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Origins of the Narrative Pyramid

By Art Lapinsch

After the last piece, one of the readers sent me the following question:

I got the feeling that the Narrative Pyramid was a tool you developed, but I'm not sure it is.

If this is your creation, I'd love to know more about how it came to be.

After thinking about it, this might be the answer 👇

1. 🔍 Survey: Uncover the basics.

2. 📝 Note: Document the knowledge.

3. ✍️ Apply: Test it in the real world.

4. 💎 Polish: Adapt it as needed.

I call it the S.N.A.P. method 🤌

🔍 Survey: Uncover the Basics.

I have been obsessed with marketing for a long time.

Collecting Ideas

It started in 2008 - my first year of college - and I would consume everything slightly related.

Notable books:

• Back of the Napkin (Dan Roam): A primer on visual problem solving. I referenced the book in the essay “Explain it on a Napkin”.

• Business Model Canvas (Alex Osterwalder): A framework to create, share, and iterate your company’s business model. As far back as 2010, I was giving workshops on how to apply it in the start-up context.

• Resonate (Nancy Duarte): How to craft compelling storylines for presentations. The same consultancy crafted Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” presentation.

• The Advertising Concept Book (Pete Barry): A book proving that the creative idea - the “concept” - is more important than its execution. A true work of art and a tremendously useful resource.

• Made to Stick (Chip & Dan Heath): The S.U.C.C.E.S. framework with which you can craft remarkable and memorable stories. I have discussed it in this blog post.

Notable websites:

• ffffound: Pinterest for creatives before Pinterest existed. R.I.P.

• Under Consideration: Brand New: A branding and re-branding review site. Once upon a time, these in-depth analyses used to be free.

The first years were a constant fire hose of new information.

New ideas, new tools, new frameworks.

📝 Note: Document the Knowledge.

After a while, it was possible to identify patterns.

Taking Notes

In grad school (2013-14), I started refining a useful habit: note taking 📝

Before traveling to London, my friend Michi recommended reading Cal Newport’s book “How to Become a Straight-A Student.”

I’ll summarize it for you:

1. Focus on the big ideas vs. small details → Once you understand the principles, the applications become easy.

2. Keep a note with all the big ideas → Think through the big ideas. Find what makes sense, what doesn’t. Think of examples for those big ideas.

3. ?

4. Become a Straight-A Student

This method might have been the academic unlock I have been looking for all my life.

By taking notes, you are building a repository/library/tool kit → call it whatever you want.

It is a resource you can use and re-use over and over again.

✍️ Apply: Test it in the Real World.

Now, you might ask: What does all of this have to do with the initial question?

I got the feeling that the Narrative Pyramid was a tool you developed, but I'm not sure it is.

If this is your creation, I'd love to know more about how it came to be.

Now, we’ll start seeing how the collection of ideas came together into the Narrative Pyramid.

Perengo: Brand Pyramid v1.0

In 2015, I co-founded Perengo - a programmatic advertising start-up.

There was a particular set of challenges we faced when building the company:

• 🦾 Technological Novelty: No one in our market (i.e. recruitment marketing) knew what programmatic advertising was or why it was needed.

• 🧭 Internal Alignment: Every new employee would have the same questions: What do you do? How? Why?

• 📘 External Narrative: Every outbound marketing and sales activity would require us to come up with a story/narrative/script.

Initially, we would have to these problems over and over again. It didn’t scale and cost a lot of time. We were running in circles.

So we asked: How do we solve these challenges in a scalable way?

After some research, we had found the Brand Pyramid - a nifty framework from the world of brand strategy.

Perengo: Brand Pyramid vN.0

Fast forward, we adapted the Brand Pyramid concept to our specific context and kept using/re-using it from start-up idea to exit (and beyond).

Compared to other frameworks (e.g. Kapferer’s Brand Prism; Positioning Statement; etc.) it had a few very specific benefits:

1. Simplicity: Everything fits on one page.

2. Scope: It includes the full range from high-level to low-level messaging points.

3. Clarity: Each component is described in easy-to-understand language.

4. (Vertical) Consistency: Each level of the brand pyramid aligns with the levels below and above it.

Our application of the Brand Pyramid allowed us to solve our challenges (technological novelty; internal alignment; external narrative) in a scalable way.

💎 Polish: Adapt it as Needed.

After leaving Perengo, I consulted clients of all sizes:

• Personal Brands

• Technology Start-ups

• Technology Scale-ups

• Publicly-listed companies

The method worked.

Over and over again, we would see in these consulting sessions that executives would benefit the most from the framework.

Why?

Because it addresses the top-of-mind challenges of tech executives:

• 🦾 Technological Novelty

• 🧭 Internal Alignment

• 📘 External Narrative

But… the common misconception of new audiences was that it was “only relevant for marketers and product managers.” It’s called the Brand Pyramid after all.

The problem was that the tool didn’t correctly promise what it could deliver.

The term “brand” was in the way.

It was unclear.

Adapting it to a More Fitting Term

Now, after working through the method, I arrived at Narrative Clarity.

As a result, the pyramid would have to be called Narrative Pyramid.

⚠️ The exact workflow of coming up with “Narritive Clarity” will be documented in a future post.

The S.N.A.P. Method

To summarize: The Narrative Pyramid builds on top of the Brand Pyramid framework, yet is customized to the context of tech companies.

Connecting the dots in hindsight, I arrived there via the S.N.A.P. method:

1. 🔍 Survey: Uncover the basics.

2. 📝 Note: Document the knowledge.

3. ✍️ Apply: Test it in the real world.

4. 💎 Polish: Adapt it as needed.

Going through these four steps, eventually led me to the Narrative Pyramid.

The interesting thing is that a typical consulting gig would go through the same steps. These four steps lead the client from the initial problem set to an actionable Narrative Pyramid for their own tech company.

We will discuss this in the coming posts.

🙏 Request for you: Please let me know: What was helpful? What was confusing? Where do you disagree?

Leave a comment

When you leave a question, I’ll try to answer it as best as possible - like I tried with this post ✌️

Art

Learn the simple principles that can turn even the most recluse DevOps engineer into someone who communicates like Steve Jobs.

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Explain it on a Napkin

By Art Lapinsch

Dan Roam’s book “The Back of the Napkin” messed me up for good.

As a business student, I devoured the book and drank the kool aid:

"There is no more powerful way to prove that we know something well than to draw a simple picture of it. And there is no more powerful way to see hidden solutions than to pick up a pen and draw out the pieces of our problem." - Dan Roam

I realized that this exercise was extremely powerful in the work context.

Since I was still a business student with limited work experience, it was like handing an AK-47 to a monkey.

Clear and Consistent on a Napkin

Fast forward to September 2023.

I was on a flight from Copenhagen to Athens and while food was served I struck up a conversation with the dude sitting next to me. His name was Foivos and he was the Greek co-founder of a micro-grid technology company. That was interesting since I was just on my way from a climate tech conference myself.

We hit it off and after a while he started peppering me with questions on how to design narratives for tech companies.

I remembered the monkey and his favorite toy. And so, I pulled out my pen and asked if I could draw a few things on the front page of his book.

He concurred.

This is how I explained it to my new friend 👇

How to Structure for Narrative Clarity

What do strong narratives have in common?

They are (1) easy to remember and they are (2) easy to reproduce.

But if it were easy, everyone would be Martin Luther King.

But they are not. So how do we fix this?

Create a Narrative Pyramid - A One-Pager for Your Narrative

A Narrative Pyramid is a structure where all elements of a narrative are recorded.

Why a pyramid?

The higher up you go, the more high-level it becomes. Think of vision and mission.

The further down you go, the more detailed/granular it becomes. Think of value proposition, products, and features.

There are more elements on the bottom and fewer at the top. It’s structured just like a pyramid 🔺

Communicate Clearly

Communicate in the language of your audience.

• It’s ok to use technical acronyms if I’m selling to an aerospace manufacturer.

• It’s not ok to use technical acronyms if I’m selling diapers to a tired parent.

Be mindful of how your audience talks.

Your goal is to polish the elements of your narrative until they are clearly understood.

Once they are clear, you plug them into your Narrative Pyramid.

Communicate Consistently

Use your Narrative Pyramid as a Single-Source-of-Truth (SSOT).

• What goes on the homepage? → Check the Pyramid.

• How should we pitch our product? → Check the Pyramid.

• How do we onboard our new employees? → Check the Pyramid.

The only question is: Does the Narrative Pyramid have the information I need?

If the answer is “no” then you go back to the whiteboard and figure it out until you have a clear answer.

If the answer is “yes” then you use the element. Et voila, you are aligned and the narrative lives on consistently ever after.

Either way, happy end.

Clear and Consistent on Substack

Eureka!

After explaining this to my new friend I had an epiphany:

1. I find myself explaining and consulting about this method over and over again. I should write it down somewhere. This is what this Substack is about.

2. The method is about clarity and consistency. The publication should be called clearandconsistent.com // I checked and the domain was available. I felt like a genius. And so, I bought it while still sitting in the airplane (true story!).

So turns out that explaining ideas on a napkin can unlock Eureka! moments.

Dan Roam - you son of a gun - you were right all along!

In the coming essays, I’ll work my way through all the steps, techniques, and details of designing clear narratives specifically for the context of tech companies.

If this sounds relevant, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

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In the meantime, try explaining your narrative on a napkin.

You might be surprised what you’ll find.

Big Request: Tell Me What To Focus On 🙏

Theory is nice and all but actual problem solving is much nicer.

I would be happy to dive into reader requests and focus on concrete challenges/problems that you experience in your day-to-day.

Let me know via email or just leave a comment below 👇

Leave a comment

So long ✌️

Art

A shoutout to all my lovely friends who did the right thing by learning a hard skill! I love you all!

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Our thinking is shaped by narratives and their meaning.

• Confusing narratives = “what the hell does this mean?!” 🤷‍♀️

• Clear narratives = “aaaaaaaah… now I get it!” 💡

Narratives Unveiled: The Bedrock of Business Communication

In business, narratives are the sum of all corporate messaging.

• Vision and mission? Part of the narrative.

• Customer pain points? Part of the narrative.

• Product features and product names. You guessed it… Part of the narrative.

• … the list goes on.

Narratives have a strong impact on success, yet, corporate speak is ruining the show.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s a quiz for you: Which company is this?

We are reinventing the way people work through designed space, flexibility, technology, and community.

You will find the incredible result at the bottom of this page 👀

Introducing Clear and Consistent 🎊

Now that you had a taste of the problem, let me introduce you to Clear and Consistent - a publication exploring how tech companies can unshackle free themselves from their communication hodgepodge disaster.

The objective: Narrative Clarity for Tech Companies 🎯

Let’s look at a best-in-class example: Stripe 💳

The high-level items (vision, purpose, promise, etc.) are aligned with low-level items (product names).

Everything is clear and consistent. This is what Narrative Clarity looks like in the wild.

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Who Are You and What Is This?

Hi, my name is Art 👋

I served 10+ years building tech companies between Silicon Valley and Europe. Through my most recent company, I experienced the full rollercoaster ride from idea to exit.

Being a non-engineer with an advertising degree, my responsibilities included words. Lots of them.

The main insight: Clear and consistent communication wins.

• Clear: Communicate it. Use the language of your audience.

• Consistent: Communicate it. Over and over again.

Over the years, I consulted tech companies - from scale-ups to publicly-listed giants - on how to unlock Narrative Clarity.

Currently, I focus on helping climate tech companies but the underlying principles apply across all technology verticals.

I’m excited to start sharing these insights in public.

What to Expect from Clear and Consistent?

IF:

• You have a tech product or service that works but no one knows about it?

• Your team struggles to sell your solution in the market?

• Your audience doesn’t understand how the solution solves their problem?

THEN: Clear and Consistent will have actionable bits for you.

Subscribe to get principles, techniques, and case studies straight into your inbox 📧

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The Big Reveal 👀

Quiz Answer: Mission Statement of WeWork.