· 1. Why do or do not companies use storytelling in corporate communication?
“Help me hire a hit man” – reads the sign of a panhandler
outside a subway station in San Francisco. Apparently, she does quite well.
In Olympia, Washington, a guy gets similar results with
motorists by holding up a placard that says: "Why lie? I need a
beer."
A man in Times Square offers this only-in-New-York service:
"Tell me off. One dollar."
These three entrepreneurial panhandlers succeed (in their
own way) because they know something many business people have yet to discover:
Nothing's more powerful than a good story.
Of course these stories rely on humor to succeed, but
there's much more to them than that.
They grab and hold your attention — motivating
"customers" to "buy" — because they're personal, credible,
compelling, and delivered with commitment and consistency.
Grounded in a big idea
"In business," says Cary Brazeman, principal of
The Corporate Storyteller, "an effective corporate story usually begins
with an idea, the same idea that is the basis of the business plan. What's the
company's raison d'etre... its promise to business customers or consumers? That
big idea should be the basis of the corporate story."
Great business performances often elude otherwise strong
organizations because their stories are poorly conceived or inadequately told.
"In most markets," Brazeman says, "saying
your company provides 'exceptional customer service' or makes 'value-added'
products doesn't inspire a prospect, because your competitors either do the
same things or say they do. Corporate storytelling digs deeper and reflects on
the core principles that define a company and its personality."
As important as language is to effective corporate
storytelling, it alone is insufficient. "The KitchenAid blender on my
kitchen counter is there as much because its design captured my imagination as
it is for its functionality. That's part of KitchenAid’s story, and part of
their sell," Brazeman says.
"Likewise, the American Express card in my wallet is a
true testament to the benefits of 'membership.' I like the fact that they track
my purchasing habits and call if I buy something that doesn't fit my profile to
be sure the card wasn't stolen. That kind of service is part of the American
Express story."
For public companies, effective corporate storytelling is
especially important. Investors put a price tag on them every day, and so goes
their cost of capital, investment return and growth.
"The stock market can be brutal and unforgiving,"
Brazeman says. "It minces no words. But it's arguably the most honest
barometer of a company's future prospects. For listed companies, corporate
storytelling is about showing investors why they should bet on you."
Brazeman adds that the best corporate stories often are
powerful in their simplicity.
"They need not begin with 'Once upon a time,' but they
dramatically improve the odds of happy endings."
***
Storytelling, an important part of human communication, is
being increasingly used by companies to communicate their values and build
trust and connection with employees and customers.
A good story can create emotions and feelings among the
audience, can simplify and transmit complex messages.
One of the problems with communicating your message, that
many companies now face, is how to break through all the noise and disturbances
created by their competitors and reach their target group in a real and
concrete way. Differentiation has become even more important than before and
the margins within which the companies are able to do this even smaller. This is
because the consumers are so used to being bombarded with information and competition
between companies often is fierce. These modern target groups who are more
likely to disregard commercials, protect their mail from spam, and turn a blind
eye to advertisements on every third street corner they pass, are proving
difficult to sway. The circumstances at hand have given rise to a situation that
compels companies to think outside the box in order to reach their target
groups.
Shankar says that “as soon as we enter the world our parents
to tell us stories and so we become socially and culturally into understanding
the narrative form”.
Storytelling is a method that has been progressively used by
companies as a tool to attempt to lessen the gap between consumer and company
or employee and company and create a bridge of longevity, loyalty, mutual
understanding, connection and trust.
Using stories when conveying a message is a way of
triggering what is already latent in all of us. This is held to be true
according to psychologists researching the Jungian and the cognitive approach, “stories
are a fundamental part of human intelligence and imagination”. (McLellan)
Good stories can create a feeling of satisfaction of the
experience you have just been through (McLellan). In this context, how to
communicate a good story that will serve the objectives that almost all modern
companies want to achieve, long and fruitful relationships with both consumers
and employees.
Corporate storytelling can be said to be that added abstract
value that a consumer is more than happy to pay a premium for. The technique
itself is built on a basis of pedagogical and psychological techniques used to
create a lasting memory with a spectator or listener. This is made by creating
a context around the main message that the conveyer wants to communicate or as
McLellan describes it, as a way of framing information so that it is
understandable, meaningful, and memorable”. In this way an abstract value can
created and the listener’s or spectator’s own emotions are evoked by mere
association and this can, among other things, have a positive effect on
creating solid customer relationships and spreading the organization’s values
among employees.
The power of storytelling lies in the fact that it requires
active listening, and provides mechanisms to emphasize meaning and feeling,
which are not always possible with other communication methods. (McLellan)
Storytelling is a form of branding, or a means to achieve a
strong brand. The brand can become strong if the story succeeds in conveying
the correct mindset to the target group.
For the brand to have a great impact, it should be
constructed on clear values, those values that are in imbedded in the core of
the company.
According to Simmons, storytelling gives personality and
meaning to products and brands and, therefore, companies can use storytelling
to create and maintain images they would like to portray. This could be
particularly useful for multinational companies, as maintaining the same
product and brand image across countries and channels simply through
conventional marketing communication could be challenging.
Figure 1. Core story connection
2. What makes an effective story and why?
Winner of Best Ad 2014
Simmons states that “if the story is good enough, people –
of their own free will – will come to the conclusion that they can trust you
and the message you bring”. It is important to tell stories in classical
narrative forms, a story needs to have characters that all have specific roles
to play. It also needs a plot and a timeline with a beginning, middle and an
end. Moreover, Simmons points out that a good story also needs a conflict,
without the conflict the story is not interesting enough. Shankar adds that the
companies need to leave gaps in their stories to make sense of their
consumption experiences and even part of their lives; moreover. They receive
identities from stories and become a character in the stories.
Several researchers also emphasize that to make sure the
stories are good companies need to create different types of stories based on
different purposes and objectives. (Denning, Simmons, Erkas and Baron) Denning
divides stories into different categories, such as stories that spark actions,
communicate who you are, transmit values, communicate who the firm is, foster
collaborations, tame the grapevine, share knowledge, and stories that lead
people into the future.
3. How to determine a target audience and which channels to use to reach them?
The main target audience when using externally directed
storytelling is the consumer, however, also other stakeholders are of great importance
to this dimension.
It is important for the company to localize its target
audience in order for it to direct its message in the correct manner. In this context
companies can establish a communication that is interactive, that will serve
the company’s purposes and through it gain valuable information. Externally directed
storytelling has become increasingly interactive, not only because of the
demands of the modern consumer, but also as a result of media like the
Internet. Consumers are invited to join in on chat rooms and websites offered
by their favorite company, or indirectly, through their favorite company
product or through a membership in their favorite store.
The stories are no longer told by the companies, and
according to Fog, this development is forcing companies “to pay attention to
what their customers are saying, whether they like what they hear or not”. Therefore,
inviting the consumers to participate and be part of the stories surrounding
the company can become a way of encountering this problem.
According to Fog, the Internet gives rise to a completely
new approach to storytelling. Online, anyone can become an avid storyteller and
consumers have the ability to mobilize in great numbers on a global scale. There
is strength in numbers, but also in the fact that the online media gets your
message across instantly. Fog says that “this means that brands can be created
and destroyed in the blink of an eye”.
There are different arenas on which storytelling can occur. Externally
directed stories can be partrayed through the media or advertisements. Internally
they are often communicated through more or less formalized internal
newsletters of through the company intranet.
Shankar says that companies have to consider their
positioning strategy in a larger context. Companies have to consider that the
result of the story, when it comes to branding, can be that e.g. the market only
can hold one ‘heroic’ brand. The arena
therefore becomes more complicated when the purpose is to use storytelling to
position your company and differentiate it from others. In advertising, such as
TV, radio, billboards and the Internet, companies are and have always used
storytelling as a given when wanting to market themselves.
Today every company has its own website where it displays
its products and stories surrounding it. However, Denning states that even
though this media is quick and has a global reach, there are a few downfalls to
using this arena for communicating your message. The most important issue in
this case is that storytelling, among other things, is a way of creating a long
lasting relationship with your customer. This, according to Denning, gets lost
when using this type of media since “people being reached by digital
advertising don’t know who is speaking or whether they can rely on the source”.
He states that it is too easy imitated, it takes place in a context that is
fostered by “thin and anonymous relationships” and claims that “digital
storytelling is not interactive”. He bases this statement on that there is no “face-to-face
relationship” and therefore the teller cannot adjust the story according to the
reactions of the audience.
When it comes to storytelling, the question of whether the
story has to be real or not brings up conflicting views. Denning stresses that
it does not have to be true and that it is “important that the story creates
meaning for the audience” and that the listeners can see the meaning in a more
personal context, so that it becomes truer to them. The connection between the
emotion experienced and the story being told, in other words, has to feel real,
but that does not mean that the story has to be real.
According to Sole and Gray-Wilson, there are 3 major
problems related to storytelling:
1.
Seductiveness
2.
Single point of view
3.
Static stories
When a story is overly seductive, the audience could be
distracted from its purpose, this might cause them to blindly absorb the story
instead of skillfully evaluating it.
The second rick is that the story is often told from the
teller’s perspective, which can be an organization or one person. A story told
from a single point of view often excludes other interpretations and
imaginations, and can even be misleading.
Static stories refer to those stories that do not undergo
significant changes, the impact of a story also varies depending on how it is
delivered, whether through oral, written or other forms.
An additional disadvantage is that the same story may not
work in every culture, as we are often culturally and socially conditioned into
understanding certain form of story. (Shankar) The meaning of stories may also
be subject to interpretations, that is, different audiences could interpret
stories differently. (Reiter)
Sources:
·
The Corporate Storyteller (www.thecorporatestoryteller.com)
·
Hermansson, E. & Na, J. How does company
communicate through storytelling? 2008
·
Denning S. Effective storytelling: strategic
business narrative techniques. Strategy and Leadership. 2006
·
Erkas, E. & Baron, J. The importance of
storytelling in today’s business. 2007
·
Fog, K., Budtz, C. & Yakaboylu, B.
Storytelling – Branding in practice. 2005
·
McLellan, H. Corporate storytelling
perspectives. 2006
·
Reiter, S.A. Storytellers, stories and “free
cash flow”. 1994
·
Shankar, A., Elliot, R. & Goulding, C.
Understanding consumption: contributions from a narrative perspective. 2001
·
Simmons, J. Guinness and the role of strategic
storytelling. 2006
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