Customer Reviews

Storytelling: Branding in Practice

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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

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 book. A bit overpriced, but good. Some great insights amid a lot of very old stories. Very smart, experienced authors.

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.

This is a fantastic book and a great resource. The graphics are very useful and all information is practical. It's my favorite book of the year.
Laura Goodrich