Tales of Timeliness: The Incorporation of Storytelling Elements in Real-Time Marketing on Instagram

Storytelling as a creative dimension of advertising is challenged due to the rapid extension of social media platforms and their new functionalities. Consequently, brands need to rethink the structure of their content and explore innovative and creative approaches that are timely and contextually relevant while reevaluating traditional storytelling techniques. Therefore, brands are inspired to adopt real-time marketing (RTM) to their content creation on Instagram and, in the meantime, adhere to their story and creativity. In response to this development, this research aims to investigate how brands incorporate storytelling elements in RTM campaigns on Instagram, focusing on how brands construct narratives to connect with their audience through timely relevant content. This research employs a qualitative research design that combines thematic analysis and visual analysis, examining textual and visual elements of RTM campaigns from three brands proven to be good practices of RTM: Bol, HEMA, and IKEA. The analysis identifies six core themes that demonstrate the brands' storytelling techniques: Persona Profiling (P.P.), Comedic Creativity (C.C.), Brand Identity Integration (B.I.I.), Entertaining Solution Messaging (E.S.M.), Relatable Action Narratives (R.A.N.), and Narrative Embedding (N.E.). The themes reveal that, through narrative embedding, brands implement storytelling elements into their RTM to humanize and familiarize the content and to create an insider feeling among the audience while constructing brand-customized micro-stories. This research enriches the theoretical framework for understanding RTM storytelling, emphasizing the importance of humor, character development, and cultural relevance. Practically, it offers marketers strategies to create engaging RTM content that reinforces brand identity and interacts with audiences creating an insider feeling among them. Brands are advised to focus on creating relatable characters, leveraging humor, and addressing real-time challenges to enhance their storytelling techniques. The study addresses a gap in marketing literature by focusing on brand perspectives in storytelling, particularly in the context of RTM on Instagram. It introduces the concept of narrative embedding as a novel approach to RTM, providing insights into innovative storytelling techniques that align with audience perceptions and brand differentiation.