It’s Not Just Message Development, But Story Development (Part 1)

December 6th, 2010 by Brian Posnanski

One of the chief tasks of the corporate communicator or public relations team has always been the development of a company’s or organization’s message. For PR, that’s where brand marketing strategy starts.

Message development can take many forms, but it is essentially the reservoir from which talking points, soundbites and a company’s day-to-day language comes. Traditionally, this language has talked primarily about the company and the products or services it sells, and the language itself is often eye-glazingly boring and corporatesque (e.g., “we are a leading provider of [blank] for a diverse audience of [name your market].”)

That’s not to say that all corporate message development is bad, or that it isn’t necessary. A company needs to know how to talk about itself and its market. The problem is (and this was a problem even before the dawn of social media) that’s not enough to capture people’s attention.

What today’s PR people need to know is that classic message development is just a first step. PR needs to add another, larger layer: story development.

We feel so passionately about the importance of story development that we put our thoughts about message development versus story development on video. I hope you enjoy – and let us know what you think!

(Part 1 of 2)

Tags: message development