Why Brand Storytelling Matters

On Saturday 10 October, our co-founder Nic Eve was invited to speak at Founders Café and talked to a room of business owners about brand storytelling. His big point was simple: you need to be able to tell the story of your brand well. That's what helps you stand out.

We make fire tools. Not the obvious topic for a founders' morning. But the tools are the product. The story is what helps everyone remember us. So here's what Nic talked about, and the story he used to prove it.

Image by KOA Photography

What is brand storytelling?

Brand storytelling is telling people where your business came from, who is behind it and why it exists, and keeping it true. It's not a slogan or a mission statement stuck on a wall. It's the honest answer to "why does this thing exist?"

Plenty of brands sell a decent product. Not many can tell you why it exists. Ours can, and it starts around a fire.

Our brand story: how Donkey Long Tong started

It started around a fire in the Richtersveld on 17 July 2021. Three friends, Nic, Simone and Marcel, had spent years overlanding and they were done with burnt fingers and sore backs when tending to the flames. What they wanted was a longer tong that could take the heat.

That conversation led to the very first Donkey Long Tong 80cm. They were in the middle of nowhere, but they knew they had to get the ball rolling on this idea, so they grabbed a stick, found some soft sand and sketched a donkey hoof mark. Our logo.

On the way back home to Cape Town, they kept talking, and eventually a name was decided on. Donkey Long Tong.

Back home, they made the first 300 tongs on an Airbnb kitchen counter. Between their day jobs and a lot of midnight hustle, they launched on 24 September 2021, South African Braai Day (the only day worthy of starting a braai brand). Today the tongs are assembled in our Barn in Paarden Eiland and the donkey is still our emblem. Handmade from an idea in the bush and handmade to this day.

Why authenticity has to come first

That story is the reason Nic's point on authenticity landed. It isn't only about how the public sees you. It's about how you start a brand, and how you start each product and the stories and frustrations that led to its creation. Our tongs exist because three people had an idea based on a very real human frustration.

That's what customers pick up on. They can sniff out whether a brand began with something real or something made up. You can dress a brand up with great photos and clever copy, but if the beginning is invented, the story cracks the first time someone asks a follow-up question. Be honest, be real and get to know how to tell people about the heart of your business. Tell the story.

Why we put storytelling first

Without a story, you're one more brand in a very long list. Search "braai tongs" and you'll see plenty of them. The story is what gets you out of that list.

But it only works if it's told by someone who means it. When a co-founder tells their story with the same passion they have for the business, it pulls everyone forward: the team, the customers, the people listening. Passion breeds passion.

Teamwork and growing a business

Nic also spoke about teamwork and how to grow a business, and our story already makes the case. It has three people in it. Nobody builds this alone and nobody grows it alone. Nic, Simone and Marcel started it, and the people at The Barn in Paarden Eiland keep it going.

What is Founders Café?

None of this happened in a vacuum. The room Nic spoke in belongs to Founders Café, a founder event series run by Lisa Aspeling. Lisa's story is a decent lesson in why you tell yours.

Lisa ran Instagram Masterclasses for her marketing business, Anago, because people do business with people they know, like and trust. Then she pulled them, did no marketing for two years, and her pipeline dried up, as pipelines do. She needed a new way to get in front of business owners. The format for Founders Café came to her.

It has grown from the flagship event into weekly netwalks, and in July they did a spit braai, which is obviously the correct call. Fire, founders and honest stories. We get why it works.

Image by KOA Photography

If you take one thing from the talk

Start from something true, and tell it like you mean it. The rest is craft.

If you want to come and experience how we tell our story, pop into The Barn at 48 Marine Drive, Paarden Eiland. Want the online version first? It's on our Our Story page. See you at the fire.

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