Comments on: Marketing-stories, and stories about stories http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/ Life between form & meaning. Adventures in the transformation of marketing by communications, design & technology, meandering from theory to practice. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:25:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Uri http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-571 Uri Sun, 24 Sep 2006 19:10:28 +0000 http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/#comment-571 Thanks for this elaborate comment. I didn\'t mean to discredit values entirely. They still have an important role in articulating what brands are about. I still use values (especially in constellations of different values types) to help my clients and myself to discuss their brand and articulate it. It\'s when they are used exclusively that i find they tend to fail. Another reason to use narratives is that they bring in the time element, which is crucial in order to address any experiential aspects. Single words are asynchronous by nature, narratives are the best way I know to start thinking about the role of time for a brand. Thanks for this elaborate comment.
I didn\’t mean to discredit values entirely. They still have an important role in articulating what brands are about. I still use values (especially in constellations of different values types) to help my clients and myself to discuss their brand and articulate it.
It\’s when they are used exclusively that i find they tend to fail.

Another reason to use narratives is that they bring in the time element, which is crucial in order to address any experiential aspects. Single words are asynchronous by nature, narratives are the best way I know to start thinking about the role of time for a brand.

]]> By: Rather Good http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-551 Rather Good Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:02:30 +0000 http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/#comment-551 I agree with the above, but we should not turn the argument into a better or worse scenario. Values are an indispensable tool as they serve to short-hand stories and they are used as an investigative tool for the identification of key elements of a company’s culture. While values are a useful model, their use has the same benefits and risks of any model. Models simplify data so we can move around their component parts, examine each in a headline fashion and recombine the apparatus in a more suitable way. Stories help us not to forget what each of the models parts are, they help us assemble the parts in previously incomprehensible ways and they give us a more rich view of the overall model itself. In my experience, stories that have been selected without the identification of values tend to lack a common set of morals. Telling enough stories over time will eventually enable us to give everyone a clear idea of the culture we want to create, but the time it takes to tell all these stories is not terribly practical. Stories that take the form of shortish (1 or 2 page) positioning documents (or prints ads) fall into the same problems that values do. In written form, you really do need volumes of stories to properly address the full cultural picture of a company. Examples like the HP Way come to mind. This book gave us an appreciation for how the company grew, how the founders values themselves changed and why and what the founders wanted to leave behind as a legacy. Values that have been selected without sensitivity to the company’s stories have only a surface value which lack any deep differentiation or meaning. Without the stories, people will not feel attached the brand since they will not have a real sense for it. Values without stories rob the complexity that is inherent in any cultural system and miss out on the anthropological benefits of key stories that shape the company. So, the answer is obvious enough. Both values and stories are required for an organization. Both have their time and place and need to be considered to help get a more deep and well-rounded view of the company out in as little time as possible. I agree with the above, but we should not turn the argument into a better or worse scenario. Values are an indispensable tool as they serve to short-hand stories and they are used as an investigative tool for the identification of key elements of a company’s culture. While values are a useful model, their use has the same benefits and risks of any model. Models simplify data so we can move around their component parts, examine each in a headline fashion and recombine the apparatus in a more suitable way. Stories help us not to forget what each of the models parts are, they help us assemble the parts in previously incomprehensible ways and they give us a more rich view of the overall model itself.

In my experience, stories that have been selected without the identification of values tend to lack a common set of morals. Telling enough stories over time will eventually enable us to give everyone a clear idea of the culture we want to create, but the time it takes to tell all these stories is not terribly practical.

Stories that take the form of shortish (1 or 2 page) positioning documents (or prints ads) fall into the same problems that values do. In written form, you really do need volumes of stories to properly address the full cultural picture of a company. Examples like the HP Way come to mind. This book gave us an appreciation for how the company grew, how the founders values themselves changed and why and what the founders wanted to leave behind as a legacy.

Values that have been selected without sensitivity to the company’s stories have only a surface value which lack any deep differentiation or meaning. Without the stories, people will not feel attached the brand since they will not have a real sense for it. Values without stories rob the complexity that is inherent in any cultural system and miss out on the anthropological benefits of key stories that shape the company.

So, the answer is obvious enough. Both values and stories are required for an organization. Both have their time and place and need to be considered to help get a more deep and well-rounded view of the company out in as little time as possible.

]]> By: Uri http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-200 Uri Tue, 15 Aug 2006 10:45:58 +0000 http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/#comment-200 Hi Yigal, Your link is slightly off-topic. I'm well aware of the recent flourishing of narrative led perspectives in organizational culture and knowledge management studies, but then again, narrative led perspectives have been influential in nearly any social science (and beyond) in the last 20-30 years. It is not always marketing related, which is what I'm trying to focus on. Incidentally, I'm currently involved in a major brand/organisational culture project with one of Europe's biggest corporate players, when I can, I will blog about it. BTW, I think you'll find this blog of interest if you don't know it yet. http://www.anecdote.com.au/ Hi Yigal,
Your link is slightly off-topic. I’m well aware of the recent flourishing of narrative led perspectives in organizational culture and knowledge management studies, but then again, narrative led perspectives have been influential in nearly any social science (and beyond) in the last 20-30 years.
It is not always marketing related, which is what I’m trying to focus on.
Incidentally, I’m currently involved in a major brand/organisational culture project with one of Europe’s biggest corporate players, when I can, I will blog about it.

BTW, I think you’ll find this blog of interest if you don’t know it yet. http://www.anecdote.com.au/

]]> By: Yigal http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-198 Yigal Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:32:39 +0000 http://www.marketingbabylon.com/2006/08/14/marketing/marketing-stories-and-stories-about-stories/#comment-198 http://yigalc.wordpress.com/2006/08/13/think-decide-and-communicate-managaement-in-the-knowledge-era/ http://yigalc.wordpress.com/2006/08/13/think-decide-and-communicate-managaement-in-the-knowledge-era/

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