Story Telling to Move Markets, Audiences, People and Brands

Citation

Abimbola, T. (2009), "Story Telling to Move Markets, Audiences, People and Brands", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 304-305. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760910965909

This book is written by two of the most respected futurists in the USA: Ryan Matthews, a globally recognised futurist and storyteller, and Watts Wacker, one of the most influential business thinkers who has helped some of the world's top corporations through challenges of change management. Ryan Matthews and Watts Wacker's collaboration in Story Telling to Move Markets, Audiences, People and Brands brings out the great stories about some of the biggest organizations in market economies.

The first two chapters focus on why businesses need to tell stories, and they highlight the differences between “truth” and “true” stories. This is in sync with the practical realisation that stories told about organizations are essentially part of the Gestalt that we sometimes take into consideration and depend upon in our views and characterisations of organizations and their brands. This early part cogently brings out some of the reasons why businesses need to tell their stories and differentiate them to tailor them to different stakeholders such as employees and the general public.

This clearly addresses the point in that there may be more than one kind of story: one told to the general public and another to employees. Stories serve many purposes: they may be told to encourage, motivate, or to make employees perform the way that management wants them to. They may also be spun to enable employees to understand “who we are” and “where we came from”, or they may be told because management wants workers to realise “why they've been employed” and “what is expected of them”. Stress on the latter two rather than the first is the main objective of storytelling when it comes to telling tales to employees. Telling stories about the organisation to the public is handled differently. At this stage, the authors clearly outline some of the reasons why stories told about organisations influence our views and perceptions of them.

Chapter 3 focuses on the ten functions of storytelling. These functions explain why stories are powerful, persuasive and integrative tools for sense making amongst the stakeholders involved with an organisation. In addition, the authors harped on the need for and the importance of story telling in creating and sharing coherent ideas about an organisation and its brands. The authors concluded with specific points on writing an apt and true story that is capable of “capturing the attention of audience” (p. 28) more than anything else. The chapter further emphasises the need to bring out how a story relates to those that it is meant for and why the story is important to be conveyed if the organisation expects the desired results from its story.

Chapter 4 stresses the need for a common context to tell a convincing story. It emphasises building stories with relevant and cogent themes, but with a flexible common context for them to be relevant to all the stakeholders: “We gave you some of the details, you filled the rest” (p. 39). The next chapter is on the relationships between the brand and the customer and, and on the nature of the message exchanged between them. The theme here is that brand owners need to “let go to hold on” (p. 45) and that marketers are better served when they let consumer wants and needs drive brand strategy. This resonate with the age of user define context, brand communities and social network environment, epitomised by the rise of YouTube, Bebo/FaceBook and others. Letting consumer co‐create the stories is more likely to foster meaningful dialogue rather than monologue between firms and their stakeholders.

Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the five stages of business evolution and guidelines for storytellers with five critical themes:

1. 1.

   hero's quest;

2. 2.

   creation;

3. 3.

   transformation;

4. 4.

   myths of the fall and redemption; and

5. 5.

   myths of the crossroads.

These are based on dramatic and catchy themes on merger/acquisition/selling of a business unit viewpoint, stories of “anticipation and proactive decision‐making” (p. 86). “Stories of the Fall and Redemption” are great, but greater can be those anticipating bad times and making decisions to avert foreseeable dangers. They make better reading and give a better impression about the storyteller. In discussing the stages of business evolution, the authors base the chapter around major events that companies need to create stories such as mergers and acquisitions. They back up their analysis with real‐life examples such as GE's disinvestment of not very profitable units and those that did not fit its long‐term business goals.

Chapters 8‐11 are on the application of story telling to industries (Chapter 8), the corporation (Chapter 9), the brand (Chapter 10), and individuals (Chapter 11). Applied story telling looks at some good and bad stories which built and destroyed companies and suggests rules to be applied to relevant to different contexts and institutions, such as industries, corporation, the brand and individual. For instance, point 9 in Guidelines for Storytellers – establishing a new industry (Chapter 8, pp. 106‐7) – talks about dealing with critics. If a story leaves/covers up a big bad phase/point which the organization/person in charge faced, it will be lapped up by critics and prominence given only to the one sore point, neglecting all the other positive attributes. If the story comes out the “not‐so‐good‐incident(s)” by itself (this can be as little as a single line, but it has to be there), the potential future damage by someone else trying to expose is almost negated. We have seen this with many a political career.

In Chapter 10 the authors present what they regard as the definitive “10 rules for storytelling branders” (p. 149). Their suggestion that the “story should target the same audience as the brand does” sounds simple and straightforward. If the brand targets a particular age group/section of society, the story also should be entertaining to that particular group/section most (this can probably be a little extension of point 8 on p. 150). Chapter 11 is on “10 potential character models” (pp. 158‐61), but perhaps another character depicting the “David”, taking on “Goliath” could have been included. This is particularly important given the phenomenal rise of the underdog such as Bill Gates versus IBM. Chapter 12 presents “8 cautionary rules” essentially as a story tellers' toolkit. The suggestion here is simple: point out your own mistakes in the story of your organization/people. The public is more forgiving this way, rather than when others/media point it out and it becomes a scandal. The book concludes with an experiment designed to create a new myth to illustrate the distinction between truths and facts, both of which are important ideas firmly embedded in stories and story telling.

Although the authors stayed clear of offering a specific definition of a story, it is arguable that story telling is one of those fundamental traits across the humanities. They illustrate the roles of story telling in branding, customer relations and business development. They also point out the roles of stories as means for persuading, motivating and creating lasting bonds between brands/consumer/corporation and individual actors within an organization. Stories can be in different forms. A narrative story essentially clarifies what the theme of a story does and does not address (e.g. particular issues/ideas, etc). But expositional stories are about known facts. What is increasingly clear is that as individuals became creators and generators of business and brand stories, they are also actively engage with and disseminate such stories over and beyond what the markets, brands, or an organization intentionally designed.

The book exemplifies some of the reasons why stories told about organizations influence our views and perceptions of them. Although, the book is targeted at the professional market rather than academia, it is a very useful book for classroom discussion on how to carry out research into organisation identity and reputation. The book is clearly written with a fluent and interesting approach that captures the reader's interest from the first page to the end. The examples and stories used are appropriate and interesting, both within and between chapters. The book also made good use of an important element of a book that others tend to overlook: the book cover. Its outer cover is catchy, relevant, and appropriate for the issues dealt with by the authors.