Product Description

As a concept, storytelling has won a decisive foothold in the debate on how brands of the future will be shaped. Yet, companies are still confused as to how and why storytelling can make a difference to their business. What is the point of telling stories anyway? What makes a good story? And how do you go about telling it so that it supports the company brand? This book is written for practitioners by practitioners. Through real life examples, simple guidelines and practical tools, the book aims to inspire companies to use storytelling as a means of building their brand ? internally as well as externally.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #173689 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 238 pages

Review

From the reviews:

"The book carries branding to the next step, which is storytelling." (Philip Kotler, Marketing guru and Professor, Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University)

"One of the very best marketing books of the year" (Seth Godin, Bestselling author and Marketing expert)

"Check 'Em Out! (...) it's a detailed guide to the creation of powerful sagas that move customers to engage the brand." (Tom Peters, Management guru and CEO, Tom Peters Company)

"It's a big deal to compress your company's story into a brand. This book is the first step on that long journey." (Kevin Kelly, Founder and Editor-at-Large, Wired Magazine)

"While a good story can be a strong persuader, it’s not immediately clear what makes it good or even how to construct one. The authors lay out four basic elements (message, conflict, characters, plot) and give simple explanations for what each of these entail. … The writing itself makes for good storytelling both in anecdotal examples and overall instruction." (Brandchannel.com)

"It's almost like a handbook -- you can easily try out its tools on your daily projects. We have done that already on campaigns and communication in general." (Jorgen Bundgaard Nielsen, Marketing Director, Kraft Foods)

"The book applies storytelling to both management and marketing. It has an excellent introduction to the important structural elements of story telling, which is especially useful if you're one of those people who knows a good story but doesn't usually step back far enough to see the patterns that make it work. I encourage you to read this book from cover to cover. You won't regret it." (Nonprofit Online News)

"I just finished Storytelling: Branding in Practice, an incredible guide to storytelling, by practitioners (Fog, Budtz, and Yakaboylu, to be precise) for practitioners....This book is both wise and practical and I recommend it to anyone who has to think about, and convey, the big picture of their nonprofit." (Gettingattention.org)

Customer Reviews

Highly informative
It's rare that a European book on branding is endorsed by American gurus such as Philip Kotler, Kevin Kelly and Tom Peters - even marketing guru Seth Godin calls this book "one of the very best marketing books of the year".

The strength of this book is not only its message, but in the simple way it delivers this message - through a range of anecdotes and good illustrations.

Addressing professionals working in management, sales, marketing, PR and human resources "Storyteling - Branding in Practice" is probably the first of its kind to provide a practical, hands-on set of tools for companies to apply storytelling strategically as a source to competive power.

In a few hours the book will give you insights into:
- how storytelling can be applied in a business context
- how and where to find stories about your company or brand
- how to tell these stories in a way that benefits business

The best how-to book on storytelling
I have been through a number of the most popular books on corporate storytelling, and this is by far the most useful of them. While they all contain a number of case studies, this book goes one step further and actually provides the reader with clear step-by-step guidelines on how to start using storytelling within your own organisation. Budtz, Fog and Yakaboylu evidently have a lot of real-world experience with their subject matter.

Good start, Good middle, Great examples
The authors introduce the four key concepts: message, plot, characters, and conflict. There's a "conflict barometer" that could be useful.

Then the authors talk about ways to find raw material and process that information. There are a series of "tests": useful questions to develop and gauge your material to produce a core story.

The main strength of the book lies in the examples, which illustrate the final "product" over and over again.

The limitation of the book lies in the production of raw material. The book does have good ideas on where to look for raw stories, e.g. employees, products, leaders, but it doesn't say how generic ideas like the founding of the company can be made compelling. They instead suggest that the reader get stories from company people that are already good storytellers.

The other limitation of the book lies in the lack of failures. It shows how corporations succeeded in telling a core story, but it doesn't seem to show how corporations can fail to tell a core story, and how they resolved such problems. How do companies deal with the pitfalls that inevitably appear on the road to producing something of quality, which in this case is a core story?

However, such problems are not necessarily critical issues for the target audience. The book spends a considerable amount of the pages on the benefits of a story (which a more advanced reader might find redundant). For businesses that are just beginning to look at stories, this book will convince them that stories can be ways to catalyze outside interest. It is a great introductory book.

While the advanced reader may not gain much in terms of producing a raw story, he or she may gather a set of interesting core stories. An alternative title might be "how to find raw stories and process them into core business stories."

I wouldn't mind borrowing it again to see it again.