Inside Rival: How We Use What We Build
This blog is part of Inside Rival, a series where our team shares how we use Rival in our everyday work. From favorite tools to AI agents and automations, we're showing you what we're building, how we're using it and what we've learned along the way.
A communications strategist’s review of Rival’s Master Narrative Strategy Agent
Ask five leaders what makes their company different, and you may get five confident answers that barely sound like the same business.
This is why I start with a master narrative.
It captures a brand’s foundational story, articulating who it is, whom it serves, what makes it different, and the evidence behind those claims. It’s the editorial North Star I want in place before we debate homepage headlines, pitch reporters, or ask a creative team to “make it on brand.”
Without it, you can spend a lot of time improving individual pieces of marketing while the overall story gets less clear.
Building that foundation takes more than gut instinct or a good brainstorming session. You have to get past the rehearsed answers, and delve into: Why was this company needed? What does it understand about customers that competitors overlook? Does the experience it delivers live up to the story it tells?
That’s how you uncover meaningful differentiation and white space the brand can credibly own. An unclaimed position is only valuable if customers care and the business can deliver. The master narrative must prove out both.
It’s also the standard I bring to any narrative development tool. It must push the thinking far enough that the writing has something worth saying.
Enter the Master Narrative Strategy Agent on Rival.io.
Spoiler: I’m a fan!
Its structured discovery process asks deeper questions, examines themes, and checks whether the proof supports the story. I bring judgment and context. The agent gives me a disciplined way to keep digging.
Start with the Right Narrative
The agent earns points immediately by asking what kind of narrative we’re building. A brand needs to establish relevance and differentiation. A personal narrative needs to connect someone’s experience, perspective, and credibility. Reputation repair requires addressing what has undermined trust and demonstrating why people should reconsider.
These are different strategic assignments, and they deserve different questions.
For this walkthrough, I stepped into the role of “Jennifer”, the founder of Beauty Baby Hair Care, a fictional baby hair care brand. Apparently, being a new mom now informs even my demo projects.
The opening questions establish who we’re talking about, what we need to produce, and which questions or decisions the narrative needs to address. It’s the kind of brief I’d want before starting the work myself.
I appreciate that the agent pushes harder and ensures it’s clear on what the narrative needs to do. Pretty words on a page aren’t necessarily useful to the business.
Before we begin, the agent sets the stage in a smart way. Its job is to uncover the story already inside the business, not dream one up. It also sets the expectation that this will be a conversation, one section at a time, with specific, honest answers making the final narrative stronger.
The Narrative Journey
The process spans eight stages, from foundational questions and theme discovery, through proof validation, brand strategy, personality, and competitive positioning before bringing it all together. Each stage builds on and informs the next, much like how I’d lead a narrative workshop. You can see the story taking shape as the thinking gets sharper.
It’s a robust process, so I won’t walk through every stage here. But here’s an overview:
Throughout the process, the agent asks dozens of questions to get to the meaning behind the product and the business. It does a great job reflecting on my answers, picking up on details, and pushing me to go deeper. It’s the follow-up questions that often uncover the most useful thinking.
A few favorites:
Was there a specific moment, a frustration, a scene, a "there has to be a better way" moment, that led to starting the company? Walk me through that moment.
What change are you trying to create in the baby care aisle? What should be different about how parents shop for, and think about, their child's hair?
What would you never want Baby Beauty to become? What would feel like a betrayal of the reason you started?
What do you want a mom to feel when she picks up your bottle for the first time, and what do you want her to feel a year later, when it's part of their rhythm?
You've said "simple" a few times. What does simple actually mean for a busy mom? What does a good evening look like when the routine is working?
That last question is a good example of why the follow-up matters. “Simple” is easy to put in a brief. It’s also vague enough to mean almost anything.
The questioning helped give it substance: clear labels, fewer decisions, a routine that works on tired nights, and guidance about when a parent can skip a step or a product. The emerging theme became “everyday ease, fewer decisions, clear steps.” That gives a communications team much more to work with than another promise of simplicity.
This isn’t a ten-minute exercise, and it shouldn’t be. The value comes from taking the time to examine what the brand actually means.
A True Narrative Thought Partner
Below are some of the initial themes the agent drew from my answers.
I love that it doesn’t take everything I say as gospel. It flags where the story needs more support. A commitment to safety needs actual testing or evaluation details. The ambition to become “the brand one parent recommends to another” needs evidence of referrals or repeat purchases.
It also catches a messaging trap. Defining the brand through everything it won’t do can start to sound defensive. Those convictions need to become clear, positive commitments.
That’s the kind of scrutiny I want in this process. Before I put a claim into a brand narrative, I want to know whether the business can stand behind it and where we still have work to do.
So Much More to Uncover
Walking through the entire process would make this blog much longer than anyone signed up for. But that depth is exactly why I’m a fan.
The agent makes you work for the narrative. It guides you to examine your answers, challenge claims, and present evidence before moving forward. The result has a foundation beyond language that sounds good on first read.
You can feel a communicator’s judgment in the process. It has the instincts I’d expect from an experienced marketing lead.
For PR and communications professionals helping clients articulate their brand, value proposition, and reason for being, that’s the real value. The Master Narrative Strategy Agent brings a disciplined strategic approach to work that too often gets rushed into a copywriting exercise.
I want a story my client can stand behind when the questions get harder. This is a tool that helps me do that work.
About Me
I’m Isys, a communications strategist with 20 years of experience helping consumer, B2B, and technology brands define their stories and build and protect their reputations. I’ve worked at leading PR firms and digital agencies, crafting messaging and strategies to drive growth, navigate complex challenges, and help brands communicate with clarity and credibility.