Podcast

Karen Padilla

#372: Your MBA Class on Business Storytelling in Under 60 Minutes

The other week, I received a request from Karen Padilla, a Guatemalan marketer pursuing a master’s degree in Global Brand Management at Griffith College Dublin. That’s right, in Ireland. A long way from home.

Karen asked to interview me for her graduate thesis, “Storytelling to enhance non-profit stakeholder-based brand equity”. We talked on ZOOM for over an hour and I was so impressed with her questions, I asked if I could share the recording on the Business of Story podcast.

Yup, I sprung a guest host appearance on her and she happily agreed.

My hope is that my insights about profit and nonprofit storytelling to help inform her thesis will also be of benefit to you.

One of the many areas we covered was about how the majority of organizations miss the mark on Storytelling. They talk about what they specialize in and how they do it. But they miss the real juice of sharing stories about what they make happen in people’s lives.

One of the best examples I shared with Karen is the American Cancer Society’s amazing campaign about being the Official Sponsor of Birthdays. They found a creative way to tell the story of what they make happen – more birthdays – is one of the nonprofit storytelling campaigns I admire the most.

Karen Padilla has become interested in how marketing principles and tools, especially storytelling and branding, can be applied to the nonprofit sector. In her free time, she likes reading, running and exploring restaurants and parks in Ireland, the country that has given her a warm welcome.