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INTRODUCTION
Stories have always fascinated people and are more easily remembered than facts. Well-told stories regarding a brand appear to have the potential to influence consumers' brand experience, which consists of all the 'sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of brand's design and identity, packing, communications, and environment' (Brakus et al , 2009, p. 52).
Consumer-originated stories about brands circulate widely, but firms can also create their own stories. The use of such firm-originated brand stories is esteemed to be influential, especially in services (for example, Mossberg and Nissen Johansen, 2006). Consequently, there has recently been an increase in storytelling research (Adaval and Wyer, 1998; Mattila, 2000; Benjamin, 2006; Mossberg and Nissen Johansen, 2006; Woodside et al , 2008). Most brand story research investigates consumer experiences, consequences of product use (Chang, 2009, p. 22), or story content in advertising (Stern, 1994). Furthermore, a wide variety of sources have been analyzed for brand story content, including travel blogs (Woodside et al , 2008; Hsu et al , 2009), Harry Potter (Brown and Patterson, 2010) and consumer blogs and discussions on DNA tests (Hirschman, 2010). However, firm-originated stories have not been widely investigated. Case descriptions and some examples can be found in the literature, but very little empirical evidence exists of their effects on consumer responses. A notable exception is Merchant et al (2010), who studied the effects of firm-originated stories on donors' (negative) emotions and intentions, and concluded that story content affected both.
The present study investigates if brand experiences differ between consumers who are introduced to a brand with a firm-originated story and consumers who get to know the same brand without the story. We investigate if a well-told, firm-originated brand story could make the brand more attractive to consumers.
The present study contributes to brand management literature by providing empirical evidence of the effects of company-generated and communicated brand stories on consumers' brand experience. Clear differences were found between the groups in how they responded to the brand.
The article is structured as follows. In a literature review, storytelling is analyzed and an overview is provided of its effects on consumers' brand experiences. Thereafter, the method and empirical results are presented. The study was conducted as a...