Here are three clients with three different problems and the results. Some details have been altered, but every number is real, and every outcome is one the client could measure for themselves.

The crisis that never happened

A large nonprofit came to me with an employee situation. It was the kind of thing that, told the wrong way, would have put the organization's name in a headline it had spent decades avoiding.

The instinct in these moments is to hope it stays internal. That the soon-to-be-former employee moves on quietly. But hope is not a plan, and the board knew it.

We did three things. First, we mapped every way the story could surface: a former colleague, a lawyer's letter, a screenshot, a reporter working a different story who stumbled into this one. Second, we wrote the response for each path before any of them happened. Holding statements, a short list of who speaks and who does not, the basic facts the organization could stand behind, and the facts it could not. Third, we fixed the things that would have made the story worse if it ran. 

The result is the kind that never sees the light of day. The risk to the organization came down. The story never surfaced, which is exactly what it looks like when the first forty-eight hours are handled before they start. Either way, we were ready.

A crisis plan that you never have to make public is the cheapest insurance a reputation can buy.

Every swing state, every week

A thought leader needed to reach conservative audiences across the country - not the Beltway or the people who already agreed. The listener in a truck outside Denham Springs, the morning drive in Maricopa County, the afternoon host in Kenosha who takes calls.

National cable gives you one hit and a clip. Talk radio gives you forty minutes with an audience that trusts the host, in a market that decides elections. The catch is that radio bookers care less about your biography. They care about whether you have something to say about what happened this morning.

So we built a repeatable process for it. Every week we gather the news, find where the client's expertise meets the story people are already talking about, and write hooks a producer can read in ten seconds. Then we pitch one producer at a time with a reason to book this guest on this day.

The result is consistent airtime in every swing state, in front of the audiences the client set out to reach, week after week. We established a standing presence built on being useful to hosts rather than asking them for favors.

That is the difference between having a relationship with a producer and having a reason to be on the show. Relationships get you one call back, but reasons get you on air again and again.

Data-powered results

A statewide awareness program needed people to do something: not just know about an issue, but take a specific action. That is the hardest ask in mass communication. Attention is cheap, but action is expensive.

In year one, we built the materials. Copy, creative, the pieces that go in the mail, on the screen, and in the hand. Then we looked at what actually happened. Which message moved people and which one they scrolled past. We threw out what did not work, even the pieces we liked, and rebuilt around what did.

Year over year, response to the call to action rose 82 percent. Same program, audience, and budget, but instead of treating the first year as a finished product, we used it as data to power the program in future years.

Good creative gets you noticed, but measured creative gets you results. 

What they have in common

In each case - a crisis plan, a radio program, and an awareness campaign - the client knew what they needed to move before we started. We built the work around that one thing and reported against it, not against how many calls we made or how many emails we wrote. In each case, the result belongs to the client. You will not find Narrative's name on any of it.

What do you need to move? Is there a story you are afraid of, an audience you cannot reach, a number that will not budge? I do not know yet whether we can help, but I can usually tell you in one conversation, including if the answer is no.

Reach out and tell me what it is. You will get me on the phone, not a pitch deck.

Andrew Moore
Founder, Narrative