REFLECTION – STORYTELLING

Challenge  I was working for a sport equipment company, specialized in racket sports. The positioning of  the company focused on performance and was mostly driven by the company’s main sport:  tennis. However, this kind of spirit centered on individualism and competition did not really  correspond to other kind of racket sports of the brand, such as badminton. In fact, this sport  is most of the time practicing in a team, and individualisms are not as put in the spotlight as  what happens in tennis. I was working within the marketing department in badminton, and  our goal was to tell something else to the customer and athletes, to create our own identity  outside of tennis.     Selection  The best tool in this communication change was Storytelling. In fact, we wanted to tell a story  to transmit a message to our badminton players: together we are a community, and we know  what badminton means to you. We wanted to create an emotional connection, between the  players from different ages and cities, and the players and the brand. In a word, the goal of  our team was to put the human beings and their experience in front and center, to distinguish  from the values highlighted by the tennis department.     Application  We conjointly worked with a communication agency and come up with ideas of storytelling.  Our communication will no longer focused on the performance of our products but on telling  our players what this sport really is. We shot a video in a badminton club, to tell our story, to  emphasize the fact that we are together with the player, we understand his needs, aspirations  and ambitions. This story is about rackets and shuttles but also about friendships and shared  emotions, about players who are not superstars but real people. We tell a story that everyone  can identify himself with. Our video was released and since then our communication has been  focused on the same message.     Insight  By applying this tool, our team realized how big is the power of storytelling. We radically  changed our way of communication with our players and within the team.   With the players and our customers first. By telling our story and their story, we created a  community and a feeling of belonging.   In addition, we become more in adequation with badminton’s spirit, even within the company.  Thus, this tool has not only redefined the badminton player’s emotions inside our  communication but also allow us to accept our differences in mentality and attitudes with the  tennis department.     Approach   Strengthened by this experience, we decided to launch other videos, to show the life in the  badminton clubs, inside our home country but also to open our borders. I strongly believe  that this tool was the perfect one to redefined our communication, and I would not change  it.

