Why Deeper Storytelling Will Define Purpose-Driven Brands in 2025

In an era of information overload and short attention spans, many are convinced we’ve seen the end of long-form storytelling. While engaging visuals and quick key messages have become the primary way to evoke an audience, it’s not the effective way to encourage actual behavioural shifts. At B Lab U.S. & Canada, we’ve learned that to truly shift narratives around business as a force for good, we need storytelling that’s authentic, multidimensional, and accessible.

Lauren Everett, Manager, Content & Digital Storytelling at B Lab U.S. & Canada

Over the past three years, we’ve intentionally moved toward long-form, large-scale storytelling. From podcasts and documentaries to multi-part digital series, this evolution isn’t just about creative experimentation; it’s about evoking justice, impact, and visibility. We’ve learned that inviting audiences to think with us is more impactful than a ‘teachable moment.’

Here are three reasons why this approach has become essential to amplifying the B Corp movement, while highlighting a few of the wonderful projects I’m grateful to be a part of.

1. Nuance Demands More Than a Soundbite

The work that B Corps are doing is complex. Whether it’s decarbonizing supply chains, reimagining governance, or embedding racial equity into the core of business operations, these are not initiatives that can be fully understood in an infographic or 15-second TikTok.

Large-scale storytelling, like our Telly Award-winning documentary, Restoration in Action, creates space for nuance. It allowed us to deeply explore the four impact pillars of our Racial Equity program through the lens of B Corps and community leaders, contextualizing the work with lived experience. When stories unfold across time and format, they invite audiences into holistic understanding and empathy.

2. Community Voices Deserve Center Stage

Traditional corporate storytelling often centers a founder’s voice or brand. But the most transformative stories in the impact space are told directly from the community. Workers, marginalized individuals, and everyday folx hold the voices needed most for progressive change.

In Listen & Level Up, our Telly Award–winning series, we partnered with the women of the Level program to explore wellness, the importance of representation, and the value of lived experience. By collaborating on content with those who have been historically excluded from leadership narratives, we’re not just telling better stories, we’re delivering authentic ones.

My next project, an Indigenous-woman-led documentary featuring four graduates of the Level program who now lead Certified B Corporations, will build on the same ethos. Their stories reflect a powerful intersection of cultural knowledge and entrepreneurship, that have the potential to inspire future generations with the appropriate recognition.

3. Audiences Crave Real Conversations

People are increasingly skeptical of polished corporate messaging, especially in our new world of influencers and UGC creators. As social platforms become oversaturated with carefully positioned content, audiences crave vulnerability, dialogue, and action. 

Podcasts, like our newly launched Get Down to Business series, is one of the most effective mediums to cut through. For the first season, we dive into what B Corp Certification truly means, directly hearing from the voices of local Philadelphia-based business leaders and B Lab team members. 

The Bottom Line: Depth Builds Trust

If we want to transform how people view the role of business in society, we need more than consistent social content. We need connection. Large-scale storytelling allows us to meet audiences where they are and effectively turn communications into action.

By prioritizing platforms and formats that honour the depth of impact-driven work, we are accelerating the B Corp movement towards the people and the planet—one story at a time.