From Information to Influence: How a Global Consumer Goods Company Scaled a Storytelling Standard Across the Organization

“AI is helping people accelerate their ability to tell clearer, more succinct stories, which is highly beneficial. The question is, how do we enable a strategic storytelling skill set in today’s reality and use AI to be even more powerful and consistent with this craft, without losing the human element?”

— Global Marketing Leader

Why Business Storytelling Fundamentals was the right fit

The Presentation Company’s (TPC) storytelling framework – a practical, repeatable approach to turning any business communication into a clear, influential narrative – met the need to set the foundation and accelerate a storytelling culture.

Three things made TPC’s Business Storytelling Fundamentals course the clear choice.

Scalable within budget. The organization needed a way to upskill a large, distributed workforce encompassing varying levels of responsibility and experience, efficiently. The self-paced, on-demand format made it possible to unite hundreds of employees around TPC’s proven storytelling methodology, without the budget or logistical demands of in-person training.

Built for the flow of work. With a busy, cross-functional and global audience, the organization needed a solution that fit into the rhythm of real work, not one that pulled people away from it. Known as TPC’s Hour of Power, the course can be completed in about an hour and delivers a robust learning experience packed with real-world examples, embedded coaching tips, and a personal action plan. Because it’s designed to be revisited anytime, it works as both an introduction and an ongoing resource.

One course, three critical skills. The organization had long treated data as a separate deliverable from the conversation it was meant to inform. Reports were thorough but disconnected from decisions, and charts were correct but rarely explained themselves. Business Storytelling Fundamentals addressed that directly. As the “greatest hits” of TPC’s approach, it introduces all three communication pillars (story, visuals, and data) in a single course, reframing data as part of the narrative rather than a standalone deliverable. What stood out most was the simplicity of the philosophy itself: story first, visuals second – backed by data. It was a natural fit for how the organization already liked to operate.

The rollout: making adoption stick

The opportunity surfaced through an internal culture and engagement task force, where the training and development workstream used the moment to pitch the program to leadership. Led by marketing and built on the belief that a common storytelling approach benefits the entire enterprise, the program quickly gained visibility across the organization. It expanded beyond marketing as other functions recognized the value of a shared communication standard.

Within months of launch, 80% of licenses were already put to work, with enrollment still open. What started as a marketing initiative quickly expanded to sales, R&D, data analytics and insights, strategy and corporate development, and human resources, a cross-functional reach that fit the organization’s networked culture perfectly.

The impact: a story-first mindset takes hold

The most striking outcome of this partnership with TPC isn’t a single metric. It’s a shift in what people across the organization now notice and value in each other’s communication. Strong storytellers – the ones who can engage a room, drive clarity, and shape a decision – are now recognized internally as exactly that: people whose ability to influence is best-in-class.

That recognition has changed how teams approach their own work, inspiring a desire to level up. People apply the storytelling framework to everything that fills their day: emails, status updates, leadership presentations, external-facing decks. The stress of a blank page has been replaced by a structure to build from. The result? Teams are more confident, communication is more effective, and decision-making is faster.

And the numbers back it up. Among employees who completed the training, 95% agree the training will help them develop stronger business stories, 80% say what they learned will help them in their job, and 80% feel confident applying it to their work today.

Voices from training participants across the organization echo the same sentiment:

“This was some of the best, most timely training I’ve experienced, both from the importance and quality of the material, but also its relevance. I was able to immediately put it to use.”

“Storytelling is especially important in our business model, and I found it very helpful in our day-to-day work, including creating presentation slides and drafting emails to convey key messages.”

Beyond the data, something bigger has taken hold. Storytelling has been repositioned from a soft skill to a strategic one, an X-factor that influences impactful decision making and drives the business forward.

What’s next

The survey results and employee testimonials tell part of the story. But the bigger takeaway is what this initiative represents: not just a training exercise, but a strategic catalyst for cultural change.

What started as a marketing capability build has quickly scaled to an enterprise-wide opportunity to influence how people think, communicate, and operate as a broader organization.

As the program’s internal champion put it, rolling out Business Storytelling Fundamentals was “just scratching the surface.” With a shared storytelling foundation now in place, the natural next step is to expand across functions and markets and go deeper, developing practitioner-level capability and lasting behavior change for the teams whose daily work most depends on influencing decisions.

As AI continues to reshape business capabilities and behaviors, strategic thinking and clear communication are more important than ever. By investing in that foundation now, this organization is equipping its teams to turn AI’s efficiency into effective, scalable storytelling that supports positive business impact.