10 Comments
User's avatar
Tobin Trevarthen's avatar

100% on the mark. I have to remind people of this often.

John Rougeux's avatar

Glad it landed with you Tobin. And I can't blame people for getting confused, the difference is not intuitive and there are conflicting definitions out there

Tobin Trevarthen's avatar

1st time clients have this confusion. My 2x - 4x clients, come back because they have witnessed the difference. I have been stubborn to stay with strategic narrative over the years, leaving it to the IYKYK club. Which limits scaling, but I am okay with that.

John Rougeux's avatar

Do you lead with something else instead?

Tobin Trevarthen's avatar

I continuously experiment. A lot has to do with what stage the company is in.

Iva's avatar

True. But shouldn't messaging convey that narrative across channels and touch points?

John Rougeux's avatar

Absolutely, although not always verbatim. I've found that external messaging needs to be catered to the audience and often benefits from testing. There are usually several micro narratives that you can pull from the core narrative, and how those show up externally will vary as well. Great question

Iva's avatar

And a great answer, thank you. I'm interested to learn about your 7 micro narratives

John Rougeux's avatar

Sure. The micro narratives are situation specific, so I don't have a global list that I use across the board. But themes that I'm seeing right now include: diving into the nuances of problem, exploring beliefs that a brand has about the world, delving into why other solutions or approaches do not solve that problem, and layout design principles that form how a solution is built, for example. Maybe in the future, I can deconstruct a real life narrative for a client who is OK with their work being shared publicly. Thanks for asking.