For some time now, everyone has been talking about storytelling. Whether we take politics, society, economy, it seems there is no aspect of life that is not in search of “a new story”, a new way of representing society and representing ourselves within it.

Quoting Frank Rose, author of a famous book on this theme, we “are immersed in stories”. We give the story, and, in general, the art of weaving stories, the task of defining our identity, both individual and collective, convinced that no fixed image, even the most detailed one, can have the power and effectiveness of a good story.

The ancient practice of storytelling has thus become an essential technique of communication, and once again, the temptation is to turn to our old teacher - advertising to understand its secrets. However, advertising has nothing more to teach in this field; it is even trying to get nourished elsewhere, drawing upon the universe of shared stories, ever more frequently asking individuals - consumers – to tell a story and thus tell about themselves. Then the product is hooked up to the story like a trailer.

However, if examined closer, this new desire for stories has a different nature and the logic that advertising has nothing to do with. A self-defining story is an intimately social story: a story of values.

Therefore, it is no accident that the EU will devote one of its most important projects to the search of “A New Narrative for Europe”, that sees from culture as common ground for moving forward. The European communication challenge is, in fact, based on the inherent cohesive power of its historical, cultural and intellectual heritage, and when this identity is perceived as more vague, the challenge is in finding in the past a new idea for the future, and this can be the best story to tell.