Crafting a Story People Can Actually Step Into

Real stories from inside brands on how narrative actually gets made.

Some of the most important conversations in branding don’t start with campaigns or taglines. They start with a deceptively simple question: what story are we actually telling?

Sometimes the answer takes the form of a person.

Early in my career, when I was working with Chico’s during their rebrand, Carolyn was our ideal customer. Not a vague persona, but a fully imagined point of reference.

We talked about far more than how she shopped. We decided whether she was married, whether she had a daughter, how she spent her days, what her priorities were, what she noticed, and what she ignored. Conversations would wander into the specifics of her life because those details shaped how the brand showed up—from product to language to experience.

Decisions were filtered through her perspective. Would this land with Carolyn? Would this resonate? Would it feel like it understood her?

The exercise wasn’t about fiction. It was about clarity—creating a shared understanding that made choices easier and more consistent because it was so specific.

At Tommy Hilfiger, storytelling showed up in yet another way. With the Meet the Hilfigers campaign, the family wasn’t simply a creative device, each character was carefully defined. There were conversations about who they were, how they behaved, what they represented, and how they related to one another. Their personalities, dynamics, and roles were understood so that every execution felt coherent.

Each ad told a new story about the Hilfigers’ lives, revealing moments and interactions that added depth over time. The work wasn’t just about producing campaigns, it was about building a narrative people could step into and recognize.

But story isn’t always anchored to a character.

There are moments when it has to speak to a much broader audience, and the work shifts from defining a person to defining the category you occupy, the tone of voice you carry, and the expectations you set.

When we were deep in the digital evolution at Royal Caribbean, the challenge was to articulate a narrative that could hold across millions of guests with very different motivations. The brand needed to feel energetic, accessible, and optimistic—fun without friction, expansive without intimidation. That clarity had to show up everywhere, from the first moments of site exploration to booking, from port to ship, from confirmation emails to onboard interactions. In that context, story was less about a single archetype and more about consistency at scale.

A similar question emerged while shaping Aman at Sea, but from the opposite end of the spectrum. Here, the narrative had to honor one of the most refined brands in hospitality while considering what shifts when the experience moves onto the water. The tone, language, and sensibility needed to reflect a guest accustomed to extraordinary privacy and discretion—an audience for whom subtlety carries meaning. The work was about calibrating nuance, ensuring the story felt unmistakably Aman while acknowledging a new setting.

What these experiences reinforced is that crafting a brand story isn’t a single exercise. Sometimes it’s about defining Carolyn. Sometimes it’s about defining a world. And sometimes it’s about defining the language that signals who you are before a word is even written.

When narrative is clear, decisions become easier. Teams align. Experiences feel intentional. And audiences, whether one person or many, understand instinctively what they’re stepping into.

At Wink Communications, this is often where we begin—helping organizations articulate the narrative that underpins everything else, from voice and positioning to how the brand shows up across moments big and small.

Because strong brands don’t leave their story to interpretation.

They shape it.