Narrative Strategy: No, it’s Not Marketing

Let me be frank. I don’t do marketing.

But Ari, you’re a storyteller! Surely that means you get people to buy the things!

At some point, our ideas of marketing and storytelling become synonymous. If you’re telling a story, you’re selling a product. Or if you’re selling a product, you’re creating a story for that customer about themself.

And that’s accurate. Marketing does in fact use storytelling.

But to limit storytelling to sales is an insult to our very existence. Because, as much as the human existence has been commodified, I promise there is more to this life than just buying and selling things.

So, no. I don’t do marketing.

But I do use storytelling. I use it to deliver outcomes. Outcomes for the things we desire. For the things that matter to us.

As a narrative strategist, I use storytelling to help us find meaning and resonance. I use storytelling to help us overcome obstacles and persevere. I use storytelling to give us direction when we feel lost in uncertainty. I use storytelling so we can create the world we want.

Instead of limiting ourselves to storytelling as a function of marketing and sales, what do you think we could accomplish if we used storytelling for…well for everything?

What if we used storytelling to find resolutions to ongoing conflicts?

What if we used storytelling to design systems of repair?

What if we used storytelling to create the future we want?

Storytelling belongs to all of us. Not just to the marketers and the sales team. Not just to the systems that commodify us.

Storytelling is our birthright and its time we reclaimed it.