By now we should all be believers in the idea that narrative sets the brand. Long gone are the days of advertising executives creating a brilliant concept and using paid media as the primary focus for reinforcing brand and brand dominance. The fragmentation of media, websites and social media, where everyone has a voice, has given rise to a reality where everyone—from employees to investors to customers to partners—is an opinion maker, capable of making or breaking a brand with a few simple keystrokes.
Brands in the 21st century are now dynamic, multi-faceted and adaptive. In short, they are driven by ever changing narratives. And the most durable of them is establishing and propagating their own narratives. As public relations practitioners, we should be delighted—because we’ve been preaching the power of narrative for a long time.
Yet it’s essential for PR professionals to be more anticipatory, predictive and adaptive in this latest narrative evolution. Economist Robert Shiller, in his book “Narrative Economics,” decisively illustrated the power of narrative leadership on reputation and brand over centuries and across organizational types. But what that retrospective couldn’t fully predict—if only because social media and technology is speeding up the process exponentially—is the massive transfer of power into the hands of disparate opinion leaders to shape a brand.
Our opportunity, as practitioners, is to utilize our innate understanding of narrative and apply it in a rapidly changing environment to support a new generation of branding. Specifically we need to:
1. Fully Survey the Landscape, Quickly
All of the buzz is about Generative AI. But the value driver, near term, in understanding conversation and creating narratives, is Performance AI. What’s the difference? The first replaces us. The second gives us insights and competitive advantage to create and disperse narratives dynamically and rapidly.
We are using AI to crunch massive data sets that tell us what constituent groups are saying and where they are engaging. With this data, which refreshes in real time, we are mapping precision targeting and narratives to engage specific constituent groups with custom narratives that reflect their own conversations. For example, we use data for one of our clients in the tech and social purpose spaces to understand the stories of those impacted by technology—from users to developers to investors—and custom tailor engagement and narrative strategies specific to each group to optimize spend.
2. Adapt Execution to Reflect How and Where Opinion Leaders Engage
For the last ten years we’ve been promised that the scanning and intelligence tools we purchase can take us closer to the constituents we want to talk with. Now the reality meets the promise. Every one of our clients wants to know that we can engage their customers, investors and opinion leaders on the platforms where they are most likely to engage. Armed with AI outputs, when we build campaigns we are looking at the individual platform preferences of a constituent group and aligning precise micro-engagement and content strategies for each.
For example, working with an organization seeking to secure permitting to construct new properties in a highly-regulated city, we identified the precise platforms and subject matter interests of key decision makers and place content that could influence their views on specific regulations and legislation. This offers clients a kind of precision power of engagement previously available only through face-to -face contact. It’s an efficiency of time, scale and engagement that is transformative.
3. Be Ready to Shift, On the Fly
Here’s what we know intuitively about narratives and brand implications from our own anecdotal behavior on X, Reels, Instagram, TikTok, wherever: Someone is going to inevitably pop up on any day of the week and shift the discussion. Whether with a complementary or critical observation, as carefully as you’ve set a narrative, they will shift it. As practitioners, we need to be vigilant, listening constantly, anticipating and ready to make rapid adjustments, with evolved, new and better narratives.
Staying ahead enables us to continually define the brand on desirable terms and drive preferred outcomes. For us that means using our dashboard to continually crunch large data sets on content preferences, conversations and engagement of our clients’ customers and constituents and move content and engagement strategies on the fly.
The speed of change is unprecedented. And AI and social engagement platforms are only going to make it quicker. As practitioners, we have a chance to shape and own this dynamic. But it will require evolving our thought process and behavior faster than ever.
Peter Prodromou is President of Boathouse.