Rethinking the Press Release: Understanding What the Story Really Is

Rethinking the Press Release: Understanding What the Story Really Is

The press release is a stalwart of PR communications churned out regularly to announce products, earnings, and personnel changes. But in a crowded modern media landscape similar to an elevator full of people all talking at the same time, the traditional press release is expected, formulaic, easy to ignore, and no longer enough. In fact, a journalist friend of mine recently went so far as to say they don’t work at all. I believe they have a place, but to be effective, they need to transport the story you are trying to tell, and that begins with understanding what the story really is.

Here’s what I mean…

From my journalism days, I still get at least eight to 10 press releases in my inbox from record labels and publicists every week. That’s just from the entertainment side. Almost all of them, with a few exceptions, follow the same formula:

❌ “[INSERT ARTIST HERE] RELEASES SECOND STUDIO ALBUM, [INSERT TITLE HERE],” or

❌ “[INSERT ARTIST HERE]’s DEBUT ALBUM, [INSERT TITLE HERE], AVAILABLE NOW.”

To brazenly misquote the late, great Nat King Cole: 🎶 “Sooooo forgettable, that’s what you are.” 🎶

See, the real story lies, not in the “product announcement,” but in answering the question: Why should I care? These headlines are the first touchpoint for a story that means something to these two artists, but they are not emotive. They convey nothing, other than, for all intents and purposes, a product a million other artists are selling.

I’ll give you an example: Last year, Trinidadian-American pop/soul artist Bryce Drew (who, full disclosure, is also my girlfriend) released an entrancingly meaningful single entitled “Glow.” I’ll give you two versions of the headline and subhead: one written as a product announcement; the other as a story. You tell me which is more powerful:

BRYCE DREW RELEASES NEW SINGLE, ‘GLOW’

Or…

BRYCE DREW ILLUMINATES GRIEF WITH POWERFUL NEW SINGLE, ‘GLOW’

In the new release, the 27-year-old Trinidadian-American singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist explores loss and honors the lifelong impact of a childhood friendship

Rethinking the Press Release

This may be controversial…

Maybe it’s because I’m still a journalist at heart, but I love a press release. I love writing them, I love a tight, crisp format, and I love what they represent: the most direct way in PR to put a story down on paper. They are also quite paradoxical, because they are at once a fading marketing relic and ever-present in inboxes for all eternity until the end of time.

They are also perpetually mediocre, probably because most of them are written as a sales pitch; like one of those late-night infomercials selling you knives that can cut through a pair of sneakers. The media environment is inhospitable to the press release mainly because now online news and social media takes up all the oxygen, and a formulaic regurgitation of some boring company news has no competitive edge.

Having been on both sides of the pitch, I’d love to share a few things I’ve learned that we can do to rethink the press release and elevate our pitches from boring "infomercials" to acts of compelling storytelling. Interested?

Stories That Build Trust

Oxytocin has been called the “love hormone,” but it’s also called the “moral molecule.” Studies show it plays a huge rule in regulating our moral behaviors, influencing our views and decisions. How much or how little of the moral molecule we have can often be calibrated by external forces: a hug, a puppy, and social media, for example, have all been shown to increase oxytocin levels. In one study, for example, participants who received an oxytocin boost donated, on average, 56 percent more money to charity compared with participants who received the placebo.

So what does that have to do with PR and storytelling?

Compelling stories have been shown to cause huge temporary spikes in oxytocin. In those windows of time, people are moved to act based on feelings of empathy and trust. Authentic storytelling flips a biological switch that allows audience to perceive brands as human entities with values. Like a cheat code.

In other words, stories build trust. They can be used to great effect in PR to promote, as well as to protect, enhance, and build reputations.

Can you think of some stories that have moved you to action?

Designing a Modern Brand Mythos: Tips from Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”

In 1949, Joseph Campbell published his seminal work of comparative mythology, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces.” It is an exploration of the classic “Hero's Journey” narrative pattern: the unlikely hero receives a call to adventure, meeting mentors and amassing allies. After overcoming ever greater challenges, they experience an abyss where they face their biggest fears and enemies. This brings transformation, unlocking their full potential. They return home victorious and changed. From ancient myths like the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern classics like Star Wars and Harry Potter, these stages are ingredients for stories that resonate universally.

For brands, the Hero’s Journey represents a compelling creative tool. In an age of parity, compelling narratives seriously set brands apart. Brand stories shaped as archetypal narratives forge visceral loyalty: humble roots, existential struggles, watershed moments, and ultimate triumphs in staying true to ideals. Most importantly, the hero transforms. And brands at their best transform people's lives; their outlook, their community, their sense of progress. Cast audiences as the heroes who transform through your brand.

The same is true from a PR perspective, where crucial information must be conveyed as an authentic story to perform well.

What are your takeaways from the Hero's Journey and its application to shaping brand-driven narratives?

The Psychology Behind Narrative Transportation Theory and PR

A little over 30 years ago, researchers in a 1990 study found subjects who read a story depicting a character overeating later ate less themselves. The narrative impacted real-world behavior. This phenomenon was coined "narrative transportation" – the state of immersive absorption into a story that affects attitudes and beliefs in measurable ways.

The mechanics of narrative transportation theory stem from deep cognitive and emotional engagement. Vivid imagery, relatable characters, and cohesive plot lines transport readers into an almost dreamlike state of enveloping imagination. While transported, we instinctively lower our guard. Counter-arguing and scrutiny fade as we focus on the narrative. Our real-world identities blur into the story realm.

These effects don't disappear when the last page turns. Studies reveal transported readers display altered attitudes, intentions, and behaviors aligned with story themes. The immersion into crafted realities leaves imprints on our worldview, silencing skepticism and inviting openness.

Too often, PR is perceived as data and information. But for brands looking to do some perception-shaping, narrative transportation via fine-tuned storytelling does wonders: brands manifest as protagonists; strategic messaging into plot lines. The brand becomes a vehicle for human stories that move other humans.

What's a campaign that really pulled you in with compelling storytelling?

What Does Storytelling Have to Do with the Remote Work Debate?

As a child, I constantly daydreamed in class, conjuring epic adventures in my head that allowed me to escape. When my elementary school teacher figured out why I was struggling, she enrolled me in a regional young authors conference, and set aside time every single day for me to sit alone, separate from the class, and write. I was a semi-finalist in the conference, I learned more than I ever would have otherwise, and my work on other subjects improved.

What does that have to do with the never-ending debate about remote work vs. returning to the office?

Every single employee has a story of their own: Tammy, the accountant and mother drained by a brutal commute. Jeremy, the new grad who relies on office social life. Emily, the recent hire who — and this is a true story — doesn’t have a home, and dreads “work-from-home Wednesdays” because where is she going to go?

Employers who compassionately invest in the personal stories of their multidimensional employees will unlock potential that will drive the growth of their brand and culture. Employers who legislate and standardize do nothing more than compress the peaks and valleys of their workers’ stories to fit in a box. Policies should flex around supporting diverse real-life narratives, not cramming them into uniform boxes.

Today, 66 percent of workers in the U.S. work spend at least part of their time working remotely, according to a report by Zippia. That number shoots up to 92 percent when talking about employees spending at least one day per week working from home, with the average U.S. worker working 5.8 remote workdays per month. But experts forecast a 417 percent increase in remote workers by 2025. This shift will require deeply rethinking how we equitably enable both office and home to become springboards for purpose and potential.

An organization's story thrives when individual stories do. And we all have them. People thrive for different reasons.

By the way, I ran into that teacher at a coffee shop while visiting my hometown a couple years ago. We embraced, and I thanked her for always believing in me.

“What are you doing now?” She asked.

“I tell stories for a living,” I said.

The Glendera

Let me tell you a story.

I was 16, unemployed, and living in San Diego, California when I got the key to my first apartment.

Built in 1958, the Glendera sat in the shade of a large carrotwood tree on Del Rey Street, nestled against a concrete retaining wall on the west side of the San Diego Freeway, the California Southern Railroad, and Morena Boulevard. With its chipped and peeling blue paint, oxidized by years of salt-brined air coming off the Pacific Ocean, she sat as a corroding memorial of a simpler time 50 years earlier.

“At least it’s by the water,” I lied to myself, as I looked off the balcony at the back of a building, which had a view of a building, which had a view of Mission Bay.

During my days at the Glendera, I loaded up my Sony Walkman with recordings of motivational talks and walked the 2.7 miles to the Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach. There, I filled out job applications at every restaurant, hotel, and coffee shop along the boardwalk. Weaving through the 20 blocks of residential neighborhoods, away from busy Grand Avenue, I daydreamed about realities other than my own.

The man pushing a lawnmower under a large-brim sun hat.

The shirtless, sunbaked angler casting for surfperch and kelp bass off the pier.

The imperious woman, clutching her young daughter, yelling for him to “watch where the hell he swings that thing!”

At night, I fired up a Pantone beige PC that sounded like a turbine engine, and wrote stories and macroed screenplays on Windows 95-era Microsoft Word. Later, I collapsed on a futon, where I drifted off to the rush of the freeway and the rumble of the adjacent railroad tracks. With the whoosh of every passing car, I imagined the vivid, complex worlds they represented, and the epic story arcs of the people in them. Stories in which I, hidden from view, was merely an unknown extra. There, in the Glendera, stories became an escape; a vehicle that took me away to a present more forgiving, more alluring, than my own.

Later that year, I got lucky and had a piece or two published by a couple of community newspapers that didn’t think to ask my age. And just like that, in a real Cameron Crowe-Almost Famous twist of events, I was a published writer.

I remember the Glendera because it was where I realized just how important stories were to me. Then, stories were an escape from life; an act of self-defense. Now, they are a way of life.

Looking back, I wish someone could have told that scared, 16-year-old kid that his magnetic pull to storytelling would help him carve out a path in the world. That he would make a life for himself telling stories he believes in.

As a journalist.

As a PR pro.

As a communications executive.

Last year, 17 years and 65 pounds later, I went back to the Glendera for old time’s sake, while visiting San Diego with my girlfriend. It had a new coat of paint. The carrotwood tree had been cut down.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“So, here’s a story for you,” I began.

A Worthy Investment in Profound Human Stories

To be successful storytellers, brands have to come by their storytelling honestly; approaching it strategically and authentically.

“Brand stories are not marketing materials,” said writer Susan Gunelias in an article for Forbes magazine. “They are not ads, and they are not sales pitches. Brand stories should be told with the brand persona and the writer’s personality at center stage. Boring stories won’t attract and retain readers, but stories brimming with personality can.”

The catch is, brand storytelling is hard.

It’s a challenge to take a complex, multidimensional entity like a brand and distill it down into a cohesive story—even harder when you’re trying to accomplish this unbiasedly from the inside out. As a result, while most businesses understand brand storytelling is something they need to engage in, few do it well.

At the end of the day, companies who take the "tell, don't sell" mantra seriously will always be successful in forging an emotional connection with consumers.

Brand storytelling, the skilled craft of using a brand as a vehicle to tell a profound human story, isn’t a side project for a business’s marketing department to dabble in. It is an investment of a company’s time, focus, trust, and budget, best bestowed upon professional storytellers who understand the difference between an ad and a story.

Why?

Because stories are the communal currency of humanity, and they’re how humans think.

Stories are "the Communal Currency of Humanity"

Tahir Shah, in his book Arabian Nights, once called stories “the communal currency of humanity.” This is true for brands, who can use this “currency” to acquire consumers’ time, trust, and attention for a fair price.

Science agrees. Of the 100,500 digital words consumed by the average U.S. citizen each day, a message presented as a story is up to 22 times more memorable than the Jack Webb "just the facts, ma'am" approach. That’s because of how the brain ingests information when it’s in the form of a story. When reading straight data, only the parts of the brain responsible for decoding language kick on to decode its meaning. A good story, on the other hand, engages parts of the brain that would normally activate when actually experiencing details of the narrative. The brain, studies show, appears to process skillful storytelling and real experiences in much the same way.

But stories are authentic human experiences, not some industry magic trick. They allow their listeners to participate in the narrative. Compelling brand storytelling that “lights up the brain” will evoke emotion in your audience. In turn, you can recalibrate their opinions and beliefs about your brand, and influence consumer behavior.

What the Heider-Simmel Illusion teaches us about the power of a good story

In 1944, right at the end of World War II, 34 Massachusetts college students were shown a short film: two and a half minutes of geometric shapes moving across a two-dimensional plane.

The viewers watched a dramatic story unfold before their eyes. Within those shapes were conflict-ridden characters with emotion, motive, and purpose, navigating through an elaborate narrative. Over the course of that two minutes and 30 seconds, powerful, universal themes unfolded with heroes, victims, and antagonists. A love story, a fight, a chase.

Only one of the test subjects saw the abstract portrayal for what it really was: two triangles and a circle moving in and out of a larger, partly-open rectangle.

This landmark study of apparent behavior became known as the Heider-Simmel Illusion, named after its authors—Marianne Simmel, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, and Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider.

Stories are so valuable to us and we are so greedy for them, the study found, that we impulsively grasp for their patterns even when they’re not there. Distilled down, the Heider-Simmel Illusion underscores a valuable lesson no brand can afford to overlook: Stories are how human beings think.

You can watch the video here.