Brand storytelling is back – bigger than ever.
First time around for me was business author, Tom Peters. His original pitch was about corporate myth-making: the conscious creation of those symbolic stories which so effortlessly epitomise an attitude or a principle: Lou Gerstner forcing the IBM Board to abandon the powerpoint in favour of the conversation, for example. Tom’s now making the point that the brand story is more important than the brand.
His simple and punchy point is that stories are great carriers of information. Because stories provide a vehicle not just for facts, but for meaning – an engaging, long-hand mnemonic in which to embed values, facts, personality. Tom’s not alone now. David Aaker’s there, Jim Collins, Philip Kotler, Kevin Roberts all blog the story. And many brand agencies explicitly position themselves as working with story – turning the brand into the story: the iconic founder’s story is a popular variation.
For businesses with a lived sense of history, brand storytelling is a given: brand heavyweights such as IBM, BMW, J&J and GE; welterweights like Virgin, The Body Shop, Burberry, Jack Daniels; and young bantams such as Innocent, EasyJet and, well, Thomas Crapper message from a continuum of brand story. Paul Polman has updated Unilever’s brand story with a fresh relevance – because brands aren’t about abstract values, they’re about values in action – stories in other words.
Brands’ ability to story-tell hinges on many variables: intrinsic business belief in the value of brand, clearly; but also the strength of heritage, especially the prevailing imprint of the founder, the nature of the business journey and purpose, especially the drama of early years’ experience, the retained corporate sense of individuality (in a commoditised world) – all of these as diluted by acquisition, brand stretch, product nature, age and size, And many businesses – especially large ones – have lost the ability to tell their story.
For these brands in particular, what Games partnership offers is the opportunity to write their own story. An intrinsic attribute of the Games is the fact that they start with an inspiring vision and end with a global reality. Each Partner plays, to a greater or lesser extent, its own part in making that happen. In the words of Ron Rogowski, from UPS: ‘It’s about how you take your company story, and weave it into the Olympic story. Our story and brand platform – ‘We Love Logistics’ – is a big concept. We’ve got to bring that concept to life – what we actually do for our customers, using the London 2012 Games as a case study.’
From a comms perspective, the Games dramatically expand the relevance and resonance of business news – stories which might naturally find their home on page 17 are sucked forwards, converted into mainstream news. EDF fleet news does not usually warrant national media coverage, but when it expanded its fleet by leasing 35 electric Minis from BMW, against the context of LOCOG’s vision of the most sustainable Games to date, the UK newspaper, The Daily Mirror covered the story.
But it’s much more than a case study: it’s the perfect case study – a project of national and even global relevance, with an absolute delivery deadline, the opportunity to elect or even define your own business contribution. Deloitte’s Heather Hancock is very clear about the value of the Games story: ’LOCOG chose us because of our tools and capabilities around major programmes, complex cross-border tax regimes, organisational design, business continuity and operational readiness, testing and war-gaming – a real breadth and depth of business services. That’s the story we tell our clients. It brings alive our impact in a way that data about our staff numbers and service lines fails to do.’
Things can go wrong: IBM’s dramatic meltdown in 1992 is the apocryphal scare story, when, as the (unauthorised) story goes, 83 year old weightlifters were clean-lifting weights of over 400 kilos. But in general, partners look forward to association with a runaway success – any glitches lost in the general halo of Games delivery.
Steven Keith, of Petro-Canada (now Suncor Energy) says it his own way: ‘The ’88 Torch Relay was a defining moment for Petro-Canada. So when you ask people about the brand, most Canadians recognise it, know we’re oil and gas – and 50 – 60% of them know that we have a connection to the Olympic Games.’ It’s become a big part of their story.