The art of storytelling is born almost simultaneously with the history of man, and is an important means of sharing social values.

The man is a born storyteller: from the earliest representations he needed to document the nature of the events and of the circumstances in which he was or to exorcise fears which were often linked to natural phenomena he was unaware of the origin.

At the end of the twentieth century storytelling has been transformed by the media into a powerful weapon of persuasion in the hands of the gurus of marketing, political communications and policy management to influence and shape the opinions of consumers and citizens.

Behind the most important advertising campaigns and even more behind the winning campaigns from Bush to Sarkozy, hide the sophisticated techniques ofStorytelling Management and Digital Storytelling.

Narrative is power. Campaigns of collective thought manipulations are developed “ad hoc” by the marketing gurus who know in depth the techniques of storytelling to the detriment of unsuspecting citizens and consumers at the same time.

So Marketing tells more about the history of the brand than on their image, managers use anecdotes to motivate their employees, American soldiers are trained on video games designed at Hollywood.

According to Seth Godin, the American inventor of viral marketing "the new marketing aims to tell stories and do not conceive advertising campaigns." We have entered the era of the narrative in which the biggest challenge that companies face is the way to communicate their story in the most effective and credible as possible.

THAT’S ALL WE HAVE , FINALLY, THE WORDS, AND THEY HAD BETTER BE THE RIGHT onES. Raymond Carver

From the twenty-first century branding theorists convert to storytelling. In 2002, Ashraf Ramzy opens in Amsterdam a marketing consulting agency called "Narrative." Ashraf is defined as a mythmaker, a maker of myths, Ashraf says: "People do not buy products, but the stories that these products represent. Just as they do not buy brands, but the myths and archetypes that symbolize these brands. "

The ambition of marketing in the twenty-first century does not stop at the gates of supermarkets, but embraces the world. It no longer has the aim of promoting only the benefits of the consumer society, but wants to produce a new society.

The French designer Philip Starck is no longer satisfied with decorating interiors with objects: he wants to give a " a little more of happiness." Within ten years, the functional objects within the houses will be replaced by intangible services. Then our homes will be filled only with sentimental things" he explained in 2006 to the Metropolitan Home magazine.

12 June 2005 invited at Stanford University, Steve Jobs, owner and co-founder of Apple, so he turned to the students: "I am very honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. No big deal. Just three stories. "

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

The first is the Bildungsroman of the founder of Apple: the story of a poor child left to himself, which ends up enrolling in a course-by-case typography thanks to which the Macintosh will be the first personal computer with a different font. The second is a story of love and abandonment: the legend of the creation of the first Macintosh in the garage of his parents, then the success story of Apple and the meeting with his future wife will put up with that family. But as soon achieved success, is cut off and has to leave the company he founded. The third is a story of death and resurrection: a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, which Steve Jobs survived by a miracle. At the end of the "story" the hero regains health and the company he had founded that he will lead to new successes. Steve Jobs concludes the story with the exhortation which he had read as a child in a magazine for young people: "Stay hungry, stay foolish." Of course all this had nothing spontaneous. Telling his stories the master of Apple complies with the laws of storytelling.

Storytelling allows companies to focus on strategies to redesign brands, products, corporate identities and habits of mind. Storytelling takes then the value of a usable and reliable technique in the time in which is no longer sufficient a well-trained management and creativity but also and above all is needed "a focused, well designed company autobiography and told across the media" (A. Fontana )

Here are 6 practical tips to start writing successful stories:

1) Be honest, as you know

2) Do not be reticent or redundant

3) Study in depth the company, the product or the character

4) Be relevant, do not go off topic

5) Create an emotional connection

6) Avoid ambiguity and murky language

With storytelling we must constantly re-mix everything: think, act, work in a network, manage the distance, put together traveling teams, keep under control the overabundance of information, adjust to the speed of business in real time, etc. There are innovations that generate e-transformations and tenacious prejudices that make lose millions of dollars to multinational companies worldwide. Enough with PowerPoint presentations, checklists, boring arguments. It’s time for storytelling!