Executive Storytelling: A New Era for Public Relations

Doug Downs (00:09):

It's 2020. And a show about soccer quietly makes its debut, but it's not really about soccer at all. It's about leadership connection and how people respond when someone is truly authentic. The show follows Ted Lasso, an American football coach hired to manage a British soccer team, even though he knows absolutely nothing about the sport, most leaders in his shoes might bluff their way through it, trying to project confidence, hiding their weaknesses. But Ted, Ted does something completely different. He leans into his vulnerability, his humor, and his humanity. Take one of the show's most memorable scenes, Ted. After a rocky start with the team walks into a crowded pub packed with rowdy fans. They're not cheering for him, they're cheering and mocking him, but instead of shrinking or retaliating, Ted walks right up to the dartboard, smiles and offers to play a game. And as he plays, he delivers a speech about the power of curiosity and the mistake of underestimating people. Because if they were curious,

Ted Lasso (01:15):

They would ask questions. Yes. Questions like, have you played a lot of darts, Ted? Which I would've answered. Yes, sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from age 10 till I was 16 when he passed away. Barbecue sauce . Nice game Rupert

Doug Downs (01:51):

By the end, the cheers. Turn into cheers. Ted doesn't win the game with strategy or skill. He wins because he shows his humanity. Ted Lasso's story may be fictional, but its lessons are very real. People crave authenticity from their leaders today. Brands are tapping into that same need in a fascinating way, not just by letting leaders appear authentic, but by capturing those moments on camera. CEOs and decision makers are sitting down for recorded conversations, sharing insights, telling stories, and showing their human side in ways the public can connect with these recordings. Carefully controlled, yet designed to feel genuine, are being used to build trust, foster connection, and humanize brands today on stories and strategies can controlled authenticity, shape brand narratives, and build community.

(03:17):

My name is Doug Downs. My guest this week is Kendall Brightman, joining today from Tel Aviv. Hey, Kendall.

Kendall Breitman (03:23):

Hello, Doug. How are you?

Doug Downs (03:25):

I'm good. And I would imagine, see where I'm at in Canada's Rocky Mountains. It's winter, we ski, we skate, we play hockey. I would imagine where you are. It's like warm all year. Do you actually get a seasonal change right now in February?

Kendall Breitman (03:40):

So we do, but I'll speak in Fahrenheit because no matter how long I've been living abroad Celsius, what is that? I'm kidding. But yeah, it's around like 50 something right now. But it's funny to me, I grew up in Philadelphia, and I always laugh at the fact that when it drops under 60, 65, you'll see full down jackets and it's a bit dramatic. So I think, yeah, it's pretty much the same and caps year round. But I mean, it gets really hot in the summer, but it's, people call say that there's a winter if they live here, but it's a joke. There's not really a winter.

Doug Downs (04:14):

So for anyone traveling, what's the sweet season? What's the sweet month where you want to go to Israel?

Kendall Breitman (04:20):

May-ish, April, may around then or September, October time. That's usually shoulder. Yeah. Otherwise it gets way too hot or I mean, even now is fine, but you just can't go to the beach now, so don't do that.

Doug Downs (04:35):

Kendall. You have more than a decade's experience in television and video production for places like NBC and Bloomberg News. You also have deep skills in community development, community engagement, and podcasting. And I know you are from Riverside fm, which is the software that we're using right now, we use with every single one of our clients to record their podcasts, their YouTube episodes, their live streaming, not a paid ad. I'm just observing a fact. And that's actually how you and I got to know each other was because we use Riverside and you're with Riverside. So what is this trend that you've noticed with brands interviewing their CEOs and their decision makers to create online content? What exactly are you seeing?

Kendall Breitman (05:25):

Yeah, so I think a lot of people with Riverside are using it for podcasting and things like that. But something that I am definitely seeing a trend in right now is that people are interviewing, as you're saying, CEOs or C-level, higher up people in the organization and having them do interviews, and maybe it's less interviews than it is kind of meetings where they'll record that and then repurpose that for LinkedIn, let's say. So if you're having a conversation about what's your roadmap, you can kind of clip that up and put that on social media. Or if you are talking about where AI is going, maybe you can take that from your CEO clip it and put it on social media. So it's definitely a trend that I'm seeing.

Doug Downs (06:11):

So some of these would be deliberately created for the public channels, the public social media channels. Others I would imagine are they're addressing their team and talking about it and then sharing it publicly, which does create a pretty authentic feel here.

Kendall Breitman (06:28):

Exactly. So I kind of would put it into two different groups. So one would be these recorded. Some people are saying, I've been doing these meetings, why haven't I just pressed record? So some of it is for that they're already doing the meetings, they're just now recording it so that they can clip it for social. And then some of it is having people really put a face to the heads of their companies

(06:53):

Then putting it internally. So sharing maybe the roadmap of what their company is going to be doing going forward, sharing that with their company, and then from there they can clip it and put it on social media or online as well, maybe to other stakeholders. So it's kind of those two different buckets. But I would say that what I'm seeing is that it's a lot less people saying, let's start sitting down and recording content. And some people are saying, let's take these meetings that are already really valuable and press record on them and get more out of them.

Doug Downs (07:25):

Yeah, why not? You mentioned putting a face to the brand and the CEO has long been the main personal brand to attach to any company brand, but once upon a time we created company logos and we called that the brand. It's well beyond that, the golden arches from McDonald's, the Nike Swoosh, and the whole idea of marketing and even public relations was to attach people to the company brand and then we could flush out the CEO when we didn't like them anymore, bring in a new CEO, and people are just, they adore the brand. I see the swoosh, I like the swoosh. Have you seen an evolution more toward personal branding that we as a society, I'll say it bluntly, we as a society seem to be less trusting of any organizational brand or political brand and more trusting of people whom we deem to be authentic or people just like us. Have you seen that too?

Kendall Breitman (08:26):

Oh, absolutely. I think that there's a huge shift right now to putting faces to your brand, and that doesn't have to be the CEO o. That can also be, if you have a head of marketing that you think is great to put on camera and they're really eloquent and they connect well with people, I think that brands are moving towards having those faces that kind of represent their company. I think that also, it doesn't just help humanize them, but a lot of the time those people, the people that are kind of chosen for this are people that represent in one way or another, that brand. So if it's somebody that's for creators, I mean for Riverside, we want people that are going to be creators themselves, that know about television, that know about creating podcasts that are kind of techie or fun. You want to make yourself relatable to the people that are using your product. But also I think that as we're moving more and more towards ai, more and more towards this really short form type of content, I think people, and more and more towards us being hyper online, I think that people want to feel some sort of connection and some sort of, they're a part of something, and putting faces to that is a way of doing that.

Doug Downs (09:45):

So as someone is climbing that executive ladder, having the presentation skills continues to be more and more important. Increasingly so I see it as the tsunami of content that has not happened yet, but my goodness, it sure will. In short order, having those presentation skills in various forms to be able to harness audio, to be able to speak well on video, that type of thing, that just becomes more and more important.

Kendall Breitman (10:14):

I think it becomes more and more important, but I wouldn't say, oh, this person's not going to end up being leading a company because they don't have that learn. I think that there are some things

(10:23):

That they can learn it, and I also think that there are some companies that are able to get around that by having somebody else that can represent their company for them. So whether that's kind of hiring a person that's doing their video content and having that be an outward facing face, if that makes sense. So I think that it's more and more important, but I don't think that it's become completely necessary, but it's helpful, if that makes sense.

Doug Downs (10:48):

Can you share an example of a brand or an individual who's done this effectively and what stood out about their approach? I mean, right away, Elon Musk jumps to mind, and yes, he's done it effectively because he is branded himself so well. But who stands out to you?

Kendall Breitman (11:03):

Well, I was even just thinking about when you were talking about this early in our conversation during the inauguration, the seeing all of the tech CEOs, and that is what's becoming the Nike swoosh. That is what's becoming the golden arches. It's like the actual people that are running these companies. I mean, those people have always been recognizable, but I feel like more and more were we in a place in society where you could see a group of tech CEOs and be like, that's from that place. That's from another, being able to actually pick them out of a lineup, I'm not sure. I think it's becoming more and more, I think that Apple also started with doing that, having the presentations and having their CEOs come out and present everything that they're coming up with.

Doug Downs (11:47):

Steve Jobs.

Kendall Breitman (11:48):

Yeah. Yeah. Tim Cook having, I think they do a really great job at that. I think he's actually one of the investors in Riverside, but I really do think that Alexis Ohanian iss really good at it. I think that when he does a lot of video content where he'll just sit down and talk about where he is thinking the industry's going, or what's exciting him, and he's doing it also, which I think is important. He's doing it in a room in his home that has so much stuff in the background, all these figurines and things.

Doug Downs (12:20):

I like that

Kendall Breitman (12:21):

And it really makes you, yeah, it's cool. It makes you feel like you're sitting there with him. You know who he is a bit more. I think he does a really good, really great job at that.

Doug Downs (12:31):

One thing that stood out to me, every leader you mentioned there, the ones that came to mind right away were male, are male. Yeah. I love the philosophy that it is genuinely harder. I think women are judged more harshly. A woman who comes across strong, she's too strong, she's too abrasive. If she comes across with a softer approach, she's too soft. She can't get tough when she needs to. Is there any reason? Do you agree with that? And is there any reason why women can't stand out in this fear as accessibly as meant,

Kendall Breitman (13:07):

Okay, I'm going to give you a hot take. And so my friends jokingly would call me Kendall Gender. So I'm just going to give that background. I love getting in these gender arguments like Kendall Jenner, but Kendall Gender. I think that it's because men step up more when you're going to be like, oh, let's make a video. I don't know. I think that it's also because men are like, oh, I'll do it. Where a woman's like, oh, I don't know if men take the best person because they

Doug Downs (13:30):

Don't get judged.

Kendall Breitman (13:32):

And a woman's like, oh, I don't know if I'm the best person to do it. And no offense, men are like, yeah, I'm the best person to do it. No offense to the men. But I think that it's kind of, which came first, the chicken or the egg. Do we know as women that we're going to be judged more harshly, or are we just less likely to jump at different opportunities because we're like this kind of doubt in your qualifications of whether or not you'll be the best person to do it, if that makes sense. So yeah, I mean, I do see that more men are doing it, but I do see that women more and more are doing it. And I also find that at least within the videos that we're doing, that when women are doing it, they bring more personality. It's much, it's a very dynamic conversation. So I really wish that there were more women that were going ahead and doing that. I just think that we as women know that the internet is a less forgiving place, but I wish that wasn't the case.

Doug Downs (14:32):

No, it's true. When I get ready to do a YouTube video, I maybe slap a ball cap on if I'm having a bad hair life day. I'm not sure all women would think the same way. I think they would think I have to prepare, and they shouldn't

Kendall Breitman (14:46):

Have to think

Doug Downs (14:47):

That. Yeah,

Kendall Breitman (14:47):

I think that women feel the internet's a, we all want authentic, but I think that when it comes to women, it's authentically put together.

Doug Downs (15:01):

Well said. Okay. Shifting gears. As a community manager, how do you define the intersection of communication and community building?

Kendall Breitman (15:14):

So that's my whole job. I mean, yes. Yeah, I don't even know where to start the intersection. I think that communication needs to, for a company, be built around the community. Who are you talking to? I mean, you can talk about your, I think that when you're talking about your product or your features, if you don't know your community, then it becomes a lot of, and I see a lot of creators do this. I'm so excited to announce no one cares what you're excited for. Exactly. What's it going to do for me? I'm so excited for my next episode. It's like, why should I be excited? What am I going to get out of this? So I think all communication should be around community building because I think that it should be with a very deep understanding of who you are communicating with. And I think that we do that in our everyday lives.

(16:09):

I'm going to communicate with my friend differently than I'm going to communicate with my boss. And so when you are communicating with customers or with users, that needs to come first is who they are, what they care about, what drives them. So that's really a lot of my job is not just like I talk with the product and talk about what people want next, what they care about, their struggles, their pain points, but then I'm also talking in marketing about how do we actually address them and what really speaks to them. For example, this is just a very small example, but there was a copy that I saw the other day that was the best kept secrets that creators don't want you to know, but anyone who's a creator, this, we all are really sharing with each other. You'll be like, Hey, I love you setup. And somebody will be like, let me ship my mic to you. It's really uber sharing. So this idea of the best kept secrets that doesn't connect with the people that are doing it, no one's keeping secrets. It's like the least gatekeeper kind of community that I've ever been a part of. So that's just an example of how communication and community

Doug Downs (17:17):

Intersect. I think one of the best lines I heard, and it pertained to podcasting, but I think it could speak to social media, YouTube, even a newsletter, is don't build an audience, build a community. And that's awesome. That's quotable soundbite clip to clicks. But is there an evolution to that? Do you first tend to build an audience and then evolve that into a community? Do you agree with that? And give me just high level, how do you do it? You've touched on it. I know.

Kendall Breitman (17:48):

Yeah. So I would say the difference in my eyes between audience and community is the directions. So I think an audience is like they're sitting in the seats and they're listening to you on the stage about what you're doing. I think a community is an open room of people and they're talking to each other, and maybe you as the company or the organizer, you're the person who's hosting that party. You created that room, but you're not on the stage. You're listening and speaking with people. So I think that's the difference between audience and community. And how you do that is when you think of that metaphor, it's having conversations back and forth. It's announcing this feature.

(18:32):

Great. I would love a community member saying, I would love if I could do this, that, and this. Great. Let me take that with my team. Going back and saying, we even at Riverside will in the community, we'll collect people asking for different features, and when I announce that they're available, I'll tag those people so they know that they've helped us create something together and that we actually care about what they have to say. Or with webinars, we'll put out a webinar. Some of people will say, I love this webinar. I had a great time attending. I took a lot away. Great. What do you want to learn about next? What's your goal? Let's make something that can actually help you get there. So that's community, that's not audience.

Doug Downs (19:14):

I've noticed that if you ever attend a Riverside webinar and do, they're free the chat. You openly encourage discussion in the chat, and I'm one of these old people who I feel like shut up. I'm trying to listen to Steven is saying something, and Kendall, but you can close the chat, but sometimes you get killer ideas in the chat itself too. So I know you walk and talk that as well, but this circles back to this original concept of recording my CEO or my executive VP or the leader of a specific project and putting that out on social media or on YouTube or publicly in any form. Couple of weaknesses there is that not just broadcasting. And secondly, that puts me in that wonderful position of controlling the message, which as a corporation, I love being public and open and authentic, but controlling that message. At the same time. We live in the age of authenticity, and more importantly, the perception of authenticity are those two weaknesses that perhaps need to grow in this approach to recording our CEOs and putting them out publicly like

Kendall Breitman (20:30):

That. So are you saying the weaknesses are that you're not being authentic? Tell me more about what you mean here.

Doug Downs (20:35):

You could be perceived as not being authentic. If I've recorded my CEO, my CEO has looked at it, we've made the necessary cuts. Maybe we've used ai, which you can do in Riverside to change where my CEO said blue so that my CEO says red. You can do that audibly and visually. Riverside's just one example of that using ai, I've still controlled that message and put it out there in the hopes that it's perceived to be authentic. Eventually, people are smart exactly in the long run, and they catch on to that in the short run. I don't know that they are, but in the long run, people are very, very smart.

Kendall Breitman (21:13):

That's why I'd say that it doesn't have to be your CEO. This is why I think that if the person that you're going to put out there is not being authentic, then that shouldn't be out there. You can have a message that you have as a company and have somebody that knows how to authentically present that message and talk about it. Steven and I during our webinars, will riff off of each other and laugh about different things, but we know the features that we want to highlight. So it's still done in an authentic way. I know that I want to highlight different features that we released this month, but authentically, I'm going to tell you exactly how I do it. So I think that it needs to be done well. You can't just have your CEO buttoned up being like, hello, this is where our roadmap is.

(22:00):

Take a moment. What I recommend doing is, that's why I don't think that having somebody sit in the chair and press record, take a meeting that you're already doing and with somebody that they feel comfortable with and just have that conversation. And maybe not all of it is fit for print, but maybe there are just some moments where they went a little bit off the cuff, and that could be great to show people. So yeah, I would say nobody wants scripted authenticity. That's just not going to fly. So you have to just do it in a way that actually feels authentic to your brand and the person presenting it. For sure.

Doug Downs (22:38):

Love it. Kendall, we really appreciate your time today.

Kendall Breitman (22:41):

Yeah, thank you for having me. This was a great conversation.

Doug Downs (22:43):

Hey, in our previous episode, our guest, Jim Rudolph of JGR Communications, he left a question behind for you.

Jim Rudolph (22:51):

The question I have is, what is your killer AI app and is it still chat GPT?

Kendall Breitman (22:58):

Well, I'm going to take this and say that my killer AI app is Riverside. So yeah, I had to

Doug Downs (23:06):

It's a good question placed. Yeah.

Kendall Breitman (23:08):

Yeah. So with Riverside, you get your AI transcript, you get show notes, you can cut scenes. There are just a bunch of different AI tools that we're putting in there. But the reason I'm saying this is because when you put AI in Creation tools,

(23:25):

Think that it's really important that I still want full control over what I'm creating. So what I really like about what we're doing is that it'll give you suggestions, but it's on you that you can change whatever we do. If we remove the silence using an AI tool, you could bring it back. Like all of it is meant to help you, and if you don't like it, you can change it. So that's important to me.

Doug Downs (23:46):

I completely agree. And as I said at the top of the episode, Riverside is the tool we use for every single one of our clients, and it's because I get the best results. And I have tried Streamy Yard, I have tried Squad Cast, I haven't tried Zencastr, but I've poked around at it.

Kendall Breitman (24:04):

You don't need to. You're here.

Doug Downs (24:06):

Well, it does circle. I'm always open. I'm always looking, ah, Doug, this is not a paid ad spot. This is genuinely me advocating for Riverside based on my experience, because that is what has worked for us. So your turn, Kendall, what question would you like to leave behind for our next guest?

Kendall Breitman (24:27):

Okay. What industry trend do you want to leave in 2024? It's over. Go on to the next thing.

Doug Downs (24:36):

I'll share mine. There's a tendency to want to edit out ums and ahs, whether it's in video or in audio. And the reason there is fluency in conversation. And yes, you have to fix fluency in conversation, but the reason I like ums and ahs, verbal fillers, so it's because just as you said a couple minutes ago, it's about being your real self, your authentic self, and there is actually science backing that the receiver of your message is more warm to your message if they don't feel something has been edited out, if they feel that's really you. With the ums and ahs, I obviously use lots. So did Barack Obama, and he was credited with being a pretty good speaker. So that's mine. Yeah.

Kendall Breitman (25:22):

Oh, I completely, that's a good one. Oh, that's a good one.

Doug Downs (25:26):

Thank you again for your time. This was fun, and it's great to have a one-to-one chat with you. I hope we get to do this again.

Kendall Breitman (25:34):

Yeah, I would love to. Thank you for having me on. This has been really great.

Doug Downs (25:39):

All right. So here are the top three things I got from Kendall Bryman in this episode. Number one, repurposing internal conversations for public engagement. Companies are increasingly recording internal meetings with executives to create shareable content for social media, making leadership insights more accessible and authentic. Number two, the shift toward personal branding over corporate logos. Consumers are gravitating toward real people over faceless brands, pushing companies to showcase executives and key employees as the relatable faces of their organizations. And number three, audience versus community. Fostering two-way conversations. The best brands aren't just broadcasting messages. They're engaged in discussions making their audience feel involved, valued, and integral to the company's direction. If you'd like to send a message to my guest, Kendall Breitman, we have her contact information in the show notes, stories and strategies as a co-production of JGR Communications and Stories and Strategies podcasts. Check out our YouTube channel, full episodes on YouTube. Thank you to our producer Emily Page. And lastly, do us a favor forward this episode to one friend. Thanks for listening.