Anyone who keeps track of recent developments on the leadership horizon has come across the subject of storytelling within the leadership context. Enveloping important business lessons within the framework of a story helps effective leaders do more than just pass on knowledge and know-how.
Storytelling transfers theoretical knowledge into a practical context, the story itself focuses and individualizes the information, and the entire experience strengthens and inspires the team. If you want to read inspirational stories then you can visit https://kotchmagazine.com/.
When I first started out in advertising, I was told the story of the agency's successful launch campaign for a major client's new product. Our American creative chairman – just back from a visit to the States – realized that this campaign had to be and not simply act young in order to have any credibility at all amongst younger consumers.
That's why he let himself be inspired by what he had seen on a new Stateside television station: MTV. Instead of bringing out the usual storyboards in their presentation, the creative chairman had pieced together bits of relevant movie stock material in the fast-paced, jaggedly cut MTV style that would soon be all the rage in music videos.
When the agency introduced the idea for the campaign to the client, the client was at first speechless – then livid. It was not what they expected, and it certainly was not what they thought they needed for their product to be a success. The agency believed in their concept and stood behind their innovative idea 100%.
They agreed to develop a parallel campaign more in line with client expectations and to pay to put both campaigns into a market pre-test. The client agreed to abide by the research results and launch their product using the winning campaign.
