This story, originally published in November 2013, was prompted by adland’s intransigent refusal to change as the web and the rise of ad-blockers began changing media forever. Now, the story assumes renewed relevance as adland prepares to similarly resist, ignore and totally misunderstand the advent of large language models and AI-powered conversations at scale.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wanted to find the narratives that could persuade and activate people to help dismantle systemic racism in America’s healthcare system. Massive online content testing found only one rigorous approach — the Story Platform Process — reliably produced stories that engaged and persuaded all national audiences.

The five unelected right-wing lawyers who control the Supreme Court don’t care about abortion, climate disaster, rampaging gun violence or any of the lethal human consequences that will flow from their opinions. What they care about is destroying all hope of achieving the original ideal of America as a unified, purposeful nation capable of recognizing and protecting our rights.

How is it that any one person — especially one representing the views of a small minority of Americans — has the terrifying power to rewrite our freedoms and upend our lives? The answer lies in our Constitution’s deep flaws.

The pandemic provided a mass experiment that points to the political narrative most powerful at persuading and uniting Americans. It’s time Democrats heeded the results.

You can’t find the Trump vs. Biden election because it isn’t happening. Instead, we have two separate, disconnected political battles: Trump vs. Trump and Biden vs. Biden. The next president will be determined when one of them loses by running the most self-defeating, politically suicidal or merely uninspiring campaign.

The price Democrats pay for embracing the fictional narrative of “electability” is high, since it hurts their chosen candidate and fuels Trump’s re-election, just as it helped him in 2016.

Despite all the talk about Donald Trump's supposed projection of strength, he consistently represents himself as a powerless victim. Here’s why,

Traditional ads, dry policy summaries, and talking points simply do not engage audiences — especially online . Yet, virtually no candidate or cause uses (or knows how to use) the modern research tools that help creative people frame and structure narratives.

All the world’s talking points and taglines never could have driven… a multi-millennia, multi-ethnic project of freedom-building and culture change. But a story could and did.

Throwing away brand equity is crazier than throwing away cash.

As AI-driven chatbots and other technologies rapidly take over more and more conversations between people and brands, marketers’ most pressing needs will not for be for more fast coders, but for more gifted storytellers.

Pepsi's tone-deaf, self-important Kendall-Jenner-leads-the-protest ad is just the most recent example of brands trying to play roles they cannot and should not play. Too many brands are looking in the mirror when they ought to be looking closely at their audience's real lives.