Once upon a time: the power of corporate storytelling

Why are stories so important?

I’m going to break it to you gently.

People aren’t buying your products or your services. They’re buying a story about what those things will do for them.

Stories help you connect on an emotional level with your audience. They change the way people think, feel, and act. Stories inspire in a way that cold, hard facts just can’t. They make complex subjects easier to digest and help make any topic relatable. We can’t bore people into caring about our communications.

How to create a great story

There’s a lot of science out there about why storytelling works. But I want to concentrate on the six key elements you need for any story. If you don’t have them all, you haven’t really got a story. There’s no order to them, and they’re not necessarily explicit. But, if we want something compelling, we need all of them.

A CHARACTER

Your story isn’t a story if it doesn’t have something personal that your audience can connect to or relate to. You need some form of central character. You should also have distinct hero and villain figures. Remember, just to confuse things, the character might not be a person.

A SITUATION

You need to offer your audience some context. Where are we? What’s happening? What’s happened in the past?

A PLOT OR A QUEST

Yes, Captain Obvious, a story needs to go somewhere. There should be a beginning, middle, and end (and, of course, the more adept we get at storytelling, these elements don’t need to be in chronological order). In most stories, there’s an end goal – a quest – that the hero is working towards.

CONFLICT

You don’t really have a story until something goes wrong (well, you might, but it won’t be very interesting). In every story, there should be a struggle that your hero goes through and tries to overcome. Often, the cause of this conflict will be your villain character. Your story should explore the impact of this conflict – changes in emotion, context, perspective, understanding.

A SECRET WEAPON

This is something the hero has that the villain doesn’t. It’s not always a magic wand. It can be a mindset, support, emotion, a product… The story will explore how the hero uses this secret weapon to overcome the conflict.

RESOLUTION OR CONCLUSION

What happens in the end? What changes? What’s next?

Think about any story you know… it all has these elements. Without all of these, your story won’t work.

• Cinderella was living with her step-mother and step sisters – character and situation
• She wanted to go to the ball – quest
• But her step mother wouldn’t let her go – conflict
• However, then a fairy godmother turned up – secret weapon
• And she went to the ball, fell in love etc etc – resolution

Who’s the hero of a corporate story?

Spoiler alert: it’s not you, your company, or your product.

The hero or any corporate story is someone or something that the audience will relate to. It could be the audience itself. They should be able to see themselves or feel empathy for that character.

The corporate narrative story arc

Corporate stories rarely start with “once upon a time”. You still need all the six elements outlined above, but you need to put them in a certain order to really make it work.

SETTING THE SCENE – THE SITUATION

• Something that’s happening that’ll impact your audience.
• You need to create a sense of urgency.
• Whatever’s happening, it needs to be inescapable. The status quo will not be enough.

THE QUEST

• This is the promised land or end goal.
• This isn’t about your company or your product (yet)
• It’s about a future state – what the world could be like.
• The audience should understand they can’t reach this promised land without help.
• You’re creating tension – where your audience is and where they want to be.
• This and the villain can be swapped if needed

INTRODUCING THE CONFLICT – YOUR VILLAIN

• This is the thing you’re pitting against the hero (again, not your company/product/service)
• This is the thing that will stop you from achieving your quest.
• By introducing your villain here, you’re asking your audience to be part of something bigger – a revolution against a common foe.
• This and the quest can be swapped if needed.

YOUR SECRET WEAPON

• This is the tool used by your hero to overcome the villain and reach the promised land.
• This is where your product, service, organisation comes in. Hoorah!

EVIDENCE

• It’s not enough to just say your secret weapon will work – you need to prove it.
• Use evidence that you’ve helped someone else reach the promised land before.
• Use personal and real-life stories.

RESOLUTION

• Your “happily ever after” hasn’t happened yet.
• You need to invite your audience to work with you to reach the promised land and fulfil the quest.
• What do you want them to think, feel, or do as a result of this story?

What does this arc look like in practice?

Let’s take a corporate story for the pharmaceutical sector. Not the easiest one to write a story about, right? Wrong. This is a redacted and simplified story we developed for a client many moons ago. It’s not recent, but it shows that the format can work for pretty much any topic.

SITUATION

• Access to healthcare is a global issue
• Patients can’t receive the care they need (expand – why? Drug pricing? Slow down in drug development? Insurance?)

QUEST

• Biosimilars represent a new frontier of drug development.
• With them, manufacturers can create complex medicines quickly, and cheaper
• These falling production costs trickle down to the patient – meaning everyone can have access to the drugs they need

VILLAIN

• However, these new drugs face a major hurdle in terms of regulation.
• Expand here with specific issues.

THE SECRET WEAPON

• There are already biosimilars on the market – but the journey has been tough
• We are calling for the creation of an independent body in partnership with <regulators> to take on the certification and audit of biosimilars.
• This means we can start to accelerate the production of reliable, effective, and safe medicines.

EVIDENCE

• <redacted>

CONCLUSION

• A new approach is needed to overcome the hurdles faced by biosimilar manufacturers.
• We can only achieve it if we work together – authorities, manufacturers, practitioners, and patients.

A couple of things you’ll see from this story. The hero here is patients or future patients. The villain is process – it’s not a person or another product. The secret weapon doesn’t actually exist – it’s part of this story’s call to action.

Next time you’re thinking about an announcement, why not give storytelling a try?