The Storytelling Lab

"The narrative function is no longer about writing the story. It's about building the system that allows thousands of people to tell consistent versions of it simultaneously." — Amazon, cited by Elliot Rayner

Episode Breakdown
What exactly is a Head of Storytelling? What does a Chief Storytelling Officer actually do on a Tuesday morning? Where do they sit in the org chart, what do they get paid, and who do they report to?

These are the questions Elliot Rayner set out to answer when he started collecting and analyzing job listings for narrative leadership roles. The result was the State of Storytelling 2026, a report that has quickly become required reading for anyone in the organizational storytelling space.

In this episode, Elliot—a Fractional Head of Storytelling with a product marketing background at Adidas and beyond—breaks down what he found across 25 different roles spanning 21 industries. The through line: it's not about creativity, it's about alignment. The job is to find the story that already exists inside an organization, build consensus around it, and then build the system that lets thousands of people tell consistent versions of it simultaneously.

This is a must-listen for anyone in marketing, brand storytelling, or organizational leadership — and for anyone who's ever wondered whether the Chief Storytelling Officer role is actually a real thing.

Key Takeaways
In this episode, you will learn to:
Understand what a Head of Storytelling or CSO role actually entails — and why only 19% of organizations can answer the three questions this role exists to solve
Use the Discover, Define, and Deploy framework to find, align, and scale your organizational narrative
Recognize why narrative alignment across a buying committee matters more than product quality in complex B2B sales
Apply the fingerprints principle to get internal stakeholders to adopt a narrative they didn't write
Understand where the CSO role is headed and why now is the right time to pursue it

Links & Resources
Follow Elliot Rayner:
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliotrayner
Website → https://www.productnarratives.com
Report → State of Storytelling 2026 → https://www.productnarratives.com
Course → Product Storytelling Cohort on Maven → https://maven.com/elliot-rayner

Person Referenced → Park Howell (Business of Story podcast)
Person Referenced → Terrence Gargiulo, Chief Storytelling Officer at Accenture
Tool Referenced → Gong (sales narrative analytics)

Book → The Chief Storytelling Officer by Rain Bennett → https://www.rainbennett.com/store
Film → There You Are — Rain's first narrative feature, shot in Washington, NC and Chapel Hill, NC

For more storytelling tips and strategies, visit:
Website → https://rainbennett.com
Podcast → https://thestorytellinglabpodcast.com

Or follow along at:
TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@chiefstorytellingofficer
Twitter/X → https://twitter.com/rainbennett
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/rainbennett
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/thestorytellinglab
YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@RainBennett
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"You've got to manage both sides. You're the captain of the ship. You let the playful side talk and then you get it organized and manage it. People are dominant on one side or the other, and either side can be very bad if you go to the extreme." — Kim Krizan

Recap
Kim Krizan co-wrote Before Sunrise, one of the most beloved films of the nineties, without ever having read a script before.

She'd been cast by Richard Linklater in Slacker, he read her master's thesis, and said "let's write something." That's how a boy-meets-girl story set over a single evening in Vienna became an Academy Award-nominated trilogy and a touchstone for anyone who believes a conversation can be the whole movie.

In this episode, Kim and Rain dig into the craft and philosophy behind that kind of storytelling—dialogue-driven, emotionally subtle, built on psychology rather than plot. They talk about how to balance the two sides of every storyteller's brain, how to collaborate without losing yourself, what regional and cultural differences reveal about how people approach story, and why the real payoff of writing has nothing to do with awards or attention.

Kim also reflects on the Before Sunrise trilogy's unexpected life and what it felt like to be the writer in a medium that doesn't always remember there is one.

This one is personal for Rain, as hee's directing his own dialogue-driven feature this fall, and it shows. One of the most intimate and honest conversations in the show's run.

Key Takeaways
In this episode, you will learn to:
Balance the wild creative side and the disciplined structured side of your brain rather than surrendering to one extreme
Silence the inner critic early in your process so your subconscious can do the work it was built to do
Write dialogue-heavy stories that hold an audience by building intimacy and escalating psychological stakes over time
Approach creative collaboration as a negotiation — knowing which hills are worth dying on and which ones to release
Write because your soul needs it, not because you want recognition — and understand why that distinction changes everything about the work

Links & Resources
Follow Kim Krizan:
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/kimkrizan

Films → Before Sunrise (1995) — co-written by Kim Krizan and Richard Linklater
Films → Before Sunset (2004) — Academy Award nominated — co-written by Kim Krizan, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy
Films → Slacker (1991) — directed by Richard Linklater
Films → Dazed and Confused (1993) — directed by Richard Linklater
Films → Waking Life (2001) — directed by Richard Linklater

Rain's Upcoming Film → There You Are — dialogue-driven indie feature, directing October 2026

For more storytelling tips and strategies, visit:
Website → https://rainbennett.com
Podcast → https://thestorytellinglabpodcast.com

Or follow along at:
TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@chiefstorytellingofficer
Twitter/X → https://twitter.com/rainbennett
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/rainbennett
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/thestorytellinglab
YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@RainBennett
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Advertising is the loudest, most publicly visible, and highest-stakes storytelling that your brand will do. And one misaligned ad can destroy and erode years of trust that you have built." — Rain Bennett

ORDER The Chief Storytelling Officer here! https://amzn.to/4A2xxyQ

Description
Most brands treat advertising like a numbers game.

But advertising is still storytelling. In fact, it's the loudest, most publicly visible, and highest-stakes storytelling your brand will ever do. And if that ad is misaligned with your brand narrative, one spot can erase years of trust in a matter of days.

In this solo episode, Rain breaks down the advertising chapter of The Chief Storytelling Officer and the role advertising plays in the Narrative Operating System—the tip of the spear, the ask, the first point of contact between your brand and the people you're trying to reach.

Using the now-infamous 2019 Peloton holiday ad as a cautionary tale and Aviation Gin's rapid-fire response as a masterclass in brand alignment, Rain unpacks exactly what separates an ad that builds community from one that blows it up. He closes with a three-question ad audit you can run on your own campaigns today.

Key Takeaways

In this episode, you will learn to:

Understand where advertising fits in the Narrative Operating System as the tip of the spear
Diagnose why the Peloton ad failed — not just as storytelling but as brand alignment
Recognize why Aviation Gin's response worked and what made it possible at that speed
Audit any ad in three questions: does it reflect your values, is it recognizable without the logo, and does it invite transformation?
Build advertising that invites people into your story world rather than pushing them toward a transaction

Links & Resources

Episodes Referenced:
EP 235 → Marketing and the Narrative Operating System
EP 225 → Brand and the Narrative Operating System
EP 230 → Product and the Narrative Operating System
Case Study → Peloton 2019 Holiday Ad
Case Study → Aviation Gin "Peloton Wife" Response Ad
Ad Campaign Referenced → Nike: Just Do It
Ad Campaign Referenced → Patagonia: Don't Buy This Jacket
Ad Campaign Referenced → Apple: 1984
Agency Referenced → Wieden and Kennedy (Nike's long-standing creative agency)

Book → The Chief Storytelling Officer by Rain Bennett → https://www.rainbennett.com/store

For more storytelling tips and strategies, visit:
Website → https://rainbennett.com
Podcast → https://thestorytellinglabpodcast.com

Or follow along at:
TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@chiefstorytellingofficer
Twitter/X → https://twitter.com/rainbennett
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/rainbennett
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/thestorytellinglab
YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@RainBennett
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Storytelling is local. But we are a global brand, so we do need consistency — and enough flexibility that everything can be used at a local level, because what resonates in China is not the same thing that resonates in Kenya." — Sydnye White

ORDER THE CHIEF STORYTELLING OFFICER HERE:
https://amzn.to/4gUVhxc

How do you keep a brand narrative consistent and cohesive across 177 countries, 10,000 events a year, and millions of athletes, volunteers, coaches, and families?

That is the task in front of Sydnye White, VP of Content and Storytelling at Special Olympics global headquarters. And in this episode, she breaks down exactly how she approaches it.

Sydnye came to Special Olympics from a broadcast background at Discovery, National Geographic, and NBC News, not because she was chasing a mission but because she needed a job. What she found on her first day—being welcomed by colleagues with intellectual disabilities who didn't care about her resume, only that she showed up authentically—changed everything. Eight years later, she's still there, still closing the gap between what people think Special Olympics is and what it actually does.

We dig into the logistics of global brand storytelling, why the most powerful content centers the athlete's own voice, how to navigate guardrails when your subjects are vulnerable, and what most brands get wrong when they chase authenticity without actually including the people they're telling stories about. This is brand storytelling as a system—operating at the largest possible scale, with the highest possible stakes—and Sydnye makes it feel both accessible and urgent.

In this episode, you will learn to:

Close the gap between what your audience thinks you are and what you actually do through intentional, consistent narrative
Center the voices of the people your story is actually about rather than just telling stories at them
Balance global brand consistency with local storytelling flexibility across different cultures and contexts
Navigate ethical guardrails when your storytelling subjects are in vulnerable or sensitive situations
Prevent creative burnout by building community, following the fun, and treating movement and rest as creative tools

Links & Resources
Follow Sydnye White:
Website → https://www.sydnyewhite.com
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydnyewhite
Creative Block Quiz → https://www.sydnyewhite.com/quiz
Organization → Special Olympics → https://www.specialolympics.org
Campaign → Take Back Sports → https://www.espn.com/takebacksports

Book → The Chief Storytelling Officer by Rain Bennett → https://www.rainbennett.com
Sponsor → VocaTales → https://www.vocatales.com

For more storytelling tips and strategies, visit:
Website → https://rainbennett.com
Podcast → https://thestorytellinglabpodcast.com

Or follow along at:
TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@chiefstorytellingofficer
Twitter/X → https://twitter.com/rainbennett
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/rainbennett
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/thestorytellinglab
YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@RainBennett
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"You do the story that you want to do because you believe in it and it will find an audience. You have to be passionate about something and not try and hop off what's already out there. You have to absolutely 1000% have a vision." — Leslie Zemeckis

Not all stories are treated equally — and Leslie Zemeckis and Sara DiVello are on a mission to change that. In this episode, the co-hosts of the Plot Point podcast, founders of the Santa Barbara Literary Festival and Nantucket Book Festival respectively, and bestselling authors in their own right join Rain to break down why the stories we tend to dismiss — romance, thriller, true crime, comedy — are often doing the most important work of all.

We talk about how comedy functions as a doorway to empathy, why chasing trends produces what Leslie calls Skittles books, and how to carry the story of a real person with the care and tenderness you would want someone to take with yours. Sara's research into the Great Migration and pioneering female journalists, and Leslie's documentary work shining a light on forgotten women in history, form the backdrop of a conversation about what it really means to give overlooked stories and overlooked storytellers their due.

If you are writing your first book, finishing your tenth, or simply trying to figure out what story deserves your attention next, this episode is your reminder: write the thing that lights you up, don't wait for permission, and know that every finish line is just another starting line.

In this episode, you will learn to:

1. Reject the arbitrary hierarchy that ranks some story genres as serious and others as disposable
2. Write the story that sustains you through the full marathon — not the one you think will sell
3. Research deeply and carry your subject's story with the care you would want for your own
4. Build a creative community instead of working in isolation — it will change your career
5. Stop waiting for someone to greenlight your story and go create it now

Links & Resources

Follow Leslie Zemeckis:
Website → https://www.lesliezemeckis.com
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/lesliezemeckis

Festival → Santa Barbara Literary Festival → https://www.santabarbaraliteraryfestival.org/

Follow Sara DiVello:
Website → https://www.saradivello.com
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/saradivello

Festival → Nantucket Book Festival → https://www.nantucketbookfestival.org
Podcast → The Plot Point Podcast (with Leslie Zemeckis and Sara DiVello)

Authors Referenced → Jeffrey Archer

Authors Referenced → Walter Mosley

Authors Referenced → Wally Lamb

Authors Referenced → Stephen Rowley

Authors Referenced → Ryan Coogler

Authors Referenced → Ace Atkins

Authors Referenced → Erica Robuck

For more storytelling tips and strategies, visit:
Website → https://rainbennett.com
Podcast → https://thestorytellinglabpodcast.com

Or follow along at:
TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@chiefstorytellingofficer
Twitter/X → https://twitter.com/rainbennett
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/rainbennett
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/thestorytellinglab
YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@RainBennett
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.