Consulting and narrative
Consulting and narrative: deciding what to say before choosing the format
Someone has to decide what the company will say and why, before anyone picks a format. That decision is the work. Presentations, video, manifestos and storytelling come after it, as a consequence.
The landscape
Saying the wrong thing is not neutral. It costs you customers.
The B2B Thought Leadership Impact report, by Edelman with LinkedIn, surveyed 3,484 executives in seven countries. More than 75% said that, after consuming thought leadership content, they went and researched a product or service they had not been considering before. And 60% said good content makes them willing to pay a premium to work with that organization.
The same study carries the other side, which almost nobody quotes: 25% of decision makers said a company's content led them to end or significantly reduce a relationship with a supplier they already had.
Both numbers point at the same thing: what the company chose to say. That choice brings business in and pushes business out. A decision that size deserves a method, not the brief for a single piece.
Of the 3,484 executives surveyed went on to research a product or service they had not been considering, after consuming thought leadership content.
Edelman and LinkedIn, B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report 2024Of decision makers ended or significantly reduced a relationship with a supplier because of the content that supplier published.
Edelman and LinkedIn, B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report 2024Of the decision makers who never show up in the meeting say they are more likely to defend a company's proposal internally during an RFP when its content is good. Base of 1,934 executives.
Edelman and LinkedIn, 2025 editionPosition
The decision first. The piece after.
Almost every project arrives here with the format already picked. A video. A manifesto. The corporate deck, redone. Most of the time the piece is not the problem.
The problem sits earlier. The company never decided, out loud, what it wants to stay in the head of the person receiving it. Without that decision every department writes its own version, and the market hears four different companies wearing the same logo.
Message consulting is closing that decision. What the central thesis is. What proof holds it up. Who it changes shape for. In what order it gets said. And what the company chooses not to say, so it does not turn into noise.
There is always someone on the committee who will never sit in your meeting, never receive your deck, and will still have an opinion about your proposal. What that person read about you is all they have. When the message is left implicit, everyone fills in the rest with whatever they like.
The temptation is to produce more. The answer is almost always to decide better and produce less, with a single thesis, backed by evidence that survives contact with someone who knows the subject.
We write with the number, the source and the date in plain sight. Not because it looks good, but because an unsupported claim is the fastest way to lose a technical reader. When a data point does not survive the check, it leaves the text, even when it was convenient.
The method
How the decision gets made here
Four movements. The first one is made of questions, not of a content calendar.
Understand
Interviews with the people who decide, a read of everything the company has already published and of what the audience has heard too often. It ends in a diagnosis: where the message contradicts itself and where the conversation stalls.
Organize
Central thesis, proof, reading order, a version per audience and what stays out. The order is not decoration: what lands first frames the rest, and anything that asks too much effort gets dropped before it is understood. That is the neuroscience layer of the work, used to set sequence and weight.
Build
Only now does the piece show up. Presentation, script, video, manifesto, technical material. Each one comes out of a decision already made, and every number is checked against the primary source before it goes out.
Win
Publish, listen to the reaction of people who know the subject and correct course. Authority is accumulation, and accumulation needs rhythm.
Deliverables
What we deliver
Everything below comes out of the diagnosis. Nothing starts from the piece.
- Message diagnosis: what the company says today and where it contradicts itself
- Message architecture: central thesis, proof and reading order
- A version of the message per audience, from the user to the signer
- Corporate, commercial and results presentations
- Manifestos, positioning texts and leadership communication
- Video scripting and production, from corporate films to testimonials
- Scientific and editorial content for technical audiences
- Owned channel content: website, newsletter, LinkedIn
Sectors
Where this conversation usually starts
This conversation always starts in the same place: a purchase that takes time, involves too many people and does not forgive mistakes. That exists in plenty of sectors. The first two below carry more detail because they are where the house has built the most repertoire, not because they are the only ones.
Health and pharma
In health, deciding what to say starts with deciding what may be said. Brazil's RDC 96/2008, issued by Anvisa, the national health regulator, limits prescription drug advertising to channels aimed exclusively at people licensed to prescribe or dispense (art. 27), and only accepts an adjective such as safe or effective when the scientific reference that supports it travels with it (art. 9). That single rule separates three things companies routinely mix inside the same document: what is scientific, what is corporate and what is promotional. Message architecture starts from that separation. Whoever discovers the rule at approval stage rebuilds the piece from scratch.
Talking to doctors is also a different register. Research by the Afya Research Center with 1,064 Brazilian medical specialists, with fieldwork in 2022, mapped how they keep up: 73.3% through congresses and medical events, 65% through online courses and 61.8% through scientific papers. A thesis that only exists in marketing language does not survive the congress floor, which is where this audience actually forms its opinion.
Agribusiness
In agribusiness the message runs on a calendar. Planting and harvest decide when the farmer has time to listen, and a thesis that arrives outside that window does not arrive at all. This audience answers to practical information and distrusts speeches.
It is also multiplatform: according to the 9th Rural Producer Habits Survey, run by ABMRA, the Brazilian agribusiness marketing association, in September 2025, 96% use WhatsApp to keep informed, 84% use search engines and 80% still watch free-to-air television. And the decision runs through the dealer and the agronomist, who will repeat your message in their own words. If the thesis does not survive that translation, it never reaches the field.
B2B companies
A product that needs explaining, a technical buyer, more than one approver. This is where the same thesis needs three versions: the one that convinces the user, the one that convinces the signer and the one that survives the department with veto power. When it also crosses campaign, event and website, the right format becomes integrated projects.
Culture and change
Manifestos, leadership communication and change narrative. Internal audiences check the message against the practice every day. Here, deciding what to say is deciding what the company is willing to stand behind.
If your sector is not on this list, the question that matters is a different one: who decides, how many people have to agree and what a mistake costs. If those answers run long, it is the same conversation.
Frequently asked questions
Is this consulting or production?
Both, in that order. The work starts with the diagnosis and the message decision. Production comes after and is optional: some clients leave with the architecture closed and produce with their own team.
Can we hire the diagnosis on its own?
You can, and that is how a good share of projects begin. You get what the company says today, where the message contradicts itself, what your buyer finds alone and the thesis that holds the rest together. It is useful even if production never comes to us.
Do you only work with health and agribusiness?
No. Health and agribusiness are the ground we know best, so the conversation starts several steps ahead there. The real filter is different: a long decision, a technical buyer and several approvers. That exists in manufacturing, financial services, education, technology and in no particular sector at all.
How is this different from a campaign?
A campaign works one argument at a time and has a beginning, a middle and an end. Message consulting decides which argument that is and what has to come before it. One does not replace the other, and they live in different territories of the house.
Do you write on behalf of an executive?
We do, with the right process: interview, capture of their real voice and line by line approval. What we do not do is invent a voice and ask them to sign it.
Do you produce the video or only the script?
Both. Script, direction, production, editing and finishing, from corporate films to testimonials. When there is already a trusted production company, we come in on script and direction and work alongside them.
Who is responsible for the scientific part of the material?
Someone with technical background writes it, and the material goes out with traceable references, numbering matching the list and the name of whoever signs it. Final validation belongs to the client's medical or regulatory team, as the process requires.
Do you use AI to write?
We use it as a tool, in research and in drafts, never as an author. Text that leaves here is read, cut and rewritten by people, and every claim with a number is checked against the primary source before it goes out. We have dropped data that did not survive the check, including our own.
Can we reuse what has already been produced internally?
Almost always. An old deck, meeting minutes, a convention presentation and a shelved article usually hold the best raw material in the house. What is missing is not material: it is a decision and an order.
Updated on August 20, 2026.
Not sure what your company should be saying?
That is the conversation. Bring the draft, the old deck, the meeting notes. All of it works.
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