Narrative Audit
Where your messaging holds, where it drifts, and what to do about it. A diagnostic of your current narrative against our framework.
Scoped · Timed · Priced before it begins
What it is
Messaging drifts. Even strong campaigns accumulate language that no longer serves the goal, especially after leadership changes or strategy resets. A Narrative Audit takes your current core story, campaign line, message pillars, and tone, and runs them against our Narrative Framework. Everything that holds gets kept. Everything that drifts gets flagged with specific recommendations. You walk away with a Narrative Audit Report and a Recommendations Register.
Best suited for
Established campaigns with visible message sprawl. Teams inheriting legacy messaging from a previous strategy. Anyone preparing a relaunch after a leadership change and wanting to know what to keep.
Process
How the engagement runs, step by step.
2 weeks. Gated. Each step signs off before the next begins.
- 01
Intake
A working session with your decision-maker to surface the current situation, context, and constraints.
- 02
Diagnostic
We apply the relevant framework to the material you share and identify what holds and what must change.
- 03
Drafting
We draft the deliverables and review them with you in a single iteration cycle.
- 04
Sign-off
A locked, signed artefact is handed over. Gated before the next phase, or ready to stand alone.
What you get
Signed artefacts, handed over at the end.
- 01Narrative Audit Report
- 02Recommendations Register
Framework applied
The InStone toolkit running under the engagement.
We publish the framework names. The internal mechanics stay with us. That is what you are commissioning.
01
Narrative Framework
Pricing
From £7,500
Locked in writing before the engagement begins. No uplifts mid-engagement without explicit scope change.
What drives the price
- Up to 24 months of messaging material (standard)
- Extended look-back window (additional fee per added 12 months)
- Multi-language audit (additional fee per language)
Common questions
Everything your campaign currently says about itself, publicly and internally. Press releases, speeches, website copy, deck messaging, internal briefings. Anything that carries the campaign's position.
Not as part of the Audit. The output is a report with recommendations. If you need the replacements written, commission a Campaign Foundations or Full Strategy where the narrative rebuild is the core deliverable.
We typically focus on the last 12 to 24 months. Older material is noted but weighted lower. Extended look-back is available with an additional fee per added 12 months.
We say so, clearly. A hard audit is worth more than a polite one. You then decide whether to commission the rebuild as a Campaign Foundations or continue with the recommendations internally.
Yes. One of the most common uses. It produces a clean diagnostic of what to keep, what to retire, and what to rewrite, so the rebrand works from a strategic baseline rather than a creative guess.
Start with a brief
Send a written brief.
Tell us about the situation, the audience, and what part isn’t working. We respond in writing within two working days with a fit confirmation, a locked price, and a timeline. The call comes after. To sign, not to discover.
Related engagements
Often commissioned alongside Narrative Audit.
Visual Direction Review
Does the visual identity match the strategic intent? A diagnostic of where the visuals support the campaign and where they contradict it.
Campaign Foundations
Direction and Meaning locked. Your team can build everything else from here.