Beyond the Buzzword: Storytelling in Product Planning

Storytelling in product planning and marketing has become one of the most overused concepts in recent years. Walk into any strategy meeting, and you’re bound to hear someone proclaim, “We need to tell a better story!” It’s a sentiment that often lands somewhere between earnest insight and empty jargon. The notion of storytelling, while fundamentally valuable, risks becoming a trope — a box to check rather than a transformative tool.

But how did storytelling gain such traction in the first place? And how can we rescue it from the brink of becoming just another marketing cliche? The answer, we believe, lies in a deeper appreciation of how to make stories resonate. And that starts with ensuring you have a story worth telling. In product development and marketing, that can be found in the form of the highly engaged, forward-thinking customers that we call Catalytic Customers.

The Rise (and Overuse) of Storytelling

Storytelling isn’t new. Humans have been telling stories to share knowledge, inspire action, and create emotional connections for millennia. In the business world, storytelling became a buzzword as marketers and product managers realized that data alone wasn’t enough to persuade people to care about their products. People respond to narratives, to journeys, to arcs of transformation.

Brands began crafting their own stories: Who are we? What problem are we solving? How do we make the customer the hero of the narrative? These elements can be powerful, but too often they devolve into formulaic messaging. Stories become contrived rather than authentic, driven by what the brand wants to say rather than what the customer actually experiences.

We see storytelling abused when companies focus more on crafting a neat narrative than on delivering real value. A shiny, well-produced brand video, or an artfully crafted product story deck, may look compelling, but if it’s not rooted in genuine customer insights, it risks falling flat. Product teams can get so caught up in “storytelling” that they forget to listen to what their customers are really saying.

Why Storytelling Still Matters (When Done Right)

Despite its overuse, storytelling is not without merit. Stories help us make sense of the world. They create context, evoke emotion, and inspire action. In product planning, a well-told story can align cross-functional teams around a shared vision, articulate a customer problem in human terms, and clarify why a solution matters.

But for storytelling to be more than a gimmick, it needs authenticity. It needs depth. It needs to be rooted in real customer experiences and insights, not just marketing personas and speculative journeys. This is where Catalytic Customers come in.

Leveraging Catalytic Customers as a New Narrative Force

Catalytic Customers are not your average consumers. They are deeply engaged, highly knowledgeable, and often more critical than complimentary. They are the people who truly understand the nuances of your product, the shortcomings of your solutions, and the potential for improvement. They’re not influencers in the traditional sense; they’re the constructive critics and the future-focused users who push brands to evolve.

By engaging with Catalytic Customers, product teams can uncover richer, more complex narratives. These aren’t just stories about what a brand wants to be — they’re stories about what a brand could be, based on real needs and opportunities.

Consider the difference:

• Traditional Storytelling Approach: "Our fitness app helps users stay active and healthy."

• Catalytic Customer-Informed Narrative: "When we noticed a group of users tracking their recovery progress after injuries, we realized there was an unmet need for better post-injury guidance. By collaborating with these users, we developed new features that provide tailored recovery plans, turning our app into a trusted companion for rehabilitation."

The latter narrative is more authentic, more compelling, and more likely to drive meaningful engagement. It’s not a manufactured story; it’s a co-created one.

Getting to the Essence of the Story

Part of the problem with storytelling is the term itself, evoking, as it does, images of polished brand videos and rehearsed pitches. To evolve beyond superficial storytelling, product teams would be well-served to focus on the core principles that underlie what makes the entire notion compelling:

1. Stories Are Built, Not Told

A great product narrative isn’t something a brand crafts in isolation. It’s the outcome of continuous interaction with customers. By treating narrative-building as an iterative process, teams can incorporate real-time insights and adapt their messaging to better reflect the lived experiences of their users. This approach shifts the focus from presentation to participation.

2. Co-Creation Beats Curation

Rather than curating stories from a distance, product teams should invite customers to actively co-create the narrative. This means engaging with Catalytic Customers to uncover pain points, identify opportunities, and explore future possibilities. Co-creation leads to richer, more meaningful narratives that reflect the complexity of real-world use cases.

3. Emphasize Dynamic Insights Over Static Messages

Traditional storytelling often results in static messaging — a fixed narrative that remains unchanged for months or even years. In contrast, dynamic narratives evolve as new customer insights emerge. Product teams should think of their narratives as living documents that grow and adapt over time.

Final Thoughts

Storytelling in product planning and marketing doesn’t have to be a buzzword. It can be a powerful tool for alignment, persuasion, and innovation — but only if it’s authentic and grounded in real customer experiences. By embracing Catalytic Customers and focusing on co-creation, product teams can craft narratives that are not only more compelling but also more actionable.

This requires a mindset shift. Instead of asking, “What’s our story?” teams should ask, “What are we learning from our customers right now, and how does that change the story we tell?”

And the next time someone in a meeting says, “We need to tell a better story,” challenge them to think deeper. Ask: What insights are we missing? Who are the Catalytic Customers we should be listening to? And most importantly, how can we move beyond storytelling to create real, lasting impact?

Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about telling better stories — it’s about building better products.