Mr Gianluca Salvatori CEO, Euricse at the International Co-operative Alliance Global Conference in Cape Town, November 2013.

1. Stories.coop: experiences and outcomes
of the first cooperative digital campaign

2. Stories can change the world
• The time of one-way communication is over; media,
enterprises, authorities, nonprofits have to
adapt/are adapting to a two-way communication
which is much more “social” because it works only if
it creates engagement, participation and even cocreation
• Stories are a very powerful communication tool :
they can condition our perceptions, stimulate our
thoughts and reflections, awaken our emotions and
senses, determine our actions…
• Stories can change the way we think, act, and feel
• Stories can engage, motivate, connect, inspire

3. The Gutenberg Parenthesis
• For 500 years we lived in what the Danish
academic Thomas Pettitt calls The Gutenberg
Parenthesis where knowledge was contained
in the fix printed format
• With the digital revolution we’re returning to
pre-Gutenberg state where the knowledge
and the information are constantly updated,
improved, changed, moved, developed

4. Storytelling in the Digital age
• “In the broadcast era, access was power. We
developed all these bad habits when distribution
was in the hands of few. But now storytelling
matters again” (Jonah Sachs, author of “Story
Wars”)
• 3 golden rules of storytelling that fit all: political
messages, products and people
1. Don’t lead with facts.
2. The story isn’t about you.
3. Forget puffery. Find your voice.

5. A good story…
•
•
•
•
•
is clear, simple, authentic
tells the truth
has a defined plot
is emotional
goes beyond marketing and positioning policies and
strategies
• regenerates the organizational culture in order to
improve the reputation among different
stakeholders
• creates engagement, participation, identification,
involvement

6. Great storytellers / Obama

7. The private sector is learning form
nonprofits
• On McKinsey’s website there’s an article about The
Dragonfly Effect, Stanford University marketing
professor Jennifer Aaker and marketing strategist Andy
Smith
• Through the example of Scott Harrison, an American
photographer, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of
the non-profit charity: water they explain to the
private sector how to achieve engagement, which they
define as “truly making people feel emotionally
connected to helping you achieve your goals” through
storytelling, authenticity, and establishing a personal
connection.

8. Great storytellers / Jobs

9. Great storytellers / Coca Cola

10. Great storytellers / Lego

11. Corporate storytelling
• is the art of using stories to communicate and connect with
employees, customers, suppliers, partners, and anyone else
involved with the organization.
• is widely employed and for profit enterprises are
mastering this technique.
7 simple ways to tell a good story by Dave Kerpen, CEO
of Likeable Local:
1. Tell your brand's story.
2. Tell your employees' stories.
3. Tell your customers' stories.
4. Inspire your customers to tell stories.
5. Use images often.
6. Use video even more often.
7. Be human.

12. And what about cooperatives?

13. And Cooperatives?

14. Ceux qui aiment les lundis / 1
• Les Scop - Sociétés coopératives et participatives
(France) decides to change the brand identity, design
and communication strategy through emphasizing
the worker cooperative values
• 1 photographer Jean-Robert Dantou (coop
Picturetank), 1 coop communication agency, 40
cooperatives representing all sectors, regions,
dimensions, activities, settings; 80 days of shooting
and Ceux qui aiment les lundis was ready to be
presented to the world

15. Ceux qui aiment les lundis / 2
• The book was published with one of the most famous
publishers: Hachette - Editions du Chêne
• The campaign also included :
itinerant exhibitions (10), website, videos, radio
commercials, posters…
• The project had excellent results and media coverage
• The book and the campaign were awarded with three
prizes at the 2013 Conference on communication
“Corporate Business”
• Example of very good non-digital communication; good
communications isn’t only about technology and new
media

16. Stories.coop / outcomes
• Stories.coop is the first global digital campaign to
choose the storytelling tradition as a way of
communicating the cooperative experience to the
general public.
• Stories.coop was imagined as a tool to create
authentic cooperative storytelling which would be
able to generate a real and not just rhetorical image
of the cooperative values.
• Outcomes: 450 stories, 200.000 visits from all five
continents, an average of 10.000 views a month

17. Stories.coop / our experience
Positive:
• enthusiastic, surprising,
stimulating, challenging;
• impressing vitality, variety
and potential of
cooperatives;
• coops are treasure trove of
authentic stories but it’s
difficult to reach them
• good feedback and reaction
to the project: lots of
contacts and requests to use
the stories database
Negative:
• still very strong and “old
style” communication: oneway and top down;
• weak storytelling abilities;
• interesting stories and
information often go untold
due to slow and bureaucratic
procedures;
• Diffidence, disinterest, lack
of replies
• Language barrier

18. Stories.coop / What we need
• Authentic stories that go beyond a mere
presentation of what you do and how you do it
• Stories that tell more about workers, members,
customers, products
• Don't be too afraid to tell stories that show failure,
poor judgment, or mistakes on your part.
• The story should go beyond data, income and
turnover, commercial and marketing strategies
• People are at the core of the cooperative business
model and should be the protagonist of cooperative
storytelling.

19. Stories.coop /Future
• crowdfunding platform to support, finance and help
the creation of new cooperative businesses;
• online and offline platform for the creation of:
relations, networks, and supply chains
• authentic and realistic representation of the
pluralism of the cooperative movement on one side
and experimentation of new forms of collaboration,
not only among coops but also between coops and
their stakeholders.