S4E4: Unveiling Business Heritage: A Journey Through History Marketing with Anders Sjöman

Transcript:

Erin Narloch 

Hey listeners, I couldn’t be more excited to bring you this episode of the history factory podcast. In it had the opportunity to interview friend and colleague of mine Anders all the way in Stockholm, Sweden, where I took a break from the family vacation to head to the business, the Center for Business history, and really got into deep discussion with Anders about the value of using brand and company history as a strategic asset. So hope you enjoy this interview and chat as much as I did. And yeah, let’s get to it.

 

Erin Narloch  00:01

Anders, thanks for being with me today. How are you?

 

Anders Sjöman 00:06

Good. Thanks for coming out here to Stockholm.

 

Erin Narloch  00:08

All the way to Stockholm. Yes, it’s so exciting to be here. What an incredible facility, you have so many incredible stories of different business archives. But today, I thought we could get the conversation started by talking about what inspired you to get into history or heritage marketing.

 

Anders Sjöman 00:30

That’s a two level question of both on a personal level, but then also, as an organization, what brought us in here, I’ll start with me. So I was brought up actually in a movie family. So storytelling is close to art. I then tried to revolt against that. So I did have an economics education. But ended up writing cases for Harvard business school for a while. So again, storytelling, but in fact, based storytelling. So once I learned about the Center for Business history here in Stockholm, after living abroad for a couple of years, I figured this is the place where I want to be, they do have the archives, they do have the sources and the actual facts of what happened, then you can add storytelling to that and tell the riveting drama that took place whenever it took place in with whatever company happened with. So it just helped a natural fit. So now I’ve been here for close to nine years. 

 

Erin Narloch  01:32

Wow, Wow, Very cool. And the organization. Yeah.

 

Anders Sjöman 01:35

So the organization which happens to turn 50. But we both work with history factory in central businesses. Do we both work with a lot with anniversaries? Yes, no, we have our own Nice. So we had to figure out do we have an archive of our own, we actually didn’t know we do. We build our own archive. And we figured we need to do an anniversary for ourselves, celebrating and parked our own history, but celebrating also the history of all the people and companies who have used our services over the years. So we’re actually using this is a opportunity to tell the business story of Sweden for the past 50 years. But 50 years ago, we were founded very much as a local idea for Stockholm, Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. We have a lot of big companies here. But in the 1970s, we also had a lot of companies that no longer existed that had gone defunct, or, for some reason or another disappeared, but had left physical remnants in the city. Materials and places, objects and places. But Stockholm in the 1970s was also selling transformation. It was things were being torn down and replaced. People were moving from the inner city to the suburbs, which were being built at the time. So a lot of physical artifacts and physical memories were being destroyed almost, or ran the risk of being destroyed. So we were founded to take care of dead stock on companies that no longer existed. The city of Stockholm, the public side, and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce on the private side, they banded together, found money and started us. Over time, though, living companies started realizing that, hey, here’s an archive institution and heritage institution that can take care of historical material. So throughout the 80s, and 90s. A lot of big Swedish companies, big in Sweden, but also some of them big names internationally, like Electrolux, Ericsson, h&m, companies like that started turning to us to say, Hey, can you store our stuff for us? And that was our big growth phase. And from storing things here, companies started coming to us and say, Hey, you have our historical material. Our CEO is giving a speech next week. Can you help find some some good fun things from the past? That sort of very anecdotal start, but from requests like that grew a whole storytelling part. So over the past 20 years or so, the storytelling, the narration, the research part has grown. Sometimes we do internal work for companies, there will be a CEO. We will not name names, but as CEO will call and say, Hey, how come we own this subsidiary? It was bought three CEOs ago. They were smart people at the time. They probably knew what they were doing, but I can’t figure out why. So we will do research into the protocols and whatever documentation we have from that time and come back with a report saying this is how they recent and then they can go on and decide whatever they want to do with it subsidiary today, but we give them that historical background. And other times they will just come to us when there’s anniversary time. 

 

Erin Narloch  05:09

Yeah. The calendar gift from the gods of anniversary.

 

Anders Sjöman 05:14

Use any anniversary. You can?

 

Erin Narloch

Yes, exactly.

 

Anders Sjöman

The company’s founding year, were brands held a year, or 50 years since you moved to this location or whatever.

 

Erin Narloch  05:26

The innovation of X. Exactly.

 

Anders Sjöman 05:29

Never waste a good anniversary.

 

Erin Narloch  05:31

That’s very true. Very true. So that is something you all do here. And you help with the storytelling, preservation and use of history, right?

 

Anders Sjöman 05:42

Very much so. So we’re very much in the same arena as history factory. But our focus is on Swedish companies. But just like you, I mean, we try to get the storytelling the historical storytelling, not just to be history for history sake, but actually be linked to whatever the companies are doing today.

 

Erin Narloch  06:05

Yeah, start with the future and work back. 

 

Anders Sjöman 6:07

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

 

Anders Sjöman 06:09

Find the roots, the threads that actually speak to what you’re doing today. Yeah. And disregard the other ones because you’re liberal, have time to tell the full history anyway, with whatever limited time that you have.

 

Erin Narloch  06:21

Yeah. So the book that just came out using history as a corporate strategic asset history marketing, can you tell us a little bit about the idea behind creating this book.

 

Anders Sjöman 06:34

So in a way, it’s a summary of our past 50 years, what we believe we’ve learned, when it comes to factor based, effective, business driven heritage storytelling, we call it history marketing and on heritage marketing, but it’s very similar. It’s the same, yeah, we call it history marketing for a couple of reasons. One is that we actually inherited the term from a German researcher. So in the way we came, to that arena, is learned how Germany in the after reunification in the 90s, when East Germany opened up in the archives on the eastern side of Germany evolves and became available, it became clear to German companies, what they had done during the war. So the 90s, just after the early nights, were in Germany, were a big part of German researchers being invited in to do research, open research, invited by the companies themselves as a way to okay, let’s acknowledge what we did. Let’s come clean with our past. So we can move forward. That type of journey that Russia, by the way, never did, look where we are. But Jeremy actually cleaned, cleaned up and acknowledged. And in the process of going through their archives, they also found all the good stuff they did. And they can balance the good with the bad, they could figure out what actually came out of what and, and then German scholars started calling this history marketing. So we took that term to heart could have just as well been that somebody else had had, with us had heard the term heritage marketing, and we could have stumbled, started calling it that. Heritage is a hard word to translate into Swedish, though, for various reasons. So history marketing, it became nice. And so this book is summarizing what we think we’ve learned over the past years. And it’s also a sales tool, of course, it’s a reminder to companies that, of course, you should keep archives for the greater good for the public benefit of knowing where we as a society have come from. But you also have to find budget reasons every year within the company to keep paying for that archive to keep paying for that heritage research. And one reason to do it is that you can use your history as a strategic asset. Yeah. And that’s what the book is all about. Why you should use an argument to be used within budget times.

 

Erin Narloch  09:15

Why do you think history marketing works? Or doesn’t work? 

 

Anders Sjöman 9:21

Exactly. I was gonna say, that’s a nice assumption. Let’s assume that it works. No, but I think when it works, it lends credibility to whatever the company has to say today. So history or your heritage is your best proof point. What you’re promising today. We are all living in times of transformations, especially right now with a transformation to a greener economy. Circular Economy, if we want to leave the world behind for the next generations, we have to transform societies and as Companies. That’s a challenge no previous generation has had. But previous generations have had other challenges. Going from agricultural to industrial, going from a pretty horrendous world of industrial living into a more humane you mean? Yeah. So all those steps, every generation has had its transformation. So let’s learn from the previous transformation. And let’s bring that to life with actual factual stories. So that’s history as a proof point for what you’re promising today. Then also, history is authentic. It actually happened.

 

Erin Narlovh

It’s real. 

 

Anders Sjöman 

We all as storytellers, we’re looking for authentic stories. Yeah, that are not just made up. So authentic. And then if we’re talking about right now, I guess content marketing is still a fashion trend, whatever term will replace it will contain elements of it, actually using things that happened to tell stories, and not just made up? It’s great.

 

Erin Narloch  11:08

How have you counseled leaders at different companies.

 

Anders Sjöman 11:14

We should probably have a separate session on this. Right? But you counsel them a little differently, depending on what type of company it is. Family owned companies come with their own dynamics, very true. First, second, third, fourth, fifth generation companies that are more held by anonymous money, if you will, come with their own set of dynamics. And you need to counsel them a little bit differently in family companies, you have to help them to separate almost a family story from the corporate story. If that’s possible, but help them at least to balance that storytelling. So it doesn’t become a who married who. But rather who Why did we launch this thing? What was it needed for? what the world looked like? Then? How could we help the world better? Advance. Larger companies with more anonymous owners? You have to figure out okay, so what did this company inherit from previous generations of company servants?

 

Erin Narloch  12:25

Yeah.

 

Anders Sjöman 12:27

And what can we bring with them into that? What is the actual ethos, or DNA of a company that’s been around forever, but the founders are long gone? What happens there and help them find that, so you have to counsel them a little bit differently. And I’m sure you also come across companies who are afraid of what’s in their past. 

 

Erin Narloch  12:51

Very true. There’s always a company that is trepidatious, about what could be found. But I’ve always found that and I’m sure you’d agree, it’s better to reflect and to to understand your company’s history, because it didn’t just happen yesterday, it existed. So better to own your own story before someone owns it for you.

 

Anders Sjöman 13:19

See what you can learn from it. So you never repeat the mistake, or at least understand the previous generations. For what they did. They probably weren’t bad people, but they did things that we today might think of as bad.

 

Erin Narloch  13:31

Yeah. There’s a possibility for reconciliation with the past for sure. 

 

Anders Sjöman 13:36

As a way to move forward again, to the German example of coming clean. Yeah, really understanding your past so you can move forward. And then also, I mean, a lot of times the skeletons in that closet. There aren’t that many of them. No, they see the day of light. They vanish, like the trolls in the fairy tales.

 

Erin Narloch  13:56

And I think what’s interesting is companies are run by humans, and I’ve not yet met a perfect human. And so it’s, it’s going to be a fact that they’ll have made mistakes in the past.

 

Anders Sjöman 14:08

Plus storytelling wise, if we put on that cap, who believes a story that just goes from success to success to success? 

 

Erin Narlovh

Yeah.

 

Anders Sjöman

Nobody believes it. Plus, it’s a pretty boring story. 

 

Erin Narloch

Yeah. 

 

Anders Sjöman 

So you need to give the nuanced approach.

 

Erin Narloch  14:20

Yeah, I agree. I agree. So what are some common myths or misconceptions on using history as a corporate asset?

 

Anders Sjöman 14:31

The most common one that we come across, I think, is that oh, history. It’s fun for academics. But it’s this company. You know, we’re all about the future. As if the future and the past. Were two separate things. Yeah. I mean, we’re here preaching a few knives. Yeah. And history is something he can be used to give energy to move forward to boost whatever you’re doing right now. But I think that’s the most Common misconception we had that’s the first talking about educating our clients or helping them. That’s just the first misconception we have to take out.

 

Erin Narloch  15:08

Yeah, that’s very true. I don’t think I’ve ever worked, or we’ve ever worked with clients who have said, We’re all about the past. Every single company we work with has the pleasure to service is all about the future. And sometimes they can have concerns about utilizing the past, and not making it seem outdated, or the sepia tone photographs are the things that only are looking back. But I like to think of it as where memory meets imagination to help fuel that future.

 

Anders Sjöman 15:45

Perfect. No. And just like you said, they’re afraid a little bit even if they agree, okay, history is probably useful. They’re still afraid of being too historical. 

 

Erin Narloch

Yeah.

 

Anders Sjöman

As if that would hold them back. So it’s a long journey, sometimes to help them realize that use history, yeah, use it effectively, and not all the time. But using where you can to improve whatever you’re promising.

 

Erin Narloch  16:08

Yeah, I’ve found that history. And these are the stories and those threads that you talked about the rich, the rich points in a company’s past, can be very helpful in reinforcing culture, reinforcing the idea that we all belong to something bigger and better than ourselves individual contributors, and that history can do it in a very effective way. 

 

Anders Sjöman 16:35

I have an example of that early on in the book. So Klaus Wilson is a Swedish retailer that started out not dissimilar from Sears and Roebuck with a mail order company. They are still around 100 plus years later, the mail order forever. And then they turn into physical stores in the 80s. And everybody thought that was a revolution internally close to Wilson. Because we’ve always been mail order. Now we’re all about stores, and founder Claus, he’s only been dead for a couple of years, he’s probably spinning in his grave. But they, at the time, said no class was all about helping people fix their everyday problems, by making sure they had the appropriate tools and gadgets and solutions. The way to do it now is to have stores, they build up retail stores. And now they’re just like any retailer, there, they are moving from brick and mortar into E tailing digital sales. 

 

Erin Narloch

Direct to Consumer. 

 

Anders Sjöman

Direct to consumer, and all of a sudden, they’re closing stores. And the people working with customers and today’s like, Oh, we’re it’s a revolution, we’re breaking with our heritage. But no, again, you’re carrying on the same heritage as the founder. Once laid down, you’re helping people solve everyday problems. And for every period of time, we have to figure out what’s the best way to do it. The old What would our founder have done? What would Closs do today?

 

Erin Narloch  18:00

Yes, that’s a great example. It’s very true. And in essence, they are delivering upon that promise today and into the future. How do you think companies are getting it? Right? Like getting the use of history, right?

 

Anders Sjöman 18:17

The ones who do, I think they make the connection between then and now in the best way. And my favorite example of late is KLM, the Dutch airline, which turned 100, unfortunately, in 2020, when the pandemic hit, and all the planes were grounded, but their centennial campaign was all about pictures from the past, juxtaposed with pictures from today. And they have one cockpit picture where the left side of that picture is a pilot. Probably 1920s 1930s. And on the right side is the pilot from today. Pilot on the left is a man the pilot on the right is a woman. That’s both continuity. We’ve been flying people for 100 years, but also development. Yeah, she was not allowed to fly 100 years ago. No, she does. And if you’re apparently if you’re an airplane nerd, you can also get really deep into all the gadgets, gadgets on the panels and the instruments.

 

Erin Narloch  19:16

Yeah, that’s a great example. Where do you think companies can improve on their use of heritage and history and marketing and storytelling?

 

Anders Sjöman 19:25

Storing it quicker? sooner? I mean, we probably share this experience a lot of times. Oh, we have a Jubilee, an anniversary. Great. We’ll help you with that. But we don’t have any material saved. So you have to start reconstructing by reconstructing their past for them. So start saving quicker than you think.

 

Erin Narloch  19:47

Yeah, I think that’s a great suggestion, especially for younger companies. That’s where you sometimes can tap into the founder’s mindset.

 

Anders Sjöman

If they are still around. 

 

Yeah. If they are still around now more than ever, innovation happens quicker, right changes, transformation is constantly happening. And it’s, it’s time now.

 

Anders Sjöman 20:12

And we keep talking about us. The Spotify situation, Spotify, a Swedish company that we all listen to music via, is turning probably 25. Soon. We don’t know if they have saved stuff yet. But the founders are still around. They are also an example of a company that’s all digital. So how do we say digital assets that are of historical relevance? We love correspondence from the past, do we say that every email? We love project plans from the past? Do we get every PowerPoint deck? So the digital world comes with its own? That is very true. But we still want to save the same sort of information, how they came up with the things they came up with how they decided which road to take, etc.

 

Erin Narloch  21:02

And when incredible marketing they do the end of the year wraps that we all get right. But that in itself, they wouldn’t you would think they would be they understand the kind of the memory aspect, music listening or podcasts listening, and they themselves should, hopefully fingers crossed.

 

Anders Sjöman 21:21

So we’re hoping and look, the people I’ve talked to there. They say they have an archive they have in New York, we haven’t gone further in discussions and not to dwell on them. But there are other.

 

Erin Narloch

Yeah.

 

Anders Sjöman

Born digital companies, where some of the other ones are called an archive. Is their Dropbox or their SharePoint? 

 

Erin Narloch

Yes, I’ve heard that before, 

 

Anders Sjöman

Which is just somebody else’s service. And what’s to say that in 100 years, those companies will be around.

 

Erin Narloch  21:50

Yeah. Are the file formats or the file Formats? Yeah or won’t be readable? 

 

Anders Sjöman 21:53

So the digital world comes with a lot of opportunities, because it’s easier to save, but a lot of different challenges. Yeah.

 

Erin Narloch  22:01

Could you provide a few examples of how companies can utilize their history to drive towards business goals?

 

Anders Sjöman 22:11

I think the way we think about it is in a three pronged approach. So either you use your history to build your brand, or an external approach. If you’re a b2c company, you can have heritage collections, if you’re in fashion, or if similar things like that, or you can build on previous ads, and play with them. When you do new ads. Sort of pure brand building, if you’re a b2b company, a lot of the industrial suppliers to the auto industry use their history, we’ve been supplying you with security solutions for 100 plus years. Remember our first project together. So as a way to remind partners in the b2b world, why they’re doing business together. That’s the first approach sort of the external one, the internal one, of course, is co workers and HR. 

 

Erin Narloch

The culture. 

 

Anders Sjöman

The culture. There’s a saying at least in Swedish, that Oh, you have to work here for a while. Because the culture is in the walls. Stupid place to keep it should live.

 

 

Erin Narloch

It should live.

 

Anders Sjöman

Bring it out, use it, keep it alive. So as a way to keep co-workers inspired, hopefully, at least knowledgeable about where they work, and why that company is what that company is all about. Keep that history alive. And the third reason there was a third benefit of using history is is risk minimization and change management, across all some examples about change management, keep history alive, just to understand why we’re going through this change. Risk management is a lot about IP. 

 

Erin Narloch  23:57

Yeah, that intellectual property is very important. 

 

Anders Sjöman 24:01

Why do we really own this brand? When did we start using this logo? Yes. And somebody else is claiming they were before us. Can we prove it? Yeah. So all those reasons. 

 

Erin Narloch  24:12

It’s great. Do you see a difference among companies leveraging history depending on where they’re located geographically? 

 

Anders Sjöman 24:24

Oooh, Maybe not as much as if they have spread out from wherever they happen to be originally, global companies will care more about their heritage, because they have more of a brand to defend internationally than I think and I can just speak for Sweden. Most of the big companies have their headquarters either in Stockholm or in Gothenburg. So the big urban areas in Montana to a certain degree, so the three big areas will probably care more, because they talked about it.

 

Erin Narloch  24:58

Regional Don’t significance.

 

Anders Sjöman 25:02

Then the exception to that are places where the company is so important that whatever city or region would die without it, they care about their origins. And they care about the fact that this company has been here forever. Mining Industry, you have a fair amount of cities and companies like the forestry industry as well.

 

Erin Narloch  25:22

Yeah. So the reasons that cities sometimes exist.

 

Anders Sjöman

Or at least survived.

 

Erin Narloch

and whole economies built around that that industry and as a result,

 

Anders Sjöman 25:33

So they have a more natural inclination to talk about their history. We’ve been doing this forever, and we should keep doing it together forever. Yeah.

 

Erin Narloch  25:42

That continuity? Yeah. And what is the future of history marketing for companies doing?

 

Anders Sjöman 25:52

Hopefully, it’s more, more digital assets available, so they can use it? More on the fly? 

 

Anders Sjöman 25:59

Yeah. That’s what we’re hoping at least. So I mean, we both run big projects. Yeah, with companies, normally around their anniversaries. But what if there were easier ways for that company to tap into its best? So I think as helpers and consultants in the heritage marketing or history marketing sphere, that should probably be our next challenge to make it even more accessible to them to the companies. 

 

Erin Narloch  26:26

Yeah, I see that happening as well. I think that it is something amazing when you make a collection accessible digitally, right to a broader user group, right? It’s the democratization of knowledge. The idea that they too, can utilize it for their day to day work. And it can provide inspiration, confirmation, right? To why they’re doing the things that they’re doing today, or what could be possible in the future.

 

Anders Sjöman 26:59

And for that to work, we both will have to create more digital solutions for them, probably so they can access it on whatever device they happen to have. But I also think there’s a mindset, going back to helping companies understand why they can use their history and not be afraid of it. So sometimes with companies, we come across legal arguments, why history shouldn’t even be kept.

 

Erin Narloch  27:28

Records, retention policies.

 

Anders Sjöman 27:29

And things like that. And if you want to use your history, it’s a damn shame if you actually got rid of, yeah, so let’s help companies understand they don’t have to be afraid of what they did before. That I think is nothing new. That’s just ongoing. What’s more, we can help them there.

 

Erin Narloch  27:47

Anything else in closing anything you want to share? Anything we didn’t cover?

 

Anders Sjöman 27:52

I don’t think I just think it’s fun that there are at least a couple of us out there history of factories and businesses history. Yeah. in various parts of the world where we at least take this picking on this job. So a self appointed job, but we’ve taken on the job of helping companies understand that they need to stake their part in history. 

 

Erin Narloch  28:12

Yeah, never not learning. That’s what I say. That’s very good, never not learning. And, there’s something magic. There’s alchemy, and you’re utilizing archives to do storytelling, and I think any, any company that we really have the pleasure of working with to be a steward of their story, or represent their story in a way that that is new and different and aligns to their values and their purpose and the mission of an organization. It’s magic. It is magic.

 

Anders Sjöman 28:41

Something magical, a feeling you get when you actually get a company to come and visit their archives. Yeah, so that’s the next book we should write probably together. Yeah, the archive effect.

 

Erin Narloch  28:50

That’s it. Well, thank you so much for your time today and also showing me around this incredible facility. I have to just for the listeners out there, you would be amazed at what is held here, and the storytelling and the objects that they have here in Sweden. It’s been incredible. Thank you so much.

 

Anders Sjöman

Thanks for having me on the pod. 

 

Erin Narloch

And please come visit us in DC.

 

Anders Sjöman 29:17

We will come see the entire group.

 

Erin Narloch  29:19

Archives lab that would be so much fun. All right.

 

Anders Sjöman 29:22

Thank you so much.

 

Erin Narloch  29:23

Thank you.

 

Erin Narloch  00:01

Another big thank you to Anders for sitting down and making that such an enjoyable and fruitful conversation about utilizing history as a corporate strategic asset. Until next time thank you

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai