Companies are desperately seeking storytellers
Stated The Wall Street Journal recently headlined. In the United States, demand for "storytellers" in marketing, media, and communication job openings is skyrocketing. Strikingly, this is happening right now, as AI produces more and more content. According to the newspaper, organizations are not looking for people to write more copy, but rather for professionals who can give meaning to facts and translate emotions and complex developments into a credible narrative.
Many companies have lost control of their own narrative. In recent years, businesses have invested heavily in data. They measure their carbon emissions, diversity metrics, local impact, and customer satisfaction. Organizations have more insights, dashboards, and KPIs at their disposal than ever before. Yet, many companies are now hitting an invisible wall: they lack the words to explain why those facts actually matter.
As a result, they communicate less, either out of fear of criticism or simply because they don't know what story to tell. By doing so, both large and small companies increasingly leave their public perception to be shaped by the outside world. And that is exactly where things go wrong.
Look at the current dynamics in the Netherlands. Companies are expected not only to show results but also to explain their role in society. Take, for example, the debates surrounding the local impact of tech giants' data centers, grid operators and the energy transition, nitrogen emissions from airlines, or good employershop within established family businesses. Employees, investors, customers, and governments want to know what an organization stands for and why certain choices were made. A presentation packed with numbers is no longer enough.
Finding the right story is at the heart of our Find Your Numen methodology. We bring the true identity to the surface from within. Everything starts with a critical scan of the current reputation: how do the media and society actually view the company and its sector? This independent, outside-in perspective serves as the starting point for our session. Whether it concerns a starting entrepreneur, a fast-growing scale-up, or a corporate enterprise: through sharp, journalistic interviews, we peel back the layers to discover what truly sets the company apart.
By utilizing journalistic skills, we instantly recognize which examples, case studies, and evidence truly matter. From a sharp, newsworthy perspective, we translate these findings through storytelling into creative PR activities. By sharing opinion pieces, interviews, and insights via the media and proprietary channels at the right moment, we build thought leadership on themes that validate the company's value in the market. This is how we make organizations future-proof.
In an era where AI produces content with increasing ease, the ability to tell an authentic, human, and socially relevant story only becomes more valuable.