The stories we tell in moments of crisis

A story that’s not relevant to the audience might as well not be told.

Building relevance is finding where a story belongs in the moment it is released, and whether it respects the emotional weather its audience is currently living through. When a major event shifts the collective mindset, we often reshape stories to meet it. Stories do not exist in isolation; they exist inside time, place, and shared experience. When the ground moves, socially, politically, and environmentally, stories that ignore that movement risk feeling hollow, performative, or worse, indifferent.

When Sri Lanka was shaken up by the disaster of Cyclone Ditwah, several stories being produced in our studio for the island's audiences were paused and carefully reconsidered to assess whether they were appropriate, necessary, and true to the moment.

In situations like this, we talk to our clients to understand their genuine responses to the ongoing situation, and refer back to the values of their brand articulation framework before reshaping stories to be relevant, sensitive and respectful to what’s happening in the daily lives of their audience. This process is about maintaining honesty and sensitivity in stories, and the willingness to sit with uncertainty rather than rush to fill silence.

For some businesses, the stories were a direct channel to support relief efforts and offer solidarity. Our role as story makers was to extract their genuine sentiments and efforts and bring them into story formats that matched their most successful communication platforms; seen in this example is one such story made to call for relief support through Instagram. It channelled Black Cat's Caregiver and Lover archetypal persona.

In the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka, we reshaped or completely restructured planned stories to imbue sensitivity, relief efforts and helpful insight into the stories of client businesses; to give shape to their grief, empathy, and solidarity through stories, while staying true to their voice and values. This didn’t mean turning every story into commentary or every business into a spokesperson. Stories can acknowledge loss without exploiting it. They can offer support without centering themselves. They can point toward relief, resources, or collective care without pretending to be heroes. Stories should be genuine acts of participation rather than declarations.

Often, this means slowing down production, stripping stories back to their core intention, and asking what role, if any, they should play right now. Sometimes the answer is to offer support, relief, or insight. Sometimes it is to step aside altogether. And yes, this process costs us extra in production time, but we’d rather do more for better stories than maintain strict build cycles for so-so outcomes.

In some cases, it was about offering insight; in Rithihi's case, being a brand with a dominant Sage archetype, offering insight into the culture of giving was a genuine response that stemmed from the business itself. We only create the longform stories for the Rithihi blog, while their in-house team handles the blog formatting and what's published on social media. But, we always offer capsule versions of the longform stories designed by us, to point their audience to the blog; like this one.

Being able to express, connect, and mobilize is important for entrepreneurs and businesses in moments of collective crisis. Not because businesses must suddenly become moral authorities, but because they are part of the social fabric. They employ people, serve communities, and operate within shared systems that are also affected by disruption. This is because the work they do always starts as a response to the society and the world they inhabit. No business is created in a vacuum. Products, services, and ideas emerge from specific needs, tensions, and cultural conditions. When those conditions change, responding thoughtfully is not a deviation from the work; it’s a continuation of it.

That’s what makes responding to the realities of our world an extension of the work of a business; it’s not CSR, it’s not charity, nor is it being exceptional. It is simply being alive and responsive to the world a business shares with its audience. Responsiveness is not about virtue-signalling; it is about relevance, respect, and responsibility.

Stories that a business tells are a big part of these living, real, and relevant conversations that it has with its audience. Stories are where values become visible, where intent is tested against reality, and where trust is either strengthened or eroded.

The Garden of the Gods; a Sri Lankan folk tale that transcends myth

The Horton Plains, when the Garden of the Gods appears once in twelve years.

They say twelve years is a single day in the realm of gods. In a Sri Lankan folk tale, when a young celestial being fell in love with an earthly woman, this strange time-dilation became the premise of his heartbreak. In this story, we share the folktale The Garden of the Gods and how it entwines with reality in a natural phenomenon that takes place every twelve years.

In the highlands of the island, there was a village girl of great beauty. Every few days, she went into the forest to gather firewood. Her elders said to her, “Do not tarry; the forest is not a place to linger; return quickly, that you may assist your sister.” 

But the girl loved the forest. She gazed long upon the trees, and she wandered about seeking flowers.

At that time, a young god came down to the Earth. When the god beheld the maiden, he desired to draw near to her. Seeing that she was pleased at the sight of wild flowers, the god thought, “By flowers shall I keep her here for a long time.”

Then the god took the heavenly blossoms from the garland that he wore, and scattered them upon the hills and plains. Straightaway, those heavenly flowers spread out upon the earth, covering it in colours brighter than any flowers of this world. The green of the highland forest became a garden of the gods.

When the maiden came to gather wood, she saw the countless flowers, and her heart was filled with wonder. She forgot her household tasks and wandered long in the garden of the gods. 

Then the god took the form of a young man, fair to see, and he drew near to her. He spoke kindly, and she was pleased. At parting, he said, “I will return on the morrow. In this garden, we shall meet again.” 

But one day among the gods is twelve years on earth. Thus, though the maiden waited through days and through months, the god did not appear. At length she thought, “That day in the heavenly garden was but a dream,” and she gave it no more heed.

Yet the god was true to his word. On the morrow of the gods, after twelve earthly years, he came again to the highlands. The garden of the gods sprang forth upon the hills and the plains, in colours and in beauty without measure.

To this day, every twelfth year, the hills are clothed in blossoms, and the divine garden reappears on earth. There the young god waits, ever hopeful, for his earthly love.

Thus it is said: the garden of the gods still appears and vanishes, not to be possessed by human nor deity. To desire beauty is human, even divine. But to seek to possess it is folly.

Folk tales are often dismissed as stories unworthy of documentation. They rarely entered libraries until anthropologists, scholars, and revered intellectuals like Carl Jung began to expose their depth as tales springing from universal symbols common to humankind and the reservoirs of our collective unconscious. This story, The Garden of the Gods, not only draws from that shared well of wisdom, but it also entwines with a vivid natural phenomenon that takes place with uncanny resemblance to the folk tale. 

This happens in Sri Lanka’s world heritage site, Horton Plains, in the central highlands, where the tale is said to originate. Here, every twelve years, Strobilanthes species erupt in a synchronized mass flowering that transforms the highlands into a spectacle still described by locals as ‘the garden of the gods.’ As many as 33 Strobilanthes species take part, with at least 30 endemic, some critically endangered.

Strobilanthes kunthiana is one of the endangered species that takes part in the synchronized flowering. The mass flowering gives the Strobilanthes species a better chance at pollinating and surviving predators.

Folk tales usually spring up as unremarkably as wildflowers and disappear without getting recorded. They were transmitted by grandparents charged with containing restless children through stories, so that afternoons in households could remain sane. Sometimes those children retold the tales when they grew older, but most slipped quietly out of memory, especially as oral traditions changed. Rarely were they written down, unless an anthropologist or occasional story-keeper stumbled upon one too remarkable to let vanish; too wondrous to be forgotten.

This folk tale sparked lifelong wonder in those who first heard the story as children, only to later see it come true across the Horton Plains: myth confirmed by nature, wonder given form. For those alive when botanists explained the twelve-year flowering cycle of Strobilanthes in the 20th century, the awe deepened further with science and story converging. The tale will stir still more wonder for future generations who may never see all 33 species bloom again across Sri Lanka’s highlands, as many now hover on the edge of extinction.

Stories are timeless vessels of wonder. They are not escapes from reality but frames through which reality reveals itself. The Garden of the Gods is one such frame. It's a folk tale that carries—through myth, ecology, loss, and longing—the truth that beauty cannot be possessed. This is how stories distill truth into forms that are more accessible, memorable, and enduring. 

Stories, not content; because the world doesn’t need more obscene digital landfill

Why we refuse to degrade our stories to ‘content’ and how good stories are the antidote to this epidemic of meaninglessness

Every time we get a commission inquiry for ‘content creation,’ I have to swallow the nauseating feeling before patiently explaining why we don’t do that. Because what they probably mean by ‘content’ is, in fact, much more than that.

Let’s be clear—content wasn’t always this despicable. The term emerged innocently enough during the early days of the internet, used to describe anything published online: text, images, videos. But as digital spaces evolved, and businesses began hiring marketers to fill endless feeds, the word ‘content’ became a catchall. Its meaning flattened. And with that flattening, came a normalisation of meaninglessness.

‘Content’ now refers to the endless digital detritus churned out to satisfy algorithms, not audiences. It’s a word that makes no distinction between a lazy meme, a heartfelt documentary, a research-based article, or an empty carousel of brand clichés. ‘Content’ strips intention from information. It assumes that everything we put online is just there to fill space.

And that is obscene.

Because silence is not a gap to be filled. It’s a necessary part of life. Infants find solace in it. Animals retreat into it. The idea that businesses must constantly post for the sake of filling the silence—adding to the noise of the world—is a symptom of our deeper discomfort with stillness.

And it’s not harmless. Everything we post has an ecological cost. Yes, your post about the cupcake you ate does cost the planet. This is the reality of our digital excess. It’s not just overwhelming. It’s wasteful.

The antidote to this is not more content; it’s meaningful stories.

A story is not something made to fill a calendar. A story has reason to be. Stories deliver new insight, a sensory experience, transformation, discovery, amusement, inspiration, leadership, compassion, caring, understanding, empathy, or to liberate the audience or solve a problem for them. A story engages your intellect and emotions, and we don’t mean this through the terminology of engaging equalling commenting, liking, or sharing on social media. To engage is to think about and allow space in your mind, regardless of whether you hit that like button. A story considers its audience, their state of mind, their mental space, their world and its current situation.

The term ‘content’ became more mainstream as businesses cut budgets and turned to marketers to produce creative work. But that’s also when the trouble started. As social media platforms pushed more advertising space into our lives, the volume of content exploded. The result was what some called “content shock”—a tipping point when there was simply too much stuff and too little attention.

Many who weren’t truly equipped for the creative work of story-making still stepped into these hybrid creator-marketer roles, underestimating just how much it takes. It seemed easy—just post something, anything. And so, meaningless filler became the norm. But authentic story-making isn’t easy. It demands craft, insight, originality, and emotional intelligence.

Marketing and story-making are never the same thing; too often, they require two very different kinds of thinking and creativity. That’s why we don’t substitute our work for a marketer’s—or vice versa. We always partner with exceptional marketers and don’t pretend to be them. And when clients come to us without in-house marketing, we collaborate with experts from our carefully chosen circle of affiliates. Because meaningful connection doesn’t come from either side pretending to be both.

And now, as audiences begin to retreat from the noisy public squares of social media—into private, quiet, curated digital spaces like DMs and group chats—there’s, hopefully, less room for meaningless noise. People are becoming extremely intentional about what they give their attention to. We think that’s a good thing because it’s an obvious preference for stories over ‘content’. 

So, no. We don’t do content. We do better than that. We do stories—good stories that exist for a reason other than the inability to sit with silence.