Public Relations Stories and Strategies
Every organization has a story people believe about it. Most leaders didn't choose that story. They inherited it, stumbled into it, or lost control of it somewhere along the way.
Stories and Strategies is the podcast that changes that.
Host Doug Downs talks with the communicators, executives, and strategists who understand that narrative isn't a marketing function. It's a leadership one. Each episode unpacks what actually shapes reputation, trust, and public perception at the highest levels, drawing on behavioral science, media intelligence, and the ethics that keep persuasion honest.
This is public relations at the level serious leaders need it. Not tactics and press releases. The thinking behind why some stories win and others disappear.
Ranked among the most listened-to public relations podcasts in the world, Stories and Strategies reaches leaders and communicators across six continents every week.
If you are responsible for the story people believe about your organization, you cannot afford to guess. Follow Stories and Strategies wherever you listen to your public relations content.
Episodes
266 episodes
Communications Needs a New Compass
As a communications professional you’re operating in the most complex information environment in history. Misinformation. Disinformation. AI generated deepfakes of executives saying things they never said. Audiences who have stopped trusting wh...
The “Transmission” Problem in Public Relations
Communications has always been built around a sender mentality. We decide what people need to know, we package it, we push it out. That model came from journalism and broadcasting, three networks, eleven o'clock news, one message for everyone. ...
Choice Architecture: The Framework You're Already Using
Every communications campaign you have ever built had a choice architecture inside it. The order you sequenced your calls to action. The option you listed first in a petition. The default you set in an employee survey. The way you structured a ...
Stories and Strategies Trailer
Recognized as the most listened-to PR podcast in the World by Podchaser, Goodpods, and data from Rephonic.Also recognized as one of best Independent Interview podcasts by the Ear Worthy Newsletterhttps://storiesandstrategies.ca/po...
The Case for Good Journalism in Today’s World
“Journalism is dead.” You've heard it. You've probably said it. And honestly, the evidence seems pretty hard to argue with. Newsrooms gutted, trust in tatters, cable news turned into a gladiator sport. ...
Why Public Relations May Be the Secret Weapon in AI Search
Every PR professional has sat in a meeting where leaders ask you to “show up in AI”Here’s the problem. The AEO/GEO industry has built an entire measurement apparatus around citations… the moment an AI visibly names your brand. But the re...
The Human Blind Spot in Crisis Communications
There is a prayer that crisis communicators have been quoting for decades. “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”It sounds ...
The History of Color
This episode first published in April, 2021We haven't always seen color the same way.Pink used to be for men. Blue for women.People HATED colorful outfits when they first emerged. One aristocrat complained of "loud, swearin...
Networking: Effective Communication at Those Big Events
This episode first published in July 2024.Those big networking events. Many of us enjoy those but the repetitive small talk can be exhausting and challenging especially when conversations are frequently interrupted. In this episode we lo...
Why Communication is a Navy Seal's Greatest Asset
This episode first published in January 2025.Communication is the most important weapon a Navy SEAL can carry. More vital than physical strength, endurance, or even firepower.I was in Salt Lake City recently at a conference and s...
Nudge Theory | Rory Sutherland
This episode was first published in May 2021.Nudge Theory burst onto the scene in 2008 when Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler published their book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.” The simplest models of ec...
The Confidence Gap Is a Room Problem, Not a YOU Problem
You’ve been in that room. Maybe you are in it right now. The table is full, the voices are loud, and somewhere between the agenda and the first agenda item, you go quiet. Not because you don't know what to say. Because something in the room tel...
How Behavioral Science Can help PR Pros Understand Motivation and Decision-Making
Your client is wrong. You know it. They know it, somewhere underneath the certainty. And you have two choices. You can tell them they're wrong, which will end the conversation and cost you the relationship. Or you can find the thing...
AI vs Social Media. Which do we Trust More?
50 percent. That's how much of the global population now trusts generative AI when searching for information about companies and brands. More than Instagram. More than Facebook. More than social media in general. And tha...
Why Misalignment from Senior Leadership Rolls Downhill
Your Organisation says it's aligned. It probably isn't.And the problem starts at the top.Zora Artis and Wayne Aspland have spent 7 years studying the gap between what leadership teams say they're doing and what's actually happenin...
Crisis Communication Gaps: What CEOs Aren't Saying
Every comms professional knows the playbook. A crisis hits, you move fast. Holding statement, talking points, media plan, stakeholder map. You do it well because you've trained for it. You bring the plan to the CEO expecting alignment and inste...
Why Selling Time Is Killing Your Public Relations Agency
Every PR firm knows the drill. Client says here's my budget. Firm divides by twelve. Monthly retainer, same amount, January through December, whether the work demands it or not. Need a press release? Flat rate. Need ten? Multiply.&n...
People Don’t Resist Change, They Resist Being Changed
Most communicators assume that if people reject a message, they must not understand it. Lord David Evans argues the opposite. Backlash often isn’t confusion. It’s threat. When people feel insecure, unheard, or looked down on, they don’t lean in...
The New Role of Public Relations | Ipsos
Public relations used to be seen as the function that shaped the message after the decisions were made. That is not enough anymore. In a world shaped by geopolitical shocks, cultural division, AI disruption, and rising reputational risk, commun...
Why Public Relations Still Has a Leadership Problem
Communications is often described as a female-led profession, but that label can hide a harder truth. Women may make up much of the industry, yet the balance often shifts when it comes to senior leadership, influence, and decision-making.
Visual Drift: Why Brands Stop Looking Like Themselves
You know that feeling when you look at your own brand and it somehow doesn’t feel like you anymore? The logo is the same, the words are mostly right, and the message is still “on brand”… but the visuals have started to wander.
Synthetic Populations & Their Impacts on Public Relations
What if the best market research started by IGNORING what people say?What if, instead, you started modeling them based on proven behaviour?Right down to the regional level?And what if political polling was done this way too...
The 7 Reputation Drivers Every Leader Should Know
In today’s world, PR leaders need to build and protect their brand’s reputation in an AI-shaped, polarized world, where owned media matters more than ever. Reputation is no longer a soft metric but an economic multiplier and an insu...
Public Relations in the Age of Insularity
Trust used to flow upward. To experts, institutions, and authority. Then it shifted to “people like me.” Now even that circle is tightening. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals a growing insularity: smal...
Why Brands are Too Serious… and Paying the Price
Can a joke really sell a brand? Or save it from sameness?Most campaigns sound the same because they’re afraid to sound wrong. Safe language, serious faces, purpose-heavy messages that all blur together. And yet one of the mos...
