Narrative & Creative Strategy Partner
I help brands move from vague to sharp.
Building the narrative, POV and voice foundation that makes everything else work.
Most brands skip straight to marketing and storytelling without first defining why they're in the market and what stories they're best suited to tell.
The result? They sound like everyone else.
Let's solve that together.
What I Do
Three foundational systems, all working together.
These three become the foundation for everything authored by your brand: messaging, campaigns, content, creative direction, and beyond.
Narrative Who You Are
The foundational articulation of who you are and why you exist. Not a mission statement. The past, present and future of your brand, distilled and sharpened.
POV What You Believe
The stance you take in the world. Not just what you do, but what you believe and how you're different. It's what makes brands magnetic instead of forgettable.
Voice How You Sound
What people hear across every touchpoint. Not tone guidelines that sit in a folder and get stale, but a living system that makes every sentence unmistakably yours.
Who I Work With
Founder-led brands building something meaningful.
I work with founder-led and early-stage consumer brands that are building something meaningful and need clarity before they can scale.
I work best with founders who value clarity, taste, and modern creative thinking — and who want a thought partner, not just a one-off contractor or copywriter.
What I'm Not.
I'm not the right fit if you need hands-on design, production, day-to-day content, or campaign execution. I focus on strategic foundation and creative direction — the what and how — empowering your creative team or external agencies.
Services
Two ways we can work together.
A strategic engagement that gives your brand complete foundational clarity — who you are, what you believe, and how you express it.
It's the base that empowers your team and makes future creative, marketing and storytelling work actually mean something.
A sprint that translates your foundation into creative building blocks — ownable concepts and long-term platforms.
This follows Brand Foundation and bridges the gap between strategy and execution, giving you the direction to make your brand distinct in practice.
Why I'm Different
The foundational work brands often skip.
I focus on narrative, POV, and voice — not generic positioning frameworks, not 50-slide brand strategy decks. The articulation work that makes everything else actually work.
I've spent the last decade in brand and creative strategy, collaborating with some of the world's biggest brands, like PepsiCo, Unilever, Warner Bros., and Corona. I've been on both ends: agency-side developing 360° campaigns for global clients, and in-house brand-building. I've seen the day-to-day reality of building something to be proud of.
Before all of that, I was a journalist. My background shapes how I think about telling brand stories: cleverness in clarity, truth over spin, every word earning its place.
Let's talk.
If you're building something meaningful and need clarity before you can scale, we might be a match.
john@dorn.one