When The Wall Street Journal reported that demand for corporate "storytellers" has doubled, with LinkedIn showing over 50,000 marketing roles and 20,000 communications positions now mentioning the term, it seemed like everybody was talking about it on LinkedIn or in other sources like The Guardian. Companies from Google to USAA are apparently racing to hire people who can craft narratives in an age where traditional media coverage is shrinking and we’re all already drowning in AI-generated slop.
But here's what the WSJ article misses: hiring a storyteller won't aid your change initiative if you don't understand the plot.
The surge in "storyteller" job postings reveals something deeper than a branding trend. As the article notes, companies have lost their earned media pipeline — newspaper circulation is down 70% since 2005, and journalist jobs have dropped from 65,930 in 2000 to just over 49,000 today. Brands now need to create their own narratives on their own channels.
But there's a critical gap between recognizing you need to tell more effective stories, and identifying a compelling one, especially when that story is about change.
Every organization today is navigating constant transformation: digital adoption, cultural integration from mergers, new technologies, operational modernization, continued hybrid work formats, and cross-generational integration — not to mention painful job cuts and re-organizations. Leaders know they need employee buy-in for these initiatives. They know communication matters. So they hire storytellers, launch internal podcasts, create Substack newsletters, and produce consumer-grade video content.
Yet 70% of organizational change still fails, which is why we founded LOCAL.
Mind you, this lack of success isn’t due to unpolished content, but because the story itself hasn't been properly identified, shaped, or grounded in what employees actually care about.
Here's what we've learned working with organizations ranging from Converse to Coca-Cola to UPS: the most powerful change narratives aren't invented by communications professionals in a conference room. They're uncovered by listening to the people living through the change.
Notice the pattern? The storytelling power didn't come from hiring narrative experts with MFAs. It came from deep audience research, frontline engagement, and understanding what narratives already resonate.
The WSJ article quotes Jennifer Kuperman, Chime’s chief corporate affairs officer, who suggests that terms like "editorial" now fail to capture what’s possible because "you could tell stories in so many different ways—social, podcasts, putting your executives out there, hosting an event, talking to the press."
And she’s right. But distribution channels don't create buy-in. No amount of polished storytelling can paper over a disconnect. Understanding your audience does.
Before LOCAL developed an Employee Experience for Republic Services, we traveled to various locations to spend time with people on the front line, including drivers, customer service agents, and field supervisors. We learned how they "own their role" and what would genuinely motivate behavior change. The resulting film series showcased real employees, supported by visual signage and manager training tailored to what those audiences actually needed.
When dentsu was poised to evaluate readiness for consolidating 150+ creative agencies into seven brands, we facilitated org-wide stakeholder interviews and employee focus groups with 100+ people, then conducted a survey of nearly 1,500 employees. The insights we gained in this work revealed that while employees were grounded in shared values, further operations support would pull them together in that alignment.
Starting with insight, not creative, is what separates marketing-grade storytelling from change communication that actually works.
Our Change Marketing™ approach addresses exactly what organizations need before they can effectively tell stories about transformation:
1. Identify the Real Story Through Research We conduct interviews, focus groups, and surveys with diverse employee segments from the bottom up. When we worked with a media planning company transitioning to new tools, we interviewed over 100 people including 25+ leaders and ran 15+ focus groups to understand needs, concerns, and motivations across every organizational level
The resulting narrative wasn't what executives initially wanted to say, but what employees needed to hear.
2. Ground the Story in Employee Experience When UPS faced implementing 1,100+ change initiatives for 480,000+ employees, the key insight was that "transformation isn't a distant list of projects—it's a mindset anyone can adopt in many moments every day."
That reframe came from understanding frontline reality, not corporate strategy documents.
3. Build Buy-In Before Broadcasting Getting organizational alignment on the narrative is as critical as the narrative itself. When we developed a tech strategy for a major food chain, we created data visualizations and story animations not just to inform employees, but to socialize the approach with executive teams first. This ensured leadership was aligned and invested to champion the story consistently.
4. Make the Story Platform, Not a Campaign The most effective change narratives aren't one-off launches. They're platforms that can support multiple initiatives over time. Southwest's, for example, began with Operations and will expand to AI & Data. Coca-Cola’s ambassador program included complete playbooks so local markets could create their own versions.
With agency like this, the story becomes infrastructure, not set decoration.
The real competitive advantage will go to organizations that do the harder work before bringing in their first storyteller. You might not even need one (or an army of them) if you are:
Remember that if you're asking anyone to polish a narrative that doesn't reflect employee reality, or to generate content without first understanding what will create belief and drive adoption, you're just creating more noise in an already cluttered environment.
We’ve seen from experience that the companies succeeding at change are those ones who:
That's the work that job descriptions for storytellers won't capture, but it is what makes change stick.
LOCAL works with organizations navigating major transformation to identify compelling change narratives and build employee buy-in through research-driven storytelling. Our Change Marketing™ approach bridges strategy to story, turning complex initiatives into movements that employees want to join.
