‘A long time ago in a galaxy far far away,’ ‘Once upon a time,’ ‘In the beginning.’ Stories have power and storytelling is the oldest form of entertainment and one of the most effective forms of communication. Everything in modern day communications revolves around story. And yet, stories are at once eternal and novel. Storytelling’s resurgence in corporate communications is nothing new, only a wave of interest in an ancient method. However, what companies are doing with stories is another story altogether.

“Storytelling has a certain power,” says the National Trust’s director of communications and content Daniel Dodd, “We’re not the first people to realise that. People have been telling stories for millennia, but where it is so obvious and so good is for us as a charity. We have so many great stories which are authentic and true, so we don’t have to make anything up, we don’t have to over- claim or pretend.”

That standpoint is the heart of an internal communications push to find, inspire and encourage employees to become storytellers and share their content through the National Trust’s channels. Dodd says with the organisation’s engaged workforce that cares about its mission and the incredible history and amount of stories contained in its physical sites, compelling content is not hard to find. But, turning employees into communicators requires an understanding of story.

That’s where London-based corporate film agency Catsnake comes in. The agency’s creative director began running face-to-face workshops on storytelling as part of the National Trust’s internal communications programme. The success of the talk and the interest in pursuing storytelling internally led Dodd to consider a video. “I asked him to reduce his one-and-a-half hours down to two-and-a-half minutes,” says Dodd. The end piece comes in at 3:59 – long for most corporate videos – but allows Dodd to share the film as widely as possible, a feat not possible with a live lecture.

What was to be a simple two-and-a-half minute film became an animation with a feature film-standard score, a celebrity voiceover and a strong emotional impact. Edward Dark, director and CEO at Catsnake, says the film had to have an emotional impact though he stayed away from the typical sadness-evoking videos favoured by charities. “That doesn’t work online. It’s not going to inspire people to share that video,” he says.

Online corporate videos often have to contend with the four-second cut-off point for ads that run ahead of YouTube videos. Those released to an internal audience have to work hard to keep people engaged with something outside of their regular workload. “You have to make sure the start of your video is interesting and you’ve got to make sure they’re not going to click away and watch a cat on a skateboard,” Dark says. ‘The Power of Storytelling’ opens with a suspenseful outing, a fight against a tiger and a narrative spoken in the immortal voice of Sir Ian McKellen.

Dark says the iconic actor was not brought on board just to have an iconic actor reading the voiceover, “We just thought, ‘Find me an artist just like Ian McKellen.’ ‘Why don’t we just ask Ian McKellen?; I don’t think anybody expected him to say yes.” His style is imbued with grandeur and has epic storytelling connotations due to McKellen’s role as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films.

The words McKellen is actually speaking are reflective of the initial presentation Catsnake’s creative director Stephen Follows gave to National Trust employees. His approach to explaining storytelling brings to life two cavemen, the somewhat inexplicably named Kevin and Brian, who embody and share a story with their fellows that then lives on through the ages. That situation then becomes reflective of the three innate needs of human beings, one of which is stories. “We wanted to keep the story pure – these stories equip you for life,” Dark says. The kind of meta- story approach also encourages people to share the video, becoming storytellers in their own right.

The style of the film itself was as important as the script. “It was very important to us that the film looked like it had been hand painted by caveman,” Dark says. At one point, the film’s animator had the scenes looking too professional, too modern and had to actually paint with his hands to regain that elemental style. The soundtrack, too, was commissioned to a screen composer. The scores were complemented by a live vocalist toward the end of the film who sings words related to storytelling in Arabic. The completed film was launched initially for internal use only, as a tool for spreading the message shared by Follows’ presentation on storytelling with a wider audience. Then, due to its success internally and its quality, it was released for public consumption – though not for marketing purposes.

Though a lovely, well-considered film, it’s part of a larger programme taking place over the course of a few years at the National Trust that looks to shift the internal culture. Dodd’s team is encouraging employees across the organisation to become storytellers about the sites at which they work. The National Trust itself is comprised of historical places – stories – making for a a never-ending supply of content. “We do have some of the most beautiful places in the country that affect people really profoundly,” Dodd says. “And people have a strong connection with place. We have to tell those stories and people will respond.”

He adds, “The point of the video is it enables us to talk about the power of storytelling and then we can talk about examples where we have done it well.” This should encourage people reluctant to share their stories to become more confident about their own abilities and knowledge.

Dodd says he is trying to find people within the organisation that will be good storytellers and to foster their skills. “We’re a conservation charity. We have 6,000 dedicated professionals,” Dodd says. “They’re not journalists, but the most interesting people in the charity are the people doing the great conservation work and interacting with the public. I want to find those people who have a natural ability to communicate, who have an interesting story to tell, and I want to give them the skills to do that.”

Eventually, Dodd hopes to train about 400 people to understand this approach to storytelling, and the way that content functions in the digital space. This will then allow the National Trust to start communicating about itself through the reams of great stories it is privy to.

“Simple stories,” Dodd says, “Can start great conversations.”

The Power of Storytelling, with Sir Ian McKellen from Catsnake on Vimeo.