The first, sponsored by Smithsonian Associates and titled Storytelling for Organizational Success, was kicked off by Steve Denning, the prolific organizational storytelling guru and author, whose newest book is The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. Here also is Steve’s blog.
The theme for the day’s conference was Narrative in Marketing, Branding, Public Relations and Partnerships, relevant to me because a major part of my PhD program focuses on using storytelling for personal branding for organizational entry and career success. A quick summary of Denning’s presentation follows, but he says it best himself in his slide presentation
Denning’s thesis statement was that advertising doesn’t work because it’s not storytelling. Marketers and advertisers are unreliable storytellers, he says. Because of competing media and ad-skipping technologies like TiVo, advertising has shifted from informing to entertaining.
What is branding? A promise, says Denning, in the form of a narrative owned by the customer. The brand narrative is the value proposition to the customer, about the value that the company brings to its customers in meeting their needs.
But what narrative gives, narrative can take away.
There is often a huge gap between what a company is and what it says it is.
The single most important to ask, Denning says, is: Would you recommend [name of brand] to someone else? The key is to get your customer to tell your story.
How can Denning’s ideas be applied to personal branding? Food for thought….