesson: customers do not buy the mechanism. They buy what the mechanism gets them. Most businesses we meet describe the mechanism.

2. Patagonia: proof beats claims

In September 2022, founder Yvon Chouinard transferred ownership of Patagonia to a trust and a non-profit set up to fight climate change. The company's line for it was "Earth is now our only shareholder."

Plenty of brands say they care about the environment. Very few give the company away. The story works because the action came first and the line only described it.

The lesson: if your story is a claim, find the proof and lead with that instead.

3. Ben & Jerry's: values only count when they cost you something

Ben & Jerry's published a mission covering its product, its finances and its social causes, and invited people to hold it to account. Published values are a liability, which is exactly why they land.

In September 2025, co-founder Jerry Greenfield resigned, saying the company had been "silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power" by its owner, Unilever. Whichever side you take, it shows how far a values story reaches. When the behaviour stopped matching it, a founder walked out in public.

The lesson: write down only the values you would honour when it hurts.

4. Toms: tie the story to why you exist, not to one offer

Toms grew on One for One: buy a pair of shoes, and a child gets a pair. It was one of the best-known brand stories of its decade. In 2019 Toms dropped the model and moved to giving a third of its profits to a giving fund.

The original story was tied to a single mechanism. When the mechanism stopped working, the story had to be rebuilt in public.

The lesson: build the story on why you exist. Offers change, and the story has to survive them.

5. Sport England, This Girl Can: cast real people

Sport England could have run ads with elite athletes. Every sports brand does.

When This Girl Can launched in January 2015, it cast ordinary women: sweating, out of breath, in real gyms and real parks. The audience it needed had spent their lives being shown the other kind and concluding that sport was not for them. Ten years on, Sport England says over three million more women are active than when the campaign launched.

The lesson: cast the person you want to reach, not the person you wish you were selling to. Aspiration nobody can picture themselves in only creates distance.

6. Christie Residential: one line can carry the whole service

Christie Residential is an independent estate agency in Abergavenny with eighty years behind it. The team expected a smarter logo and new livery.

We started with how the agency works day to day instead. It does not disappear once an offer is agreed, and it stays involved through every stage of the move. That became the brand idea, "Your home, handled with care", and the icon became a heart formed from homes.

The lesson: one line can carry the whole service, as long as it describes how you really work.

7. NuStaff: let the story decide the design

NuStaff is a Chepstow recruitment agency with more than 30 years behind it. It came to us after a management buyout. Most recruitment agencies compete on how many CVs they can send. NuStaff competes on sending the right few, and turns down clients who treat people badly.

Because the business is about fit, the icon became a puzzle piece with "Nu" set inside it, and the tagline became "Right people. Right results."

The lesson: when the story is settled first, the design almost briefs itself. A designer working without that decision could have drawn a perfectly good mark, but not that one.

8. Welch Fitness: say who it's not for

The whole Welch Fitness rebrand came out of six words: leave your ego at the door.

That line was not a tagline bolted on at the end. It was the idea the identity grew from, and once it existed, most design decisions answered themselves: what the space should feel like, who the gym is for, and who it is not for, which matters more.

The lesson: a story for everyone is a story for no one. The line that quietly turns some people away is the one that makes the right people stay.

9. Renold: B2B stories are buried in the engineering

Renold make precision-engineered power transmission products: chains and couplings for industries from cement to chocolate. A detailed account of how a coupling is made would empty a room.

Their marketing team understood that the story was the century of engineering behind the product and the people who kept it going. Same components as their competitors, and a history none of them have.

The lesson: "we're too boring for storytelling" is almost always a failure to look. B2B stories are there, buried under the specification.

10. Smoke & Slaw: the voice is where the story gets told

Smoke & Slaw is a barbecue business that comes to you. There was no origin film and no campaign. The story lives in the voice: the way the menu reads, the way the site talks to you, the way an enquiry gets answered.

A customer meets the story in fragments, and the fragments have to agree with each other.

The lesson: most businesses will never make a brand film. Every business writes hundreds of sentences a year, and that is where the story gets told.

The three tests a brand story has to pass

Studying examples is the easy part. These are the tests we use in workshops to check whether a story will hold up.

1. True. Would you still say it if it cost you a sale? Most brand messaging fails here, because it is written to appeal rather than to be accurate. Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's pass because their stories are inconvenient in places.
2. Specific. Who is it for, and who is it not for? Refusing to name who you are not for is the most common reason positioning stays vague. Welch Fitness works because its line turns some people away.
3. Repeatable. Can someone say it back without you in the room? Ask two people on your team to describe the business separately. Two different answers means you do not have a story yet.

A story that fails any of the three will not survive contact with your own team, never mind a customer. Our brand story framework sets out the structure that gets you through all three.

How to do brand storytelling in your own business

1. Start with what is already true. You are finding the story you have and deciding which parts are worth telling. Our guide to how to write a brand story takes you through it in order.
2. Ask your longest-standing customer why they stayed. The answer is usually more interesting than anything in your marketing.
3. Write down who you are not for. It will feel like turning away business. It is the fastest way to sound like yourself.
4. Run the repeatable test before you spend anything on design. If your team cannot say the story back, no logo will fix it.

If you want more examples at your own scale, we've collected seven from small businesses.

Frequently asked questions

What is brand storytelling?

Telling the reason your business exists in a way your customer recognises themselves in, then saying it the same way everywhere: website, sales calls, social posts, proposals.

What makes a good brand story?

It is true, specific and repeatable. It names who it is for and who it is not for, and your team can say it back without checking a document.

Does a small business need a brand story?

Yes. A small business has fewer chances to make an impression, so each one has to say the same thing. Examples 6 to 10 above are all small UK businesses.

What's the difference between a brand story and brand messaging?

The story is why you exist. Messaging is the handful of things you say every time because of it. We explain the difference in brand story, brand narrative and brand messaging.

Ready to tell yours?

Every story here started with the same question: who are we, really, and why does that matter to the people we want to reach? If you do not have a clean answer, that is the work, and it is what our Brand & Growth Workshop is for. Book a Clarity Call and we'll talk through where you are.