storytelling - landscape€¦ · 18. visual content • brands that use visual content have found...

Storytellingby Ryan Sales, Creative Director

1. Chapter 1: How to tell a good story

• Good afternoon

• Hello, I’m Ryan Sales, Creative Director of Landscape

• Landscape are a communications agency

• We help organisations engage with their employees

• Our mission is to make the complex simple

• We use behavioural science, gamification, change management and creativity to create digital experiences, apps, tools, brands, animations and campaigns

• Today I’m going to talk about storytelling, something that we use a lot in our employee engagement

2. Left brain, right brain

• Lots of discussion today about the ‘left brain’ – analytics, ROI, measurement, statistics, big data. All good

• Want to bang the drum for the ‘right brain’ – creativity, gut feeling, innovation, emotion, surprise and delight

• Hard to prove, art not science

• But it’s critical to winning hearts and minds

• To do this, you need to wrap your vision in a story that fires the imagination and stirs the soul

Left brain, right brain

Private & Confidential ©Landscape 2017. All rights reserved Internal Communications Conference | 20.06.17

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3. Techniques

• We use a range of techniques, one of which is storytelling

• We use it by turning information and complex data into briliantly simple stories

• We probably have some great storytellers here today

• People who have launched a programme that has inspired employees to act, maybe change behaviours

• How can we introduce storytelling? Embed it into the comms toolkit?


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Storytelling as a technique

4. Quote

• “Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell”. – Seth Godin, Marketing guru

• Stories can help deliver ‘the why’, help to inspire action and command loyalty

• Not just the what or the how but the why


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Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell.Seth Godin, Author

“

5. Once upon a time…

• We have been telling stories for 1000s for years

• Stories are incredibly powerful tools

• They influence, inspire and move people

• They can change behaviour and get people thinking

• Builds communities

• When we listen to stories, we drop our guard, become more trusting. this circumvents the guard dogs of logic


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6. Changing world

• We know how digital has changed communication. It’s a given

• Big data is a huge market force

• For example, more data has been created in the last two years than in the entire history of the human race

• Every minute 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube

• But storytelling is a tried and true classic that often gets lost in the digital shuffle

300 hours 1 minute

Digital landscape


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7. Opposing forces

• This engagement landscape is:

• Increase in content production and consumption vs Decrease in our attention span

• Visual storytelling can deliver on both

• Conduit of opposing forces


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Opposing forces in the communication landscape

Increase in content production and

consumption

Decrease in users' attention span

VisualStorytelling

8. Make me care

• “Make me care” – Andrew Stanton, Pixar, Director of Wall-E, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, Writer etc

• Storytelling can achieve results beyond just ‘because it’s my job’. Or my boss tells me too

• Because I care


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Make me care.Andrew Stanton, Pixar, Director of Wall-E, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, & Writer

“

9. How can we do this?

• Employees are jaded, busy, cynical

• You can’t hammer on the door and demand it be opened up

• Sometimes you can’t make a frontal assault

• Find different ways of creating engagement

Obstacles

Safe in Wells Fargo


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10. Trojan horse

• Have to use a range of clever storytelling devices e.g. put your message in a beautiful Trojan wooden horse

• Sounds manipulative, it’s not. It means think about how you deliver the message

• Visual storytelling communicates powerful ideas with the employee at the heart of the story. Simple

• Delivered through interactive and immersive visual media

• Key is to make your audience the hero, addressing their needs and issues first

Finding a way in


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11. Create and deliver positive experiences

• We’re entering the emotion-oriented ‘dream society’ where employees take for granted the functionality of products

• They will respond to what degree they believe a product will give them positive experiences. Like VR here

• In essence - want better internal communications at your place of work? Start creating experiences

Positive experiences


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12. Definition of story/narrative/storytelling

• Series of connected events

• Leading to singular goal, purpose

• Obvious application is employee stories

• Also short form – tweet or post on social media

• And long form – campaign or digital experience

• But also apply the structure of storytelling

Series of connected eventsleading to singular goal

Definition of a story


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13. Essential building blocks to a story

1. The protagonist

2. The antagonist

3. Desire• But not too abstract. Primal

human desires• Help them get what they need,

not necessarily what they want

4. Inciting incident / journey

5. Crisis• Most important question of the

story• Final test, face up to their

dramatic need

Climax• Release from the predicament• ‘This will happen’

7. Resolution

ProtagonistWhom the story revolves around

AntagonistChallenge or obstacle that needs

to be overcome

Desire'The why', giving the protagonist

something to fight for

JourneyCatalyst for the protagonist's desire

‘what will happen?’

Crisis'Worst point'. The final dilemma is

crystallised

ClimaxFinal showdown ‘this will happen’

protagonist faces antagonist

ResolutionThe denouement, where everything

comes together

Story building blocks


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14. How can this be applied to internal communications?

The protagoniste.g. Audience: UK employees

The antagoniste.g. Our company is introducing a new system

Desiree.g. It will bring you closer to our customers, and have less complaints

Inciting incident / journeye.g. We need to implement various checkpoints during the implementation period

Crisise.g. If we don’t move to one new system, we will be left behind by our competitors and lose customers

Climaxe.g. Launch

Resolutione.g. Thank you for all your hard work, the project was a success, please share your experiences online. We have saved £XXX!

ProtagonistEmployee audience group

AntagonistProject objective

DesireReason 'why' employees

should care

JourneyDirection to take, building in

events that reinforce the desire.

Collaboration.

CrisisManagement of change, tackling

and mitigating issues

ClimaxLaunch of programme with

reporting and analytics

ResolutionCelebrating and sharing success

Story building blocks


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15. Structure to a story

• Standard archetypal three act structure

1 Set up (Beginning)

> Introduce the characters

> Set the time and place

> Convention and mood

> Outline the challenge that

moves the story forward

> Plot point that turns the

story in a new direction

2 Confrontation (Middle)

> Struggle and complications

to achieve the solution

> Subplot layered under the

narrative

> Stakes escalate

> Raises the possibility of a

different outcome

> Plot point that turns the story

again in a new direction

3 Resolution (End)

> Protagonist confronts

opposition

> Problem is resolved

> Narrative closure

> Denouement

Story structure


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1 Set up (Beginning)

> Introduce the characters

> Set the time and place

> Convention and mood

> Outline the challenge that

moves the story forward

> Plot point that turns the

story in a new direction

2 Confrontation (Middle)

> Struggle and complications

to achieve the solution

> Subplot layered under the

narrative

> Stakes escalate

> Raises the possibility of a

different outcome

> Plot point that turns the story

again in a new direction

3 Resolution (End)

> Protagonist confronts

opposition

> Problem is resolved

> Narrative closure

> Denouement

Story structure

Your communications plan


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16. Structure to a story

• This is essentially a good comms plan eg Create a narrative framework

• Describe the setting e.g. audience

• Portray your protagonist(s) e.g. the idea, theme

• Vary the form and format of your storytelling images e.g. channels

• For larger campaigns or programmes we often create a short narrative that includes these elements. It’s used as the essence of the programme.

17. Brilliant storytellers

• How do other visual artists use storytelling and what can we learn?

• Consumer grade – another of our ‘techniques’

• Gap between consumer and employee experience is very narrow. If I can experience that at home, why not at work?

• Steve Jobs, product launch, pulling a laptop from an envelope. Theatre

• Don Draper changing the wheel on Kodak’s slide machine to a carousel

• As I said earlier, there are also probably many other storytellers here today


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18. Visual content

• Brands that use visual content have found that it encourages greater engagement with their customers

• Visuals help us tell our stories quickly with impact and emotion. And when the visual is a powerful one, be it an image or video, the effect is magnified

• Good, consistent visual storytelling is what cuts through all the mediocre content posted online today

• e.g. Share a Coke

• Share a Coke spoke to us as individuals, while making us feel more connected to the brand and to one another – and that is the secret to its success

Visual content


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19. Tips

• 1. Obvious, but fantastic database of content

• 2. Who is going to be your narrator? Maybe look at line managers and your project champions

• 3. Stories with happy endings are always powerful

• 4. Triumph-over-adversity creates drama, can follow the narrative arc. When Malcolm in IT worked late to fix the email system with a critical launch the next day

• 5. Absolutely key. Sticking to the party line is unrealistic

1 Encourage colleagues to share their work stories

2 Make line managers and champions your narrators

3 Seek out examples of success and happy customers

4 Promote triumph-over-adversity projects

5 Portray genuine authenticity and truth

5 tips for using storytelling in internal comms


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20. Examples of visual storytelling

• One page scrolling sites: revealing content slowly, so that you keep looking

• Video: Loads of stats on the power of video and animation, not going to repeat now. You know the stats

• Infographics: Data brought alive

• Character, avatars: HSBC financial education tools

• Picture: Tell a story in a picture. Don’t use obvious, clichéd images

• Multimedia: Multi-channel

Application

Scrolling sites

Character design

Video

Images

Infographics

Multi-channel

+44 (0) 207 7692 7001 www.yourlandscape.co.uk

iTenderApp design and production Animation

Employee engagementAnimation Scriptwriting

+44 (0) 207 7692 7001 www.yourlandscape.co.uk


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21. One example to show you

• Here’s a quick 1 minute walkthrough of part of a pensions website we created for a global financial services company

• It includes many of the techniques and tips I discussed earlier

• Such as hero, journey, surprises, different types of content, new content is revealed

• Also includes gamification which is related to storytelling

• You can watch the short walkthrough here;

• http://www.yourlandscape.co.uk/our-work/pension-jungle/


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Thank you.

Ryan Sales, Creative [email protected]

storytelling - landscape€¦ · 18. visual content • brands that use visual content have found...

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