On Tuesday a founder told me, twice, on a Zoom call with eleven squares in it, that we needed to find the story. His company makes insulated shipping boxes for grocers. There is no story. There is a box that keeps things cold, in a summer where keeping things cold has become the whole business.
I did not say that. I said, tell me about the box.
He talked for six minutes about liner density and how many hours of ninety degree heat it survives on a porch in Phoenix. It was the best six minutes of the call. It was also, in his mind, not the story, because it did not have an arc.
Most brands do not have a story problem. They have a clarity problem, and story is the expensive, satisfying, arc shaped way we have all agreed to avoid solving it.
March through June should have settled this. What worked in those four months was not narrative. It was information. Are you open. Is it safe. When do you close now. Can I get it to my door. Powell's did not survive the spring on a founder's journey, it survived on a website that could finally tell you whether the book was in the building and how long shipping would take. Salt & Straw put pints in a box and told you what was in the box.
Meanwhile I read a lot of brand narratives this spring. Every one of them had a hero, a tension, and a resolution. Almost none of them had a price, a delivery window, or a reason to pick this one over the identical one beside it.
Here is where I will concede something. Story is real, and for a category built on identity, it is the entire job. Nike, Patagonia, Oatly. Oatly is a narrative company that happens to make oat milk, and the side of the carton is the best long copy in the grocery store. But Oatly earned that by being weird about a specific thing, not by running a workshop on its origin.
The test I use now is simple. If the customer's next question is who are you, you have a story problem. If the next question is what is this, what does it cost, and why you, you have a clarity problem, and no amount of arc will fix it.
If the customer's next question is who are you, you have a story problem.
Truffles sat on the keyboard for the last nine minutes of the call, which is her editorial position on brand narrative. Barnaby, who has never had an arc in his life and is beloved regardless, slept through it. They are both extremely clear about what they want and when. It works.