Still, storytelling can fall flat or even dissuade if the audience decides they’re being unfairly manipulated. This effect was explored by researchers at University of Mannheim, University of Hamburg, University of Applied Sciences Dortmund, Baruch College, and Ruhr-University of Bochum in the context of a business telling the public about the business’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
Initiatives which go beyond an organization’s legal and regulatory requirements to assist others outside the organization’s ownership qualify as CSR activities. The beneficiary might be a company’s own employees, a local museum, or a nonprofit aiding domestic violence victims, for example. The central recommendation from the researchers’ studies would be to use a story when the beneficiary is the first of those, but not if it’s the second or third.
The researchers’ explanation springs from a tendency for audiences to be skeptical about a business’s stories regarding CSR activities compared to stories about the business’s products or service. “What are they trying to gain economically by telling me they’re helping others in ways they’re not required to?” readers and listeners ask about the story. They’ll start thinking more about being persuaded than about the content of the story, erasing any advantage of the storytelling or even generating suspicions they’re being tricked by the indirect message and emotional embellishment of a story. This thinking disrupts purchase behavior and customer loyalty.
The study results indicate this undesired sequence is less likely when the CSR activity is embedded in the business’s core functions—such as maintaining a childcare program for use by employees—than when peripheral to those core functions—such maintaining a school for disadvantaged children in a foreign country.
Central to the researchers’ recommendations is the degree of trust the story’s audiences place in the business. The safest alternative is to avoid stories when describing CSR activities serving beneficiaries not central to the business’s core functions.
Another approach is to monitor consumer trust, carefully maintain signals of business authenticity, and use stories about CSR results in those circumstances where trust is high. Remember that we started here describing the persuasive advantages of narrative transportation.
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Image at top of post based on photo by Alireza Banijani from Unsplash
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