Narrative Marketing Initiative
Share your impact. Tell your story.
Business & Arts NL is proud to launch our Narrative Marketing Initiative, a year-long program designed to help artists and arts organizations confidently communicate the value of their work.
Marketing can feel intimidating, but artists are already natural storytellers. This initiative builds on that strength, combining authentic storytelling with the tools and strategies needed to share impact and connect with audiences, funders, and communities in powerful ways.
Initiative de Marketing Narratif
Partagez votre impact. Faites vivre votre histoire.
Business & Arts NL est heureux de présenter son initiative de marketing narratif, un programme d’une durée d’un an destiné à accompagner les artistes et les organisations artistiques dans l’art de communiquer, avec clarté et confiance, la valeur de leur travail.
Le marketing peut sembler complexe, mais les artistes sont avant tout des raconteurs et raconteuses naturels. Cette initiative s’appuie sur cette force, en alliant authenticité du récit et stratégies concrètes de communication, afin de vous donner les outils nécessaires pour mettre en lumière votre impact, renforcer vos liens avec le public, susciter l’intérêt des bailleurs et bailleuses de fonds et approfondir votre ancrage dans la communauté.
The Narrative Marketing Initiative unfolds across a full year:
Launch Event
Kick things off with a keynote panel discussion, networking opportunities, and a group activity to spark ideas and connections.
Workshops
A series of hands-on workshops will provide practical tools and strategies for weaving narrative and impact into your communications.
Narrative Marketing at the Grassroots Level
How Narratives Drive Governance
Building Narrative into the Heart of Marketing Strategy
Storytelling for Fundraising
Access to Creative Professionals
Arts Organizations will have the opportunity to work with copywriters, graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, and videographers, giving you access to expertise that helps bring your story to life.
Why Narrative Marketing?
Data and metrics matter, but numbers alone don’t inspire. When paired with storytelling, they reveal the real impact of the arts, how they transform lives, strengthen communities, and drive creativity and innovation.
This initiative will help you:
Tell your story with confidence
Connect metrics to meaning
Engage audiences and supporters authentically
Strengthen your case for funding, partnerships, and visibility
Pourquoi le marketing narratif?
Les données et les mesures sont importantes, mais elles ne suffisent pas à inspirer. Associées au pouvoir de la narration, elles révèlent le véritable impact des arts : leur capacité à transformer des vies, à renforcer les communautés et à stimuler la créativité et l’innovation.
Cette initiative vous aidera à :
Raconter votre histoire avec confiance
Relier les données au sens
Engager vos publics et vos partenaires de façon authentique
Renforcer vos dossier de subvention en faveur du financement, des partenariats et de la visibilité
Kickoff Forum: Narrative Marketing Live Event
Date: October 9, 2025
Location: Alt Hotel, St. John’s
Time: 9:00AM-12:00PM
Join us for a half-day forum designed to ignite your narrative thinking and strengthen your storytelling skills.
This live event will feature a keynote from Dave Sullivan and a panel discussion with leading arts voices including Jenn Brown, Ife Alaba and Christine Hennebury. Together, we’ll explore how storytelling can shape culture, build community, and move organizations forward.
Participants will leave with actionable takeaways they can apply right away in their organizations or personal practice.
Travel funding is available for this event. Email lynn@businessandartsnl.com for more information.
Key Themes:
What is narrative marketing?
How to cut through the noise and gain stakeholder support
Using the tools you have to tell better stories
Storytelling as a strategy for engagement, decision-making, and fundraising
Ife Alaba
Director of Occupy All Spaces and Multi-faceted Creative
Ife Alaba, a dynamic professional in the entertainment and film industry, currently resides in St. Johns. With a multicultural background being born in Nigeria and growing up in South Africa, Ife has made significant contributions to productions, specializing in background casting for both local and network shows. Her discerning eye for talent, evident both on and off-camera, has crafted authentic and inclusive portrayals in storytelling.
In addition to her independent film work, Ife serves as a journalist for CBC NL. Her role involves not only providing insightful coverage but also contributing to the rich narrative of CBC NL. As the Director of the Occupy All Spaces, Ife passionately advocates for equal opportunities for black creatives in Newfoundland & Labrador. She is also on the board of WIFT-AT, where she is one of two that represents Newfoundland and Labrador.
She is an 8-time Music NL nominee, Ife's versatile talents extend to the music scene, showcasing her diverse artistic contributions.
Jenn Brown
Executive Director, St. John's International Women's Film Festival
Jenn Brown is a respected leader in the arts with 20 years of experience driving sustainable growth in the not-for-profit cultural sector. In 2025, Atlantic Business Magazine recognized her as one of Atlantic Canada’s 25 Most Powerful Women in Business. In 2024, Jenn was nationally recognized by Business / Arts as one of 25 leaders shaping Canada’s next wave of artistic development, and honoured with the Circle of Distinction – Equity at Work Award by YWCA St. John’s. As Executive Director of Canada’s longest- running women’s film festival, she has played a pivotal role in transforming it into a thriving platform for underrepresented voices. Under her leadership, the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival has received the inaugural Premier’s Medal for the Arts, the Boundary Pusher Award from the St. John’s Board of Trade, and was named by USA Today as one of the top ten film festivals worth traveling to.
Christine Hennebury
Storyteller, Creativity Coach and Consultant
Christine Hennebury is a multi-disciplinary artist who likes to play with words and ideas and to inspire others to do the same. In her 30 years of experience as a storyteller, writer, creativity coach, and workshop leader, she has guided hundreds of individuals in a myriad of fields to explore innovative ways to develop new ideas and to energize their work.
Through her workshops, presentations, coaching, and consultations, Christine has created a variety of methods to prompt idea generation, exploration thinking, and connection-building to engage preschoolers, teenagers, business leaders, and senior citizens - and everyone in between.
Christine is the founder and chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl, the past president of Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada, and the past president of the St. John’s Storytelling Festival. In 2020, she was the proud recipient of the City of Mount Pearl’s Impact in Music, Arts, and Culture Award.
Dave Sullivan is a marketing specialist/writer from St. John’s, NL. Sullivan has been working inadvertising/marketing for over 15 years and — among other roles — has served as Associate Creative Director of Arrivals + Departures in Halifax, NS, as well as Creative Group Head at Target Marketing and Communications here in St. John’s. Sullivan’s creative work has been featured in publications such as Applied Arts Magazine, Lürzer’s Archive, as well as Communication Arts – and has been the recipient of dozens of advertising awards both nationally and internationally.
Most recently, Sullivan paired up with Mary Walsh to co-create, write, and star in the comedy series The Missus Downstairs which recently aired its fourth and final season on Bell FibeTV.
Currently he works as a Marketing Specialist at Nasdaq.
