This is a Neo-Narrative.

Humans are hard-wired for stories. But in an era of over-communication the stories that surround us don’t always come through anymore. It takes new phenomena of telling to break the surrogate patterns for brands to be able to connect with future audiences. Brands have to face radical new realities and shape their identities in multipolar manors. Spontaneously forming, virtuoso forms of articulation, and iterative narrations can take on this task. This is a Neo-Narrative.

The concept of Neo-Narrative makes brands strong enough to face the challenges of an era of transformation, uncertainty and fragmentation, and makes them resilient enough for companies to undertake projects in this context. The concept of neo-narrative establishes the foundations of the brand, but makes it far more flexible and versatile than before. Brand statements become more distinctive when they are flexible in their respective contexts, target groups, situations or forms of articulation. Brand statements become relevant when they can be varied in such a way that they build a genuine dramaturgy without being merely self-referential.

The book is a journey to understand the power of narratives and compiles observations of how narratives can be shaped to build brands for the next decades. It aims to understand the dynamics that brands have been experiencing in recent years and will soon have to experience, and outlines concepts for how brands can successfully navigate new – and above all inconsistent – contexts.

It is the foundation work for a new way of branded narrative creation.

The first part of the exposition is devoted to this: How do brands work today and how have they used narratives so far? What are the weaknesses of these concepts, some of which are up to 70 years old? And what comes next? In the second part, we talk to influential brand makers and creator of our time and ask them about their transformative brand developments and the adjustments they have made in view of the new era. How neo-narratives sublimate new realities and brands change radically. The third part then deals with the new concepts that can be derived from this. Practical insights are to be gained from the theoretical understanding of neo-narratives, which we can use together in our brand work.

The book covers a wide range of topics, linking ideas from forward-looking brand articulations and weaving them into a new concept that invites brands to continuously change in order to meet the needs of a society that is constantly on the move. Independent of specific trends, but embedded in meta-trends that are the hallmarks of a new era.

In short: not a textbook, not a management guide, but food for thought for a new force in brand design. First-hand.

german version: 264 p. ISBN 978-3-89986-439-7 — release 15^th Oct. 2025
english version: xxx p. ISBN 978-3-00-082900-0 — release 15^th Nov. 2025

Buy the book here:

Wolf-Eike Galle is a creative strategist and cultural scientist specialising in language and communication, history and information. As a creative director, he has been supporting international and national brands and institutions in communication and transformation processes since 2006. His clients include General Motors, BMW, Toyota, Deutsche Telekom, Bayer/Monsanto and many more. Wolf-Eike Galle, born in 1983, lives and works in Hamburg.

For inquieries please contact:

Get in Touch