Companies as storytellers

Everyone knows the social importance of being a good storyteller. Likewise, every company brand creator needs to understand the value of narrative and how to narrate operations to their audience.

Stories have great significance in our society: they help people perceive large, complex entities and understand causality around us. Stories bring meaning to people and can help people create identities. By associating themselves with a specific story, a larger narrative, an individual can feel part of something bigger. It is therefore important for social actors, such as companies, to be aware of the importance of narratives.

Stories can have a strong rhetorical dimension, as we can see from childhood stories. Anecdotes are used to illustrate to children the meaning of good and evil, for example, certain basic doctrines of Western morality. When we link the teaching to the story, it is possible to get the desired message across effectively. The touching nature of the story is enhanced by the fact that the story itself is relatable and provides a touching surface for the listener. In other words, you need to understand who you are talking to and how the message should be connected or hidden in story form.

One of the great social narratives of our time is man's struggle against himself in the fight against climate change. The struggle involves every individual from our society, whether we like it or not. Well-known companies such as Oatly and Tesla have effectively written themselves into the fight against climate change. By narrating themselves, they have created brands that allow anyone to participate in the fight against climate change with a low threshold. By consuming the products of these brands, you can be part of the solution and feel responsible. Other companies can learn from Oatly and Tesla's example: companies need to have a broad understanding of the society around them and be able to write themselves into it.

In order to be both successful and relevant to society in the long run, a company must be able to write itself into social narratives. To do this, the company must have a comprehensive understanding of which issues affect people and which narratives they identify with, which narratives guide society, and how to make one's own actions part of the larger narrative by narrative. In this way, the company can connect itself to a larger social entity and the community in which the company operates.

Mikael Lundqvist

The author is a lifestyle philosopher and works at Blic as a consultant.