Welcome to Storytelling For Business, the podcast that helps you build better customer relationships by telling stories your clients want to hear. I'm Katie Flamman. I'm a voiceover artist specialising in corporate storytelling. I've worked with clients like the British Heart Foundation, Cunard, and GSK, helping them all to share brand stories and business developments. But why is business storytelling important? What makes a great story? Can storytelling create leads for businesses? And how can it build lasting client relationships? In this series, we're finding out the answers. In today's episode, I'm talking to expert business storyteller Ally Lang. In both radio and podcasts, Ally Lang is an audio wizard. He runs the UK's largest independent advertising agency for radio, Maple Street Creative. Before that, Ally worked for the BBC for 13 years as promotions producer for Radio 2, Europe's most listened to radio station. Ally was a writer and producer launching new shows, promoting events, and working with some remarkable people. Hi Ally.

Hello, Katie. It sounds impressive when you say it out loud like that.

It is impressive. So let's start with Radio 2. You've worked with some incredible celebrities, haven't you?

I don't know, Katie. I don't know about you, but this might not be the most interesting answer. I always find the people I'm most thrilled to meet are those that have some sort of significance, either to me now or to my childhood. I'll give you a few that I've met and a few that I worked with. So met Jerry Anderson, the curator of Thunderbirds and the like. This is really going to age me now: Norman Wisdom. What a thrill to meet him. Gary Wilmot. I know that's a weird one. Brian Hanrahan. Standing behind Brian Hanrahan in the canteen at Television Centre thinking, they counted the teas in and they counted them out again. But worked with, I don't know, it's probably more interesting for other people.

Can I just interrupt you?

Please do.

Did you tap Brian Hanrahan on the shoulder and say, "I'm such a fan," or did you just geek out in an excited way in the canteen queue?

Yeah, I totally geeked out, yeah. I just looked at him. But these great orators, they don't really exist in broadcasting as much anymore, and that's a really old man thing to say. But people I've worked with, Billy Bragg, I managed to blag having Billy as the voice for the Folk Awards one year.

Brilliant.

I'm a huge Billy Bragg fan. David Frost. I got a lovely note back on a script I wrote for him, which was really nice. And I'll tell you one another, actually, because it's really funny. Barry Manilow. We had a Johnny Mercer season and Barry Manilow was doing a documentary, and the concert was going to be hosted by a singer called Curtis Stigers. Now on the Steve Wright show at the time, they always, whenever they referenced Curtis Stigers, they always said Curtis Stigers rhymes with tigers. So I put in a request for Barry to say, one version of the script, where he said, Curtis Stigers rhymes with tigers, and we made that promo, I made that promo.

So they had that little clip?

And I just put it in Steve's show and it didn't go anywhere else in the schedule. Just went in Steve's show, Curtis Stigers rhymes with tigers, and he was thrilled.

That's the thing, isn't it? It's about the little details and knowing who you are working with and knowing precisely what works for them and what speaks to their audience. Because I'm sure the team on Steve's show were delighted with that, but I'm sure the audience were all just absolutely thrilled to hear that.

One, it's funny, and two, it's context. And I think that context is a really important part of storytelling, as I'm sure you agree.

So you touched on storytelling. I personally feel like in something like an entertainment station or entertainment show or documentaries or that kind of, where the baseline is entertainment, a story is what it's obviously all about. We could talk about that for a little bit, but I want to pull it across to what you do now, and how that translates to businesses. But is there anything you want to say about how you feel or felt about creating stories within the promos you were producing for Radio 2?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I also, when I was in local radio, I set a best practise group for station sound and promo presenters. I used to talk to them about, if you go into Waterstones or Derek Smith or wherever, and you see the top 10 books fiction chart, in none of those books has anyone reinvented the English language. It's just about storytelling, and it's actually a great leveller when you appreciate that. Just to talk about the tools of the trade. So those would be things like music, voice, actuality, silence, if you want to.

Just for people who don't know, what do you mean by actuality?

Oh, sorry. So like a clip from something, maybe it's a clip from the news or maybe it's a clip from a documentary. These are your words, and then how you build them all together is in the storytelling. And something that we talk a lot about in our radio ads, and our podcast as well, because we really want our content to sound like it belongs on the platform where it's going to be. That's really important. And sometimes we'll make different versions of an ad if it's going to be on a different platform. So we might make something for Spotify that refers to the genre in which it's being placed, or we might make something particular to the genre that fits on an Acast platform, or for a particular radio station, some of these specialist radio stations that you have now, like kids' radio and fixed radio, things like this. So storytelling is absolutely everything, because it's the way you engage the listener.

And with an audio medium you've got to grab them, and you don't get an opportunity again. You either hook them, because people are busy and they're doing stuff and they're... When I was training in journalism school, they said, if you write a script and it's got something confusing in it, you'd lose your listener for three seconds before their brain loops back round and figures out, oh yeah, where was I? And actually, if you're in a news piece for radio, you've probably missed the whole story. It moves fast, doesn't it? And I guess that's the same with promos. They don't last long, do they, promo pieces?

Ally Lang 06:5

No, we always generally work to 30 seconds, I suppose is quite traditional. But I think in many ways it's easier than visuals because there's just that thing about being in someone's ear, and it just feels like a far more emotionally connected medium than TV or film. And of course there are ways to do it as well. There are tricks that we have or things that we rely on. The thing that really, really changed my career, actually, was I was at Radio London, at BBC Radio London, and we went for an away day in Bristol to see Val Geller speak. Now Val is like radio legend as far as I'm... She was brilliant. And I sat there with my managing editor, and we listened through the morning and she told all these brilliant stories and anecdotes and things. And then she said, have you've got any questions?

And I said, yeah, yeah, I've got a question, I've got a question. I said, I've built something. So I've put all my housekeeping in place at the station and everything sounds like it joins up now. And it didn't, all the programmes were siloed, it was a mess, but now it's all joined up. It all sounds like it's coming from the same place, but I want to change it. I want to make it more than that, and I don't know what to do next. And she said, which station do work for? And I said, BBC London. And she said, oh my God, not surprised. That is the most boring radio station I've ever heard. And I'm sitting next to managing editor. And she talked about how you engage with people, and she talked about heart, health, and pocketbook. What the Americans...

What people care about.

... refer to as money. These are the three key things that people really care about. And it changed my career, because I went back to BBC London and I started telling stories from the inside out. And what really helped at that time was, we'd expanded the sports brand to seven days a week. So there was a lot of airtime to play with. And also we were really trying to get more female listeners to the sports show. So that helped as well, because what we started to focus on, or I started to focus on, sorry, was the stories behind the individuals in sport. So we stopped talking about the stats. It wasn't like one win in five, it was about rivalries. It was about stepping up to the mark. It was about doubt. It was about these small differences in elite sport.

What we had then was we discovered that the female listeners that were listening would listen for twice as long as the male listeners, because they were buying into the stories we were talking about behind the individuals. A traditional male listener would switch on at two minutes to three and when the game finished, switch off again. But at this time, the female listeners were coming to us because we talked in the week about this individual, they're risk averse, always cautious, what's going to happen next?

And they wanted to know the next chapter.

Yeah, and it wasn't just about storytelling, but it was about building a narrative into the week, even. So I feel like I've really gone off-topic actually, but...

No, not at all. Not at all. What you talked about, well you talked about lots of things, but the three things, heart, meaning you've got to have an emotional connection.

Yeah, so love or emotional connection, you put it better actually. Exactly.

And then people care about things that affect their health or their lifestyle...

Or their money.

And their money. Exactly. It's not rocket science, is it?

It's not. It's not. But when it's spelt out like that, and of course at that time, and probably still I think, BBC London is an all speech station with lots of callers all through the day. So again, there was plenty there to pick out. And we were trying to drive more female listeners generally as well. So every time we did a promo that featured someone calling into the station, I always started with a female caller, every single time.

And that's it, because you're trying to grow that audience and you're speaking to that audience at the same time. And I think there's so much of what you said about that that does, I think, directly translate to what businesses try to do with their radio advertising and their digital marketing, because they need to know who their audience is, and they need to know who their ideal audience is, and speak to that person. So what you talked about doing there with the promos you put, it's easy and it's obvious, but it's speaking to that person, with that person front of mind. And you talked about also, going back to what you said about different styled advertising for different platforms, it's the same as Barry Manilow on the Steve Wright show. It's exactly the same trick. And I think that businesses need to figure out who they're talking to, first of all, and on what platform they are talking, under what circumstances they're talking.

Because as long as they've got that sense of authenticity, the message is going to come across, but it's going to come across in a much more stunning way if that bit of fine-tuning, those nuances, are thought about, really. I'm not sure that everybody is thinking about it. That's really what got me started in this series was some projects that I'm involved in are amazing and they make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, and others are still okay, but they don't have that secret sauce or that special something. And maybe it's because of the music choice or maybe it's because of the pre-planning. I don't know. But it's super interesting hearing you talk about the angles you come at it from, and I think there are definitely parallels to be made, for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. I think not only do they need to know, brands need to know who they're talking to. They also need to know who they are.

Yes. We've talked a lot about authenticity already in the series. I completely agree. You've got to know who you are and what you stand for before you start marketing or your message is just going to be a bit wishy-washy or unclear. So let's assume a brand has figured out who they are and they come to you at Maple Street Creative and they want to do a series of radio ads. Can you tell us what the process is? How much time are you able to take to tease out the story they want to tell?

Well, generally it can be quite quick, a bit too quick sometimes, but we try wherever possible to take a brief on a call or in person, because there are things that will trigger our creative thoughts that maybe the client hasn't thought of before, a little insight to something. So wherever possible, we always try and take the brief in person, then we will have a day or two to digest the brief to come up with some initial scripts. We'll feed them back to the client, work those through. And then once everyone's happy with that, it goes into the process of compliance, procedures, and the production. So it's relatively straight. No two jobs ever seems to be the same, but it is relatively straightforward. And we have bespoke writers and producers, not like how... I used to work where we did everything, each individual did everything.

In many ways that was quite easy because you saw the whole process from start to finish. Whereas in what we do here, there's a transitional bit, which is fine actually because it works very well with the housekeeping. But also at the same time what we were able to do is, because we have an amazing library of voices that we have in our books, that we are able to have a bespoke page that we send to clients recommending not just one, like some agencies will do, but we'll put five or six voices forward from which they can choose. We also have an in-house composer, and we work with a couple of different music libraries as well. So there are plenty of options in there. And it's brilliant having our own studios as well here in Fitzrovia, because that means that clients can come in, have a little away day, and it's really nice to see the process all come together.

I think that's what makes what you do very special and very bespoke. The fact that people can come in, they can work with you remotely. There's a lot of care and attention to detail, isn't there?

Yes, there is. And that's really very intentional because we know how some other people do it, and it's a little story I always tell constantly here at Maple Street, and I'm sure the team absolutely, they could probably repeat it verbatim to me actually. But I went into a supermarket a few years back and I bought a carton of fruit juice. I took it home, I opened the lid, and there wasn't a little stopper in there. Sometimes they have the little stopper that you have to pull out with a ring-pull. So I took it back to the shop and I said, excuse me, I've just purchased this. I didn't say purchased, obviously I'm not from the 1920s. I said, I've just bought this fruit juice, and it hasn't got a stopper in it. They said, we're really sorry, please go and get another one and here's your money back. I was like, marvellous. That's a great service. Went home, took the lid off, again it didn't have a stopper. It turned out that this brand just don't have stoppers in.

Done away with excess plastic.

The supermarket doesn't care. They don't give a shit that I'm in the wrong. They just want me to go away totally happy.

Stop moaning.

Yeah, they just want me to go away completely happy. And that's really, that story is part and parcel of our clients first philosophy. Yeah, creative is absolutely paramount. Yeah, we want to tell stories for your brand, because telling stories is the way that we are going to engage with your potential consumers. It's the way we're going to hook them in, not just for this call to action, but for them to have an ongoing relationship with you and your brand. So yeah, creative is important, but what's also important is that you feel you're getting a great experience when you spend your money with us.

Wonderful.

Stopper or no stopper.

Your benchmark for success, presumably, is obviously a happy client and then them getting some return on their investment for the advertising. But do they say things like, oh yeah, that really sounds like us, or yeah, that feels like us?

Yeah, some do. Some will have brand guidelines anyway, so they will say it has to be like this, this is the language, these are the things to avoid, and that's really helpful. But another time we can be working with a new brand, or we can be working with, in the case of... We worked for a charity, it's one of our specialist sectors is charities. And during lockdown we worked with one particular charity that really were at an absolute key point in their lifetime, because they needed to change their messaging, absolutely. It was a charity that housed unwanted animals. So their messaging was always come and get a dog, come and get a cat. These animals need a home, please come and look after them. But what happened, after some months into lockdown, is that people have got all these animals, and just found that they couldn't take care of them anymore, either through a change in circumstances or perhaps the pet was harder work than they imagined.

And they came to us and they said, we are not sure where we're going to go. And we've actually got this actuality of callers phoning up and talking to us about their circumstances. Can you do anything with it? First thing we did is we get permission from the callers, say if we can use them, and then we wrote the narrative around these clips. And it was a real moment in the history of this charity, because it was a real turning point. And that was lovely to work with a company at that point in their life where you could make a difference.

I think that's a great example of how a business's brand story can evolve and change, and how it's possible to be creative about sharing that message in that new position. Brilliant. So Ally, where do you see your story going in the next five years?

We're in a place now where we've just got a wonderful team and we're absolutely flying. So I suppose the next couple of years, at least, we'll be seeing how far we can take this thing. We're working with agencies now that have their own production companies, but they still come to us because of our efficiency, because of our skill levels, and it's just lovely. It's lovely to be a part of.

Oh, I'm so pleased the Maple Street Magic's going from strength to strength. Well, Ally Lang, thank you so much for sharing your storytelling for business expertise.

Oh, thank you for having me, Kate. It's been really nice spending time with you.

So what did we learn from this episode focusing on audio? Today's key takeaways are, one: radio and podcasts can be very powerful because they're intimate and personal. It's like your message is being whispered directly into your ideal client's ear. Two: know your audience. For radio advertising to be effective, you need to tailor your storytelling to appeal to the audience who's listening to that station. Three: heart, health, and wealth. They're the top three things to get your listeners engaged. So heart means telling them something which affects their emotions or connects on an emotional level. Health is obvious, and wealth well, maybe your product or service will save them money and get their attention that way. Four: Ally explains that you can use storytelling to build an ongoing relationship with your audience. He talked about building a narrative into the week, and telling stories from the inside out, focusing on human emotions, rivalries, vulnerabilities, and challenges, to hook audiences in and keep them interested and invested in the stories you tell.

If you've enjoyed the podcast, and hopefully learned something too, please like, subscribe, and share. Our next episode is about a family butchers with over 100 years of history. Mark Turnbull's story is about relevance and reinvention, and this one's a drama.

Every night I went to bed and said a prayer every night, and my prayer, I wasn't bothered about the food hall or the business or anything. All I wanted was to get my dad's money back.

Join us next time for the full story from Mark Turnbull, from Turnbull's of Anick. But for now, a massive thanks to Ally Lang. If you'd like to work with Ali and his team from Maple Street Creative, all the details you need are in the show notes. And if you're looking for a voiceover artist to get your story on the radio or anywhere else, I'd love to hear from you. I'm Katie Flamman, and this is Storytelling For Business. Until next time, goodbye.