How to use storytelling effectively in corporate communication?

When watching the trigger video “Google Search Reunion” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE) I thought about the emotions being used in marketing to make it more appealing to the public. Surprisingly I noticed that those emotions affected even me when I was watching the video since I nearly cried for the character’s happiness in the end of the advertisement. In addition to this I also told about the video and shared it with my friends in school. Spreading the message like Google probably hoped me to do. Clearly appealing to the emotions by a story makes the advertisement much more interesting to the public!

Why storytelling? Via this specific video I got a feeling that Google wanted to add value and emotions behind their brand. Nowadays people use Google regularly, daily even. However even the brand is big and successful in my opinion there is no strong feelings attached to it. Nothing emotional that connects us to the brand and makes us really commit to Google. With this ad people might build up stronger feelings towards Google and even remember the video later on when using Google’s services. This way the ad could act as an enhancing factor building loyalty and commitment between the customer and the organization.

After the trigger video from Google and a few questions, we discussed in class the role of storytelling in corporate communication and came to a conclusion for a question for our problem-based learning process:

How to use storytelling effectively in corporate communication?


Below the main problem we created a few sub questions as a group to figure out how to use storytelling effectively in corporate communication. These questions you can see in Figure 1 below. Key words being: story, channel & audience.
  

 Figure1. Sub questions and key words

1. What is an effective corporate story? (STORY)

Why use a story at all? Because a story brings the brand to life! It makes you innovative and memorable in your customers’ eyes and therefore gives you a competitive advantage. (Entrepreneur 2009) Nowadays people talk more and more about experiences instead of products. In my opinion when corporate communication is done via storytelling it creates an experience for the customer rather than just advertising the product by providing the facts. David Aaker states in his book “Building Strong brand” that when a brand captures your mind and hearth it gains both behavior and commitment. This reflects perfectly in my opinion to the fact that a story related to a brand helps people to remember it and maybe even act on it. (Aaker, D. 2010, 141-150.)

Susan Gunelius declares in her blog post “5 Secrets to Use Storytelling for Brand Marketing Success” that stories have been made for years, but the key is to make them effective. She compares corporate stories used for example in marketing to fiction stories. To create a perfect story in her opinion has to be a combination of branding fundamentals and fiction. (Gunelius, S. 2013.) Related to this also Chris Fill says (Marketing Communications) that good storytelling requires a theme and a plot like in fiction. A clear beginning that defines the problem, a middle part with a conflict and finally a solution to the problem to finish the story. (Fill, C. 2013, 752-755.)

To make a story engage customers it also needs to have personality, usually a main character that people can relate to or sympathize with. This is why it’s more effective to use the third-person view when telling a story. A common enemy, problem or experience makes the connection between the story and the customer even stronger. A good example of this is the HALO-believe gaming campaign from Xbox. In this particular case the company wanted to advertise a new game. However they suspected that by showing the flow of the game visually (violence, shooting & possible victims) it might give a rather negative impression of the game. Therefore they turned the advertisement to third-person view and gave the audience a hero to root for in the game. (Fill 2013, 752-755, Yanosfsky 2011.) Would you by Halo after this commercial? 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKVaqnEenjA)

2. What are the effective ways for storytelling? (CHANNEL)

In my opinion a successful story needs to be easy to reach and easy to share. That’s why the Internet is probably the most effective way to use storytelling in corporate communication. People can find the information online fast and easy as well as share it forward. Nowadays the emerging social media gives the perfect platform for sharing knowledge and information (Entrepreneur 2009). Involvement and connectivity are highlighted and visual effects make the messages powerful. Channels like Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. reach people easily within a wide geographical crowd. (Fill 2013,752-755.) These channels are in my opinion an effective way for storytelling. Also regular print can most certainly be used in storytelling but I think that to enhance the sharing process, online channels are more effective. Especially in external corporate communication if the goal is to reach more and more customers.   

A rather interesting fact that I learned doing research for this post was that companies might also use storytelling in internal corporate communication. For example a toy company LEGO did a campaign called: “LEGO spirit” that was aimed to share employee stories via short videos in the company’s intranet. The videos were purposed to reveal possible difficulties or problems in different positions in this company as well as to give explanation on how to cope in these situations and what might be possible solution to these problems. The goal was to encourage other employees to share their own videos and learn from each other. (Fill 2013,755)
  
3. How to reach the audience? (AUDIENCE)


Like said storytelling is a different way of corporate communication and more about how people are touched by the advertisement and don’t see it just as a pushed information flow. A good and effective story makes the ad appealing and interesting, like the trigger video from Google for example. While watching the commercial you almost forgot that you are watching a strategically planned marketing creation and saw it more as a nice movie. You became interested of the fact weather the grandfathers really meet each other in the end or not.

But to reach your customers and to make your customers feel that this ad and its value are relevant to them especially, you need to know your customers. And the question is: How will I know what my customers will think after seeing this ad? Will the main idea of the brand and the story around it make my customer think that this service or product is significant to them? (Jiwa, B. 2015).

As clearly and shortly presented as possible, combined with strong emotions like sadness, happiness, longing and passion makes a story easy to follow and sympathize with. Many times a moral decision behind the story also makes it very effective. Take for example the extremely famous TOMS shoes’ ”One for One” campaign: A guy goes to Argentina, sees the shoes there that are extremely unique, sees that people that don’t even own shoes there and discovers a business idea that combines these two observations. He starts to produce these unique and fashionably modified shoes in the United States as well as donating a pair to the kids that don’t own shoes for each pair sold in the States. Fashion and moral well-being combined with charity. People are pleased with unique products, happy to be helping others and feel involved in something ethically right. (Jiwa, B. 2015, Mycoskie 2011.)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MV3HWQHl1s)

In conclusion effective storytelling needs to contain parts of marketing fundamentals as well as fiction to be able to succeed in the corporate world. Emotions and key factors to relate to and sympathize with deepen the connection between the story and the customer. Both internally and externally various channels online are good for receiving and sharing the corporate stories rapidly. However the main importance must be focused on the fact that the story is truthful, clear and easy to follow.

“Tell me a fact and I’ll learn.
Tell me a truth and I’ll believe.
But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”
(Dunford, A.).



References:

Aaker, D 2010. Building Strong Brands. Simon & Schuster. London.

Mycoskie, B. 20.09.2011. How I did it. The TOMS History. URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220350. Accessed: 26.01.2015.

Dunford, A. 23.02.2009. The importance of storytelling in marketing. RocketWatcher. URL: http://www.rocketwatcher.com/blog/2009/02/the-importance-of-storytelling-in-marketing.html. Accessed: 21.01.2015.

Entrepreneur October 19, 2009. Does Your Brand Tell a Powerful Story? URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/203748. Accessed: 20.01.2015.

Fill, C. 2013. Marketing Communications: Brands, experiences and participation. 6th edition. Pearson Education. Harlow.

Gunelius, S. 05.02.2013. Forbes: 5 Secrets to Use Storytelling for Brand Marketing Success. URL: Accessed: 21.01.2015.

Jiwa, B. 2015. 5 Of The Best Brand Stories On The Planet. URL: http://thestoryoftelling.com/best-brand-stories-on-planet/. Accessed: 21.01.2015.

Yanofsky, B. 08/2011. Copyblogger: A Crash Course in Marketing With Stories. URL: http://www.copyblogger.com/storytelling-marketing/. Accessed: 21.01.2015.

TOMS 2014. #IAMTOM. URL: http://www.toms.com/stories/we-are-en/iamtom. Accessed: 21.01.2015.