Storytelling: A Fight For Craft Or Fluffy Business Cringe?

Companies are "desperately seeking storytellers" the Wall Street Journal has declared. Storytelling, once born in drumbeats, firelight and flickering cave-wall shadows, now officially belongs to sharply dressed executives in sterile boardrooms and glossy PowerPoint decks, it appears.

This isn't hyperbole, companies are genuinely hiring for it. Brands with storytelling roles or looking for them recently include Microsoft (according to the WSJ), Marks & Spencer and more.

An ecosystem of agencies, such as Untold Agency, have long existed specifically to help brands with storytelling - but the subject has provoked much debate across LinkedIn and X recently. Some say celebrating storytelling in titles is increasingly popular because it's a welcome attempt to preserve craft in the age of AI. Meanwhile, others see the "Head Of Storytelling" role as mere corporate posturing.

In French, Spanish and Italian - and surely many other languages - the words for history and story (histoire, historía, storia) are interchangeable. And with good reason. Academics view storytelling as an essential way for people to recount tales of war, reconciliation, hurt and love. Consequently, epic poems are often the basis of nation building.

Frankly, history itself tells us storytelling is not trivial. In ethnically divided societies, competing national myths have even been taught in separate classrooms, as seen in parts of Bosnia to name just one of many examples.

Given just how intensely storytelling shapes nations, it's no wonder brands would like that power, but it comes with a tension. The question is an anthropological one, but with high stakes for the social and commercial reputation of advertising: to what extent is it appropriate for the ancient title of "storyteller" - generally reserved for artists, comics, orators, poets - to be applied to the business function of using narrative to sell?

Commercial realism

For AMV BBDO's chief strategy officer Jo Arden the concept of a Chief Storytelling Officer role is pure distraction.

"I think we do a real disservice when we start encouraging that sort of fluffy nonsense," she says, "I think marketers who have to stand in front of shareholders and say their role is head of storytelling have a tough meeting on their hands".

While, as Arden asserts, commercial executives are not sympathetic when creatives lose sight of the economic function at the heart of advertising briefs and view it as art, the science of storytelling can indeed be applied to effective advertising - as Walnut Unlimited's Cristina de Balanzo explained at Walnut's Brainy Bar event last year.

"Storytelling is a currency of attention, but for the stories to be effective, they require certain conditions. The conditions will be that we don't just view entertainment but that it can make people think and feel," she told the audience.

However, the difference between storytelling in its most organic form and storytelling in politics or advertising is its purpose. At its most basic level, storytelling is how humans make sense of the world — a cognitive tool rather like play. TMW chief strategy officer Dan Bowers explains that it helps us process chaos, pass on values and connect with each other.

"The human function of stories is more cognitive: we reconstruct them, imagine them, feel them, and then file them away as memories. It’s how the brain works," he says. "Brands borrow this neural machinery and apply the same ingredients to engage emotion and create meaning, but with different intent."

And advertisers that lose sight of intent risk delving into self-indulgence. "When you use storytelling in advertising you've got to start with the hardest things. You've got to start with the fact that it has to sell product," says Wonderhood Studios chief creative officer Aidan McClure.

He points out that whilst Waitrose's Christmas ad was based on the structure of romantic comedy, it was conceptualised with the products in mind and the central idea of food as a way to show love.

"We do craft stories and narratives and mythologies about the brands that we build, but it's part of the armoury that we've got in order to ultimately sell them to people," concurs Arden.

And in a fragmented social media ecosystem which coincides with attention spans that have shortened to roughly 40 seconds, brands simply are not always able to afford artistic license and lofty, groundbreaking 90-second spots - unless there is quick commercial uplift.

A statement of craft in the age of AI

But despite how counterproductive it can be to romanticise advertising in the same way as unfiltered artistic expression, persuasion at its best pulls on the heartstrings (as the Waitrose Christmas ad proves, to highlight just one example).

This is why some of the most renowned ads have given nods to artistic traditions such as surrealism - because they don't just ask for a click, but appeal to human desires, needs and fears. As Bowers and de Balanzo point out, these references work not because they are ‘art for art’s sake’, but because they tap into the emotional logic that makes stories memorable.

And in the wake of AI use (such as the much criticised 2024 Toys R Us ad), the need to maintain and celebrate the human touch and craft behind the art of creating and selling has become more apparent than ever before.

The question many are asking is,: "If everything looks the same how the hell do you stand out?"- as adam&eve/TBWA executive creative director Mark Shanley phrased it when speaking to Creative Salon about the rise of anti-aesthetics.

This is not just a problem for advertising. A recent TV series by Darren Aronofsky made with AI and depicting America's Civil War has been heavily criticised. "It is, as you might expect, as ugly as sin. It's the sort of thing that looks like it was shooting for photorealism, but then either chickened out or blew up along the way," wrote Stuart Heritage in The Guardian.

But in advertising, a lack of craft risks damaging the reputation of legacy brands. For McClure, respecting that craft is crucial, and he likens the “head of storytelling” role to a head of art — a specialist who can safeguard standards.

“Everyone should have an eye on art direction, but having someone who really understands photography, illustration and visual craft can only elevate the work,” he says. “If a head of storytelling is creating stories people genuinely want to lean in and listen to, that can only improve the output.”

While it’s rare for brands to shape culture, the best work inserts itself into it with expertise. McClure argues that creatives need to be cultural chameleons. When developing the Waitrose ad, his team watched countless rom‑coms. “They drew from all of them,” he says, “which let them move the idea on and make something unique rather than a pastiche of just one.”

“These things aren’t magicked up. They come from reading, watching, getting inspired — and then putting your own human, creative spin on it,” he adds. “Not punching something into AI and taking the output. The best part of the job is finding those references, twisting them, weaving them, and then solving the brand problem through them.”

One example he uses of an ad that cleverly references the cultural canon is the 2007 spot 'The Skittles Touch', which played on the story of Midas' Touch.

"As a child you think if you touch anything and it turned to gold, wouldn't that be the best thing ever? But then, of course, Midas story tells you how it becomes an absolute disaster, and it's an apocryphal tale that stays lodged in your head. And I suppose that's what the Skittles thing does so brilliantly. It basically just nicks that story, but changes enough things about it that it feels original and it does it in 30 seconds, says McClure.

In a world obsessed with performance metrics, the rise of Head of Storytelling roles is a reminder that not all impact can be measured immediately, and that craft should never be discarded. There can be such a thing as too much measurement and too much focus on quick returns — just as there can be too many Skittles and too much gold.

"I think it’s an encouraging swing of the pendulum. Every system needs a story," says Bowers, "Marketing can be guilty of veering into a spreadsheet sport, purely geared towards automation and optimisation. But with brands needing to show up in more places and spaces, if we’re not careful, human connection will be totally lost."

The weight of words

Ultimately, it is promising that marketers are looking to build brands that resonate with audiences rather than relying solely on short‑term promotion. This renewed interest in “storytelling” signals a desire to reconnect with meaning, not just metrics. But the title risks feeling hollow in a way that consumers are sceptical of. "What consumers mind is if you suggest that the person who made something thinks they're idiots or uninteresting" , says Arden, "It's fine to sell things. That's what we're in it for but I definitely push back heavily against anybody who tries to put us in the art only box."

Selling and brand‑building are crafts of their own - a delicate balance of commercial nous and cultural intelligence. Advertising should be celebrated for advertising’s sake, and storytelling is simply a medium, not a virtue, not self-expression.

Storytelling only matters in advertising if it creates value - in money, or for the legacy upon which the brand can grow. If the Head Of Storytelling title can attract people with that instinct, it will earn its place (at least as a business tool).

But it's a boardroom culture that genuinely values the unique skillset of commercial creativity that will actually keep the right people and protect the advertising craft.