Has the narrative lost the story?

By Kevin Zier

Kevin Zier is an executive creative director at Purple with over 20 years of experience in brand and corporate reputation storytelling. His portfolio of work for Fortune 500 companies—in industries as wide ranging as healthcare, education, CPG, biotech, entertainment, energy, transportation, and manufacturing—has moved opinion, helped shape policy, and won creative awards. He also writes a lot of narratives.

Straight To The Point

• People don’t remember messages, they remember stories.
• The narrative was once how a company told its story, but most are just a messaging architecture written in paragraph form.
• When a narrative tries to say everything, it actually says nothing – too flat to guide decisions, too generic to get used, and more likely to end up on a shelf than in any hearts and minds.
• Return to real storytelling by building your narrative with ingredients people will care about –  conflict, characters, transformation, and even redemption.

What We See

“Narrative” has become a universal catch-all in the consulting lexicon. We all agree it’s important. Every company has one. Some have several—one for the brand, another for the product, another for the CEO, another for the crisis. What could be different chapters or plotlines within one clear, compelling story has been replaced with headlines and bullet points. Emotion and tension have been sacrificed to make room for all the messaging that tested well.

What makes matters worse, the same messages always tend to test well. It’s why the world ends up with so many narratives that sound the same. How many companies promise to be “patient-centric” or “innovative” or “people over profit”? Ever heard a legacy company begin their narrative like this: “For over 126 years…”? Everyone might say they want to hear these buzzwords. But no one will remember them.

There are lots of reasons a narrative loses the story. Marketing wants their priorities in, government affairs want theirs, the C-suite wants coverage, legal wants protection, and everyone wants it to work with the AOR’s brand new ad campaign. With all these competing demands, the focus shifts to blending. This is not how you write a story. It’s how you make soup. While you ladle your grey mush into your audience’s bowls, your critics and competitors will be out there telling a much tastier story no one can ignore. That’s their only box to check.

What It Means

Great stories all have one thing in common: tension. Characters face a conflict. They make choices. They transform, and they succeed. Or they don’t, and they fail. Yes, avoiding tension in your narrative is a lot easier — the focus groups will definitely hate it. So, many teams stick to the sunny side of the street, talking in platitudes and sanding off the edges until nothing is left to feel about your company. And when there’s nothing to feel, a story doesn’t work. It doesn’t inspire, energize people internally, or serve its main purpose: to change hearts and minds and move opinion.

To do that, you must start with an idea, not a list. Proof should serve that idea, not the other way around. Effective narratives find the intersection of what your audience values and what you uniquely provide.  When you find that, you’ll have an umbrella to guide smaller stories for products, issues, or moments. Make it memorable, human, and portable, too — and your leaders can carry it with them in shorthand, even (or especially) when crisis strikes. You’ll know you’ve done your job well when reporters, policymakers, and partners start using your language unprompted.

What To Do

At its core, a narrative is not a management exercise — it’s a story. And good ones have rules that endure, whether it’s on a Broadway stage or in a boardroom. David Mamet, the famous playwright, reminds us that drama only works when it puts real characters in motion, facing real tension, and undergoing transformation. A corporate narrative must do the same.

• Characters: In your narrative, characters are real people. You maybe can’t control who the antagonists are, but your protagonists need to be people your audience can relate to — leaders, employees, customers, even skeptics — not just abstract values and slogans.
• Setting: Where is the story happening and what are the details? This is the home for your data and messages. The trick is discerning which ones serve the plot, and which ones get in the way.
• Tension: All drama begins with conflict. A strong narrative doesn’t avoid the problem or chase consensus. It names the stakes, the obstacles, and the costs of failure. Without conflict, there’s no reason to care. No one to pull for or against.
• Transformation: A story that matters shows change — from risk to resilience, from problem to solution, from uncertainty to clarity. Transformation is what turns a list of messages into a journey people can believe in and rally around.

Does your narrative move your most important audiences the same way a good play or film does?

If not, maybe you should stop asking only what tested well. And instead, ask: Where is the tension? Who are the characters that matter? What is unique about us? What did we learn and how have we changed along the way? That is a story. One that will stir emotions, sharpen perspectives, and change the way people see the world.

People won’t remember the exact number of jobs you’ve created, how many billions you’ve poured into innovation, or how much you care about the environment or local communities. But tell a good story about why you’re doing all those things, and they’ll never forget it.

If you want to talk to Purple about your corporate narrative, get in touch with us.