“Researchers have shown that storytelling strengthens the connections consumers have to brands, so that to a great extent what a brand means to a consumer is based . . . on the narratives he or she has constructed that incorporate the brand.”- Journal of Business Strategy
“Three uses for storytelling in organizations: (1) to motivate employees, (2) for education and (3) to consolidate corporate culture”- Journal of Marketing
“Storytelling is essential to successful branding, since your brand is the sum of all your corporate behaviors and communications that inform your customers’ experiences with your product or company”- The Journal of Business Strategy
“Brands can bring their CSR (corporate social responsibility) efforts to life through authentic storytelling [and] Millennials want to know what companies are doing to make the world a better place”- Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University
“73% of the U.S. 12+ population (an estimated 209 million people) have listened to online audio in the last month, up from 68% in 2021”- Edison Research
“Narrative presentation of corporate strategy, comparative advantage, is more effective at producing a consistent and confident choice of competitive advantage among an audience than a presentation of corporate strategy using a PowerPoint style, bulleted list approach”- Journal of Strategy and Management
“Maximizing success through onboarding by storytelling during orientations, [helps employees understand] the company's culture and values [and] its goals and history”- Society for Human Resource Management
“There are currently about 1000% more titles published since 2011”- Audio Publishers Association
“Spoken word audio listening is up 40% in the past seven years, and up 8% year over year”- National Public Radio Organization and Edison Research
“Audiobook sales revenue has been on a steep rise since 2018, reaching 1.3 billion USD in 2020”- Statista
“Stories are a device… [that] provide managers with a form of social and intersubjective interaction that reflects belief systems, role expectations, interpersonal norms and conditions for work behavior”- International Journal of Management
“Storytelling that integrates a moral and spiritual component can transform an organizational culture so members of the organization begin to feel connected to a larger community and a higher purpose”- Journal of Business Ethics
“19% [of Millennials] say they have paid in the last year for a subscription service for eBooks or audiobooks such as Kindle Unlimited or Audible”- American Press Institute
“Online audio (podcasts, radio shows, music and audiobooks) has become more popular than ever before”- Publishing Research Quarterly
“The corporate world cannot ignore the demands and expectations of Millennials, who are devout in their desire to associate with companies aligned with their values”- Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University
“Millennials are more technologically advanced than any previous generation [and] survey data has shown a correlation between age and reading preferences [where] younger people listen to more audiobooks than older Americans”- State University of New York
“Storytelling that starts with the persona allows us to tap into these deeper recesses, where the influence of attitudes and emotions is greater… loyalty and trust are found there”- Journal of Business Strategy
“Employees have a deeper affiliation with the message through organizational storytelling due to aligning stories with their own experiences and understanding”- International Journal of Business and Social Science
“Corporate storytelling is suggested to help demonstrate the importance of the corporate brand to internal and external stakeholders… as well as help a firm to bond with its employees”- Product & Brand Management
“The storytelling process yields positive impacts on internal and external stakeholder outcomes including increasing employees’ thriving and meaningful work, as well as the attitudes and trust of multiple external stakeholders”- Journal of Strategic Marketing
“116% growth in spoken word listeners 13-34 years old in the past even years, with 18% growth in the last year”- National Public Radio Organization
“A focus on social responsibility is particularly important to attract, retain, and increase the commitment and engagement of Millennial employees and talented women”- Center for Creative Leadership
“Over 71 thousand audiobook titles (were) published in 2020, a 39% growth between previous years”- Statista
“A poor cultural fit is frequently cited as one of the main reasons [an employee] decides to leave an organization… defining the organization's culture through storytelling should start with branding of the organization and continue through the interview and onboarding process”- Physician Executive Communication Journal
“64% of Millennials consider a company’s social commitments when taking jobs and will not work for a company if they do not have strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) values”- Cone Communications
“Employees have a deeper affiliation with the message through organizational storytelling due to aligning stories with their own experiences and understanding”- International Journal of Business and Social Science
“The most recent era in audio entertainment… users are asserting power over the medium to select particular content at particular times”- Mass Communication and Society Journal
“[onboarding] can also aid employees in identifying values congruence which is critical to career contentment and commitment which can significantly impact retention to both the field and the institution long-term” - Journal of Research, Assessment, and Practice in Higher Education
“Audio narrative has recently benefited from profound cultural shifts in media consumption associated with on-demand television’s binge watching revolution and the advent of digital longform storytelling”- Journal of Radio & Audio Media
“There is value in a story that is, designed to drive the simulation and to elicit the [employee’s] best performance”- Society for Human Resource Management
“83% of Millennials would be more loyal to a company that allows them to contribute to social and environmental issues”- Cone Communications
“[the way employees are on-boarded] sets the tone for the culture of a place, the people, and the values of a new institution and can have a significant impact on employees’ sense of belonging”- Journal of Research, Assessment, and Practice in Higher Education
“Should produce positive effects on key audiences, such as increasingly positive attitudes toward the company and eventually behavioral intentions to support this company”- Public Relations Review
“As technology evolves, people have more options available to them, which may explain why [reports] found younger adults to be more likely to opt for audiobooks and the multi-tasking they enable”- Forbes
“The majority (79%) of Millennials want to work for a company that cares about how it contributes to society and 69% would refuse to work for a company that is not socially responsible”- Journal of Education For Business
“When it comes to digital storytelling for branding, there is, a more positive attitude towards the company when the employer branding message is using digital storytelling”- Management Dynamic in the Knowledge Economy Journal
“Audiobooks have had a big shift in popularity in 2018 where for the first time, “a full half of all Americans ages 12 and older have listened to an audiobook, up from 44% last year”- Forbes
“Story-telling is an important element… involving the sharing of experiences and creation of mental-maps of the environment in which people are motivated to perform to their full potential”- Leadership and Organization Development Journal
“The audiobook market share shifted from 42% digital copy sales in 2009 to 87% digital copy sales in 2017”- Audio Publishers Association
“Audio platform superiority was about the desire to use an audio platform that is perceived to be superior to other audio alternatives, including on-demand convenience (time and place) and content (vari- ety and uniqueness)”- New Media and Society Journal
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play_arrowVennly Maximizes Your Audio AssetsENTERPRISE AUDIO MANAGEMENT HAS (FINALY) ARRIVED!
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could file, protect, curate, distribute, track, and account for all your company’s audio assets in just one place? That’s the promise of Vennly’s new enterprise audio management service.
Since we are in the business of producing Business Audio Theatre for enterprise clients, we wanted to know more about this new audio platform for business. We caught up with Brian Landau, Co-Founder and CEO of Vennly, at his New York offices.
Michael and Bonnie (M&B): “Hasn’t this been done already?”
Brian Landau (BL): “Prior to Vennly, companies had to depend on podcasting to house their audio assets. But the growth of new applications for business audio have outgrown the podcast platforms. Even though there have been new entrants in the consumer space, by and large the enterprise audio market has been ignored. Yet new business applications for audio have been exploding.”
“Sure, you can share audio files, but how do you know if they are listened to? Video platforms aren’t optimized for audio and provide an awkward listener experience. Podcast directories offer poor discoverability and little ROI. And all of the existing solutions lack tracking.”
M&B: “How does the Vennly solution address these issues?”
BL: “We believe that business should share their audio content on their existing channels of communication. This definitely includes email, but it could also include LinkedIn, Facebook, intranets, collaboration tools, and websites. We enable a fully customizable, skinnable, and embeddable player that gets shared across your assets. The player features tailor-made calls to action, which can lead to business outcomes like scheduling a meeting, taking a survey, or accessing an investor report. We’ve built a robust analytics platform that allows the company to understand usage, engagement, and behavior.”
M&B: “How is Vennly currently being used?
BL: “It’s being used as a centralized audio enterprise tool to manage custom audio messages in email newsletters, to share interviews with leadership, and for onboarding, pre-meeting updates, audio team updates, and blog reading, to name a few. But there will be many more applications as Vennly is easy to expand and storage is virtually limitless.”
M&B: “We know you are still in the beta phase but who are you working with so far?”
BL: “We are currently working with AIPAC, Griffith Foods, George Washington University, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, and Vanderbilt Divinity School. We are in active discussions with four of the Fortune 50 companies to begin pilot projects this year.”
M&B: “Wow! This sounds exciting! Especially for us as pioneers on Busines Audio Theatre. Our clients want to know where our productions will reside”
BL: “With Vennly, your clients will be able to house Business Audio Theatre on a secure, shareable, and trackable platform within their own companies. They will be able to use it as an onboarding and sales tool. They will know who got it, and when they listened to it.”
Vennly’s enterprise audio solution will encourage the further expansion of audio in business. Audio is screen-free and page-free, truly mobile, and on-demand. Its appeal can finally be realized by enterprise business. We are excited to recommend Vennly to our clients who want to get the most out of their investment in Business Audio Theatre. What a great way to engage your stakeholders!
To learn more about Vennly’s new enterprise audio solution contact Brian@Vennly.co.
Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey are the founders of Barefoot Wines and Business Audio Theatre. They are business thought leaders, New York Times bestselling authors, and have been recognized by the Audiobook Publishers Association for producing one of the top five Business Audio Books for 2020.
