Storytelling

Klaus Fog holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration. He has worked with storytelling throughout his career, starting out as Marketing Director at leading Danish newspapers, Politiken and Ekstra Bladet. Later on, he co-founded the Danish division of Saatchi & Saatchi before being appointed Scandinavian Vice President at TV3 (a Nordic television group). Following his work here, he went on to contribute to the turnaround of the Danish national TV station, TV2, as Sales & Marketing Director. From his chair in TV2 he could see how many companies were working in silos to great financial cost. Consequently, in 1996, Klaus Fog founded SIGMA, a culture and brand company specialising in the strategic use of storytelling to build a corporate culture and to shape brands. As head of SIGMA, Klaus has worked with at diverse number of international clients including: the LEGO Company, DT Group, Carlsberg, Oracle, Oticon, Ecco, Kraft Foods and Grundfos. Furthermore, Klaus Fog is an esteemed lecturer and co-author of the book Franchising - a business model for the future. Christian Budtz holds a Masters Degree in Communication and Corporate Studies from the year 2000. He is the former head of the Student Organisation under the Danish Marketing Association and freelance journalist at the leading Danish youth culture magazine, Chili. Christian Budtz is an experienced planner and concept developer. At SIGMA Christian specialised in branding through storytelling and strategic communication for a number of international accounts, such as LEGO, Carlsberg, Kraft Foods and Oracle. Since 2006 Christian has worked as a Chief Consultant and Strategic Brand Planner at the Danske Bank Group, Scandinavia's largest retail bank, developing brand strategies and integrated campaigns on a pan-Nordic level - with a primary focus on Denmark, Norway, Northern Ireland and the Baltics. He has written several articles on storytelling for key Danish business publications and international industry leading media, such as BrandRepublic, Brandchannel.com and AdvertisingAge. Philip Munch holds a Masters Degree in Literature and Rhetoric. He is an experienced advisor on corporate culture, PR and branding. At SIGMA Philip has solved projects for companies across different lines including Coloplast, DT Group, TDC, Kraft Foods, STARK and Carlsberg. Across the projects, he has worked with authentic storytelling as a way of defining the core value of organisations/products to support corporate strategy and shape the brand. Since 2008 Philip has worked with PR and Corporate Branding at the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. He is an expert in narrative and has published articles in specialised media as well as in the largest Danish business publication Borsen. He is also the author of the book Headless Drama.

• Branding Through Storytelling.- Branding Through Storytelling.- The Toolbox.- The Four Elements of Storytelling.- Storytelling in Business.- The Company Core Story.- Authentic Raw Material for Storytelling.- Storytelling Applied.- Storytelling as a Management Tool.- Storytelling in Advertising.- When Storytelling Becomes Dialogue.- The Media as a Storytelling Partner.- Tearing Down the Walls.

From the reviews: "The book carries branding to the next step, which is storytelling." (Philip Kotler, Marketing guru and Professor, Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University) "One of the very best marketing books of the year" (Seth Godin, Bestselling author and Marketing expert) "Check 'Em Out! (...) it's a detailed guide to the creation of powerful sagas that move customers to engage the brand." (Tom Peters, Management guru and CEO, Tom Peters Company) "It's a big deal to compress your company's story into a brand. This book is the first step on that long journey." (Kevin Kelly, Founder and Editor-at-Large, Wired Magazine) "While a good story can be a strong persuader, it's not immediately clear what makes it good or even how to construct one. The authors lay out four basic elements (message, conflict, characters, plot) and give simple explanations for what each of these entail. ... The writing itself makes for good storytelling both in anecdotal examples and overall instruction." (Brandchannel.com) "It's almost like a handbook -- you can easily try out its tools on your daily projects. We have done that already on campaigns and communication in general." (Jorgen Bundgaard Nielsen, Marketing Director, Kraft Foods) "The book applies storytelling to both management and marketing. It has an excellent introduction to the important structural elements of story telling, which is especially useful if you're one of those people who knows a good story but doesn't usually step back far enough to see the patterns that make it work. I encourage you to read this book from cover to cover. You won't regret it." (Nonprofit Online News) "I just finished Storytelling: Branding in Practice, an incredible guide to storytelling, by practitioners (Fog, Budtz, and Yakaboylu, to be precise) for practitioners...This book is both wise and practical and I recommend it to anyone who has to think about, and convey, the big picture of their nonprofit." (Gettingattention.org)