In their upcoming book, What's Your Story?, authors Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker look at the power of stories and storytelling to drive business in the 21st century. In this first installment in a multipart series, RetailWire speaks with Ryan Mathews to look at the need for storytelling in business and how it has evolved in recent years.
It's not unusual to think about storytelling in frivolous terms. It's something we do to pass time, to serve as a form of entertainment. Sure, it might be fun but it doesn't have any practical business applications, does it?
"The story form over time has been proven and demonstrated over and over again across all cultures to be the single best way to transfer information, belief, history," Ryan Mathews, founder and CEO of Black Monk Consulting and author of the upcoming book, What's Your Story (2008, FT Press, Upper Saddle River, NJ), told RetailWire. "Really all of what we know about ourselves comes down through stories because they are easy to transport. They're easy to remember. They're easy to repeat. They're compelling if repeated well. Stories are the compelling driver in mythology, in religion, in culture and in everything else."
According to Mr. Mathews, it's easy for many to see the application of storytelling in terms of advertising, promotion, branding, public relations and merchandising. There are perhaps less obvious opportunities to use storytelling in areas such as recruitment, retention, morale building, investor relations and more.
"There are companies that are using traditional storytelling more or less effectively to promote brands and even to guide their internal operations. P&G has a corporate storyteller but unfortunately the company would not go on the record for the book," he said.
What's Your Story? is filled with numerous examples of storytelling for good and bad in corporate America. A number of points become clear in the reading: 1) the practice of storytelling has a dynamic role to play in corporate America; 2) stories change; 3) the nature of storytelling has changed dramatically in the era of internet and wireless communications, and; 4) companies need to formalize the process of storytelling within the organization to maximize results.
Referring back to Procter & Gamble, Mr. Mathews discussed the story behind Ivory Soap. "The Ivory story was, "Eureka, it floats." It was the happy accident story. But, if you check it out now it is no longer the happy accident story, now it's the end product of research and development, trial and error. They've changed the story. The facts haven't changed - the soap has air bubbles and floats - but the story around the facts has changed significantly and it tells us a lot more about how the company has matured."
Another example of a changing story is Ben & Jerry's.
"They had a very consistent, interesting story about two hippie, trippy guys who loved ice cream and who took their money and gave it to good causes like folk festivals and world peace and all of that. When it got acquired by Unilever, all of a sudden it's much harder to tell that story when you're owned by a multinational."
One of the new challenges storytellers face in the 21st century, according to Mr. Mathews, is that audiences are more engaged and vocal.
"In the age of the internet, everybody is critical about everything so you get the AdBusters, the blog sites that are trashing false claims and hypocrisy and so on. You've got the NoLogo people and all these things. It becomes harder and harder to maintain your story."
In a growing number of cases, said Mr. Mathews, marketers have turned to the audience to develop and maintain the company/brand story.
"A group of very smart marketers have now realized that if the audience is turning to storytelling so the big twist in the 21st century is that the audience becomes the storyteller. So you have a whole group of companies that suddenly have become very active in becoming storytellers," he said. "Think of Shedd's Spread Country Crock and its promotion of sharing. If you tell them a story of sharing with somebody or a time someone shared with you, they'll donate one meal for every story to America's Second Harvest. The name (Shedd's) becomes linked to the notion of sharing."
Discussion Questions: What roles do you see for storytelling in corporate America? How have you seen business storytelling change over time? What companies/brands have impressed you with their storytelling ability?