That upstream narrative work cannot always be done from the outside alone, nor can it always be successfully delegated entirely within. Clarity and practical application often requires (particularly when conviction and direction have leaked from the organisation) both proximity and distance. But however they accomplish it, the organisations that do the work find that they become more deliberate and more coherent - not just in their communications, but in their decisions, their culture, their product, their conduct under pressure. The organisations that don't find that the activity never quite adds up to anything - and that consumers (and their own people) can feel the gap between the promise and the delivery. The infrastructure either gets built or it doesn't. The difference accumulates in both directions.

In the end, organisations don’t get the brand they advertise. They get the brand their decisions build. And those decisions either run on narrative infrastructure - or they drift.