New Books: Thailand and Business Storytelling

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The Thammasat University Library has acquired a new book that should be useful for students of literature, business, and related fields.

Portrait of the Manager as a Young Author: On Storytelling, Business, and Literature is shelved in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus.

Its author, Philipp Schönthaler describes

what happens to the relationship between business and literature when storytelling becomes a privileged form of communication for organizations. Corporations love a good story. Microsoft employs a chief storyteller, who heads a team of twenty-five corporate storytellers. IBM, Coca-Cola, and the World Bank are among other organizations that have worked with storytelling methods. And, of course, Steve Jobs was famous for his storytelling. Today, narrative is a privileged form of communication for organizations.

In the business world, as in most fields, there is so much data available, that the ability to tell a story clearly and understandably becomes highly valued. This can be seen as one of the purposes of university ajarns, since students can read books and articles on any subject for themselves. Ajarns will ideally explain in an understandable way, telling the story of each subject so that students will better understand what it is all about.

Philipp Schönthaler studied English and art at Trinity Western University in Vancouver before earning a master’s degree in Modern European Literature from the University of Sussex.

He also received a doctorate from the University of Konstanz, studying the role of the narrator in literary works by the authors Thomas Bernhard, W.G. Sebald and Imre Kertész. The TU Library owns a book by Thomas Bernhard, a study of the writing of W.G. Sebald, and two books by the Nobel Prize winning author Imre Kertész.

Philipp Schönthaler notes that business has long been associated with stories, just as literature has always depended on economic development.

The website of Skyword, a content marketing company, observes:

  • Once upon a time there were businesses, and businesses needed to sell things to survive. So those businesses brought in salespeople, and marketers, and advertisers, and eventually PR and communications teams as they grew and grew. Life was good for good businesses.
  • And then some smart businesses realized what they had been doing all along: They had been telling stories to attract staff and customers. And those people who’d been building the businesses realized what they were all along: They were storytellers. And the modern phenomenon of the corporate chief storyteller was born.
  • But what is a chief storyteller exactly? A LinkedIn search for the job title “storyteller” reveals almost 10,000 hits. Sure, that’s nothing compared to the more than 700,000 who list “writer” in their title, but it’s the beginning of visibility. This is not a new role; Nike employed a chief storytelling officer in the 1990s. That so many businesses are now outwardly admitting storytelling is in their DNA-even if it’s just a jump onto marketing trends bandwagons-means the chief storyteller is emerging as a force to be reckoned with.

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Thailand and Corporate Storytelling

Among companies in the Kingdom leading this trend is Storyteller Bangkok Co., Ltd. located on Ploenchit Road, Lumpini Subdistrict, Pathumwan District, Bangkok.

According to its website,

Storyteller is an independent brand and idea platform driven agency. We have a team of hungry, hard-working people with the belief that marketing , strategy and creative should aim to discover opportunities to build brand and build business for ambitious clients. Storyteller is not a digital agency, but a new kind of agency for the digital world.

Among its innovations was the Don’t Say Can’t campaign for Carabao Can:

Carabao in Thailand has long been known as the glass bottle energy drink that glorifies the blue-collar fighting spirit. In 2018 Carabao decided to launch Carabao Can to modernize the brand to capture the young drinker. To do so, an edgy idea was needed to revamp the brand and rock the energy drink market. In a world full of pessimism where the young are left in fear, Carabao Can launched the “DON’T SAY CAN’T” campaign, a call for youngsters to rid themselves from negativity, doubt and the “can’t” surrounding them. Twopee, a young blood Thai rapper was chosen to tell this story. His provoking lyrics of “When I say Can’t, Y’all say Can,” delivered the belief that with absence of “can’t”, youngsters “can” do anything, Not a command, “DON’T SAY CAN’T” is a statement inspiring youngsters to fuel themselves with the positive energy of “can”, helping to established Carabao Can as the new positive force here to stay.

Another was the Grow Together campaign for Nongpho Milk:

As a cooperative, Nongpho aims to create a sustainable business that produces quality 100% milk whilst providing members a good quality of life and education for their children. We launched a campaign to let people know that milk not only lets you grow strong and healthy, but through buying milk you also help the community of dairy farmers to grow as well.

Another company responding to the call for storytelling in business is Lexicon, a Bangkok-based Digital PR agency based in Wall Street Tower, Thanon Surawong, Suriyawong, Bang Rak, Bangkok. As its website explains,

Our storytelling approach integrates copywriting, social media, video production, creative, and tech teams – all working together at our Surawong Rd office…

Storytelling Video Production Agency in Bangkok

Storytelling video content is a compelling part of the Digital PR journey, ideal for creating emotional connection. Documentaries allow for long-form storytelling and can illustrate the impact of major changes within an organization. Video storytelling is also particularly effective for chronicling emotive NGO and CSR projects.

Our video production agency in Bangkok, Thailand features an experienced team of video storytellers who can handle the whole process for you. From ideation and scriptwriting through to filming and editing, our experts will deliver professional storytelling and documentary video content that keeps audiences informed, engaged, and entertained…

Lexicon uses Digital PR and branded storytelling to increase brand awareness, engagement, and sales for our clients. As Bangkok’s top digital marketing agency, we use storytelling to build real connections between each client and their ideal online audience.

Why Digital PR?

Thailand offers an ideal market for storytelling and Digital PR campaigns. Thai people are the most relentlessly online population in the world, with a huge proportion of their internet time spent using social media. Lexicon’s in-house creative team will help your brand get noticed and recognized, using the best practices of the digital age to present your company as a dependable leader in its field.

We accomplish this goal through an interlocking set of steps, each designed to complement the others in a fully realized storytelling campaign. From initial audience research and strategy, to content production, social media management and polished multimedia presentations, the journey towards a fully-functioning, impactful Digital PR campaign is carried out through the following five stages.

Yet another example of a Thai company with storytelling consciousness is 56thStudio on Charoenkrung 24 Taladnoi Sumphanthawong, Bangkok.

Its website notes:

About

Story-Driven Agency

56thStudio is a creative agency that focuses on telling good stories with no restricted manners or disciplines through creative eyes. Offering new marketing materials that involves creating, curating, distributing and amplifying content that is inspiring to a clearly defined audience group, 56thStudio comprises of several creative units that seamlessly merged into one think tank with one solid goal in mind; to tell stories — good stories that last.

Aim & Philosophy

“Stories that last”

Generating interesting conversations that take place in a real world and share it via both online platform and offline activities, 56thStudio determined to create a positive impact on creative community, be it big or small.

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(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)