Narrative Intelligence for Tangible Brand Insights
Use Case guide contents
How strategists are using Narratives AI to quantify culture, decode public opinion, and make better brand decisions.
Culture is fast, fragmented and increasingly driven by the stories people tell, about themselves, about brands, and about the world around them. For strategists, the challenge isn’t spotting a trend. It’s understanding the narratives underpinning it: the beliefs, tensions and motivations that make a trend resonate in the first place.
In our recent installment of our Narratives Intelligence webinar series, brand strategist Safaniya Stevenson joined Pulsar co-founder Francesco D’Orazio to explore how Narrative Intelligence is transforming brand strategy in real time.
This is where Narrative Intelligence comes in. Powered by Pulsar’s Narratives AI, the first search engine for public opinion, Narrative Intelligence turns swirling online "vibes" into structured insights you can act on. Instead of relying on hunches or sentiment charts, strategists can see why people feel the way they do, how stories evolve over time, and where brand opportunities sit within those shifts.
Below, we explore how narrative intelligence is reshaping brand strategy—and why it’s quickly becoming a core capability for research, planning and insight teams.
From vibes to verified cultural insight
For years, brand strategists have operated on intuition. You sense a mood. You spot a micro-trend. You feel a shift. But until now, "vibes" were difficult to quantify. Safaniya Stevenson, brand strategist and Narratives AI user, captures the challenge:
"A huge part of my job is bottling a vibe… but before now, it was almost impossible to do research around a vibe."
Narratives AI changes this by analysing the full public conversation—news, social, broadcast, forums—to surface the stories shaping that vibe.
Instead of a flat positive-negative-neutral sentiment chart, strategists get:
- The narratives driving each sentiment cluster
- The audiences shaping the conversation
- The context, motivations and tensions behind each theme
This transforms the job from decoding feelings to decoding stories—and makes it possible to validate instinct with data.
Mapping culture as it actually moves
Traditional social listening looks for keywords within a predefined dataset. Useful—but narrow.
Narratives AI flips the model: it starts with the entire cultural conversation, then uses AI to detect every narrative travelling through it. Francesco describes the shift:
"We realised we couldn’t detect stories within a bubble. Narratives let us see all the emerging stories and connect them—even the ones you didn’t think existed."
Where social listening shows noise, narrative intelligence shows:
- How topics cluster and evolve
- Where narratives originate and how they spread
- Which storylines are gaining or losing traction
- Which unexpected ideas are shaping your category
It turns culture from a blur into something you can map, measure and forecast.
What narrative intelligence looks like in practice
Narratives AI is already uncovering insights brands wouldn’t find through traditional research alone. A few examples:
Matcha and the rise of soft clubbing
A simple query about matcha led to the discovery of "matcha raves"—alcohol-free wellness events rooted in Gen Z’s desire for community, ritual, and gentler nightlife.
Narratives AI surfaced:
- Overconsumption concerns around ceremonial-grade matcha
- Cultural sensitivity debates in East Asian communities
- The shift from "health drink" to "identity marker"
For a beverage brand, this isn’t just trend insight—it’s product, positioning, and comms direction.
Tomato Girl Summer and the pace of aesthetic churn
Narratives AI traced the aesthetic’s genealogy from cottagecore to victory-garden nostalgia, revealing:
- Seasonal spikes and rapid decline
- Overlaps with clean-girl discourse, homemaking trends, and Mediterranean lifestyle fantasies
- The narrative’s short lifespan—critical for reactive creative teams
This helps brands understand where they should act fast—and where they shouldn’t act at all.
Fortnite’s true value: community, not gameplay
While sentiment charts would suggest "people enjoy playing Fortnite," narrative intelligence uncovered that the real driver of positivity is:
- Identity-building through skins and emotes
- Cross-generational social connection
- Inclusion narratives tied to diverse character design
These insights shape product decisions, partnership strategies, and brand storytelling.
Across all categories, the pattern is clear: narrative intelligence surfaces the why, not just the what.
Narrative Intelligence + Social Listening: a combined framework
A recurring question: Does narrative intelligence replace social listening? Short answer: no. They’re designed to work together.
Narrative Intelligence is for:
- Mapping the cultural landscape
- Understanding long-arc, slow-burn shifts
- Identifying the themes shaping public opinion
- Developing hypotheses and strategic direction
Social Listening is for:
- Tracking real-time conversation
- Spotting fast-moving micro-trends
- Monitoring campaign performance
- Validating hypotheses at audience level
Safaniya summarises it well:
"Narratives answers what you can’t do with listening, and listening adds value to what you discover with Narratives."
Together, they provide both breadth (cultural context) and depth (granular audience behaviour).
Why narrative intelligence is becoming essential for brands
Today, stories drive behaviour more powerfully than ever. Whether it’s an aesthetic, a product, a news event, or a social movement, every trend is powered by the narratives circulating around it.
Brands adopting narrative intelligence gain:
| Cultural clarity | They can see the full spectrum of stories shaping their category—helping them avoid blind spots and missteps. |
| Strategic foresight | Narratives evolve before the numbers spike. This gives teams time to prepare, position and respond. |
| Sharper differentiation | If culture is crowded, narrative intelligence reveals the white space. |
| Tangible, defensible insight | It moves conversations with leadership and clients from: "People are vibing with this" → to → "Here are the narratives, tensions and audience motivations driving this behaviour." |
Narrative intelligence is an operational shift in how brands understand the world—and their place within it.
Key takeaways: turning cultural complexity into actionable strategy in 2026
Narrative Intelligence bridges intuition and insight. It quantifies culture without flattening it, transforming what once felt intangible into structured, evidence-based understanding. By surfacing the narratives, tensions and motivations that sit beneath surface-level trends, it gives strategists a fuller, more honest picture of what public opinion really looks like today.
For brands competing in an environment where attention moves quickly and stories drive value, this becomes the foundation of more resilient, resonant brand strategy. It enables teams to forecast shifts earlier, position more confidently, avoid cultural pitfalls, and build messaging that aligns with how audiences actually see the world—not how brands hope they do.
Narrative Intelligence equips organisations with the ability to:
- Decode complexity into a set of clear, trackable narratives.
- Spot emerging cultural currents before they hit mainstream consciousness.
- Align brand actions with audience values, rather than just audience behaviour.
- Create more compelling creative work, informed by context, not guesswork.
- Strengthen strategic rigour, by grounding big decisions in cultural truth.
As culture becomes more fragmented, fluid and politicised, seeing the full picture—rather than a partial one—is becoming mission-critical. Narrative Intelligence offers that clarity.
Interested in learning more?
Watch our webinar Narrative Intelligence: Turning Vibes into Insights with Safaniya Stephenson below.
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