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# We're all storytellers:  Why good taste beats AI-generated content
- URL: https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/storytelling-good-taste-beats-ai-content/
- Published: 2026-09-15T12:20:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T12:20:52.000Z
- Description: A lot of marketing talk gets diluted by the campaigns, tools, frameworks, and metrics we obsess over. All of it matters, but we overlook what sits underneath it: the storytelling.
- Author: Leon Markham
- Tags: Brand storytelling, AI & automation, Articles

A lot of [marketing](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/marketing-inside-out-put-your-team-first/) talk gets diluted by the [campaigns](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/campaign-planning-template-framework/), [tools](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/strategic-dexterity-tools-for-success-in-single-product-vs-multi-product-environments/), [frameworks](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-customer-retention/), and metrics we obsess over. All of it matters, but we overlook what sits underneath it: the [storytelling](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/how-storytelling-works-to-perfect-customer-marketing/). 

There's one ingredient that separates good storytelling from *great* storytelling now that [anyone can produce content at scale](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/the-main-barriers-to-creating-effective-content/), and that's what this article explores. 

## Why storytelling is the most human thing we do 

There's a concept called "[Dunbar number.](https://psychsafety.com/psychological-safety-82-dunbars-number-and-team-size/)" Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who studied primates, noticed a consistent ratio between brain size and social group size. 

When he extrapolated that ratio to humans, almost as a joke, he landed on around 150 people. Then researchers checked, and 150 turned out to be roughly the average number of close friends a person has. That number keeps showing up everywhere in human social life – the size of a congregation, a department inside an enterprise business. 

And the glue that holds those 150 people together? **Stories**. 

The ability to tell them, share them and pass them on is the most fundamentally human thing we do. We tell our children stories from the moment they're born. Every tech company trains new recruits on its origin story. The best scientists, product people, and CIOs are all great storytellers. 

It's a cliché to bring up Steve Jobs, but there's a reason his product launches still get watched.

When [he introduced the iPod in 2001](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc%5FFiHTITHE), he didn't describe the storage capacity or file formats – he said it's your whole CD collection in your pocket. Not fully accurate, but it's a story, and it resonates. It compresses an enormous amount of meaning into something a human can hold onto. 

*That's* what stories do. They take complex knowledge and transmit it through a low-bandwidth medium, human speech, in a way that can survive for generations.

[![Become a CMA Insider: Access exclusive content and templates for free.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/4c/164ccee2-1afe-418d-8b1c-b185533d0b88/content/images/2025/10/Insider--2-.jpg)](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/insider-membership-plan/)

## What a good customer story actually looks like

I want to share something my team did with BT, one of our long-standing customers at ServiceNow. 

There was a genuine concern internally that we were overusing them, that the partnership was starting to feel routine. So when we went back to them for another story, we made a deliberate choice to do something different: a film. 

The film didn’t look or feel like a standard [customer marketing video](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/harnessing-the-power-of-customer-videos/) – and that was intentional. What I'm most proud of isn't just the result; it's that everyone involved felt proud of it afterwards. 

The BT communications lead told me a senior executive mentioned his work positively in front of the CEO. That elevated the partnership rather than depleting it. The people in that film aren't the usual faces you see on stage at conferences. They're the backroom IT people, the enterprise architects – the ones who quietly get things done and rarely get a platform to talk about it. 

Our [storytelling](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/how-to-power-up-your-brand-storytelling-with-the-heros-journey/) gave them one, because those are often the people with the most interesting things to say. 

## The 3 elements of a great customer story 

I'm a bit of a nerd, so let me use Star Wars as a framework. If you think about what makes those original films work, there are three things. 

### 1\. Compelling characters 

This means heroes and antagonists – take out the villains and it's a much less interesting story. The same applies in [B2B marketing](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/executive-customer-engagement/): your customer story needs real people with real stakes, not a logo and a job title. 

### 2\. A clear story arc 

Joseph Campbell called it the hero's journey. Whatever framework you use, there needs to be a "from" and a "to" and a reason for the journey. Business transformation stories live or die on this. What was the situation before? What changed? Why did it matter? 

### 3\. Compelling detail 

George Lucas was obsessive about the texture of his world – the uniforms, the planets, the weapons, the bars. That level of care draws the audience in. In [B2B storytelling](https://www.columnfivemedia.com/7-examples-of-super-creative-brand-storytelling-for-very-boring-products/), the equivalent is choosing the right details: the right metrics, integration points, and moment of human truth that makes your audience feel understood. 

The mistake I see most often is going too deep into technical detail and losing the thread, or staying too surface-level so the story doesn't land. 

The skill is choosing which details resonate: the implementation partner, a particular metric, the fact that you changed partners three times and still hit the deadline. Be deliberate about it – don't sprinkle everything at the same level.

[![The Customer & Commnity Engagement Playbook](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/4c/164ccee2-1afe-418d-8b1c-b185533d0b88/content/images/2026/04/The-Customer---Community-Engagement-Playbook--1-.jpg)](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/a-guide-to-customer-and-community-engagement-download-the-playbook/)

## The problem with AI-generated content 

Here's where things get uncomfortable, and I say that as someone who works in tech. 

There are genuinely impressive tools now that help us create content faster – [generative AI can write copy](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/generative-ai-marketing), produce video scripts, and synthesize research at a speed that would have seemed impossible a few years ago, and it's getting better quickly. 

But everyone has access to it. Any graduate, any high school student, anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can produce plausible-sounding content at scale. The cost of creating content is trending toward zero. 

So if the tools are democratized, what's left? What's the differentiator?

### Why good taste is the real differentiator 

Let me tell you about Marcia Lucas. When George Lucas made the original Star Wars trilogy, his ex-wife Marcia Lucas was the editor – [she won the Academy Award for it](https://variety.com/2026/film/news/marcia-lucas-dead-star-wars-editor-1236762833/). Her job, essentially, was to cut out what didn't work: to exercise judgment about what served the story and what didn't. 

When George Lucas made the prequels in the early 2000s, Marcia wasn't involved. The budget was bigger, the technology better – and yet [the films are widely considered much weaker artistically](https://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremyhayes/star-wars-films-ranked). The difference wasn't resources or effort. It was the absence of someone with the taste to say: this works, this doesn't. 

I want to acknowledge that "good taste" is a loaded phrase – when I asked an AI to generate an image of someone with good taste, I got dozens of variations on the same person, mostly men in expensive suits, with a certain class signaling baked in. Taste has historically been used to exclude as much as to elevate. 

But there's a version of this idea worth holding onto. Fashion makes the point well: style used to flow downward from aristocracy, and by the 1960s that had inverted, with street culture becoming one of the biggest forces shaping global style. 

Taste doesn't belong to any one group. It can come from anywhere. And that's reassuring: it means good taste isn't something you're born with or handed down to you. It can be developed. 

[![Craft narratives that actually move your customers with Storytelling Certified: Masters program](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/4c/164ccee2-1afe-418d-8b1c-b185533d0b88/content/images/2026/03/CMA_Education_In-Article_Banner_--3-.jpg)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/storytelling-certified-masters-3)

## Rick Rubin and the confidence of taste 

Rick Rubin is one of the most celebrated music producers alive, having worked with the Beastie Boys, Adele, and Johnny Cash on his American Recordings album, across virtually every genre. 

[In a *60 Minutes* interview](https://youtu.be/sE1teB5bN-w), he was pushed on what exactly he contributes: he can barely play an instrument, doesn't operate a soundboard, and has no technical ability, by his own admission. His answer: *"I know what I like and what I don't like, and I'm decisive about it. The confidence I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel has proven helpful for artists."* 

That's it. That's the whole thing. The confidence to have a point of view. The ability to articulate it clearly. The willingness to act on it. 

As the cost of generating content approacheste zero, that judgment is increasingly rare and valuable. It's what separates the stories that land from the ones that get scrolled past. 

[How brands build lasting customer loyalty through storytellingHow do you build real customer trust in a market full of options? This piece breaks down how storytelling, executive voices, and internal expertise work together to drive loyalty and long-term retention.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/4c/164ccee2-1afe-418d-8b1c-b185533d0b88/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192--1--1-6a0d7d7d-b4ce-4e33-a228-0ef6c4b05b2d.png)Customer Marketing AllianceKaren Chalmers![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/4c/164ccee2-1afe-418d-8b1c-b185533d0b88/content/images/thumbnail/Brand-is-everyone---s-job---Interval-9e3e2f5a-0fdb-4956-9790-5924bd23442b.jpg)](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/how-brands-build-lasting-customer-loyalty/)

## How to develop good taste 

So how do you build it? I've been thinking about this a lot, both for myself and for my team. Here's what I landed on. 

### Deliberate practice 

In customer marketing, we often outsource the writing to agencies, and they do genuinely good work. But if you're never engaging with the copy yourself, you're not building the muscle. 

I've started proofing copy more carefully, not just approving it. I volunteer to write meeting summaries in groups I'm not usually part of. I lead a scout troop, and I still write the emails myself, just to keep practicing. 

Every day I try to spend around 30 minutes writing something, whatever it is, just to maintain that practice. Think of it like the gym. You could use a machine to lift things for you, but the reason you're lifting is to get stronger yourself. 

The practice is for you, not the output. 

### Widening your pool of experiences 

The more contexts you move through, the more reference points you have for what works and what doesn't. 

If you work closely with [demand generation](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/top-ten-best-practices-for-driving-customer-demand/) but rarely sit in on sales calls, get yourself invited – same if you work with product but rarely talk to customers. Presenting at events like this one, building your own slides, getting feedback in real time – it all broadens your frame of reference. Networking helps too, but only if it's genuine – it's easy to convince yourself you're engaging with the broader world when you're really just moving through familiar circles. 

Be honest with yourself about the difference. 

### Being willing to say something 

This is the one I find hardest. **You have to be comfortable sounding imperfect** – willing to speak up in a meeting, share a point of view that might be wrong, put your work in front of people who might not like it. 

That's uncomfortable. It's supposed to be, like practicing an instrument: it sounds terrible for a while before it sounds good. 

One caveat: there's a version of this that's just talking when no one's listening and calling it courage. That's not it. Real courage is tied to genuine listening, and then offering something back that's actually responsive to it. 

[5 top channels for customer story sharingCustomer stories have a well-documented history of helping companies thrive, whether used in advertising, feedback, strategies, or more. But where do customer stories truly shine? In this article we’ll be going through the following five channels.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/4c/164ccee2-1afe-418d-8b1c-b185533d0b88/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192--1--1-7303a790-f80b-44db-80a1-00218e4869aa.png)Customer Marketing AllianceEve Chatfield![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/16/4c/164ccee2-1afe-418d-8b1c-b185533d0b88/content/images/thumbnail/crm--1--1-7564bc87-2b27-48fa-845f-1fe6eb1ba0df.jpg)](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/5-top-channels-for-customer-story-sharing-2/)

## Bringing storytelling back to customer marketing 

Let me close with the practical application, because this matters for how we approach our work day-to-day. 

When [a customer story](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/5-top-channels-for-customer-story-sharing-2/) feels like it's missing something, the problem usually isn't the customer – it's that we haven't drawn the story out properly. These are technical people: enterprise architects, IT leaders. They're not trained storytellers. We are. Or at least, we should be. 

Push a little harder. Ask different questions. Find the human moment inside the technical achievement. And if you're working with an agency, give them permission to do something interesting – most people there genuinely want to make something they're proud of. Give them a brief that opens that door and you'll often get far more than you paid for. 

The BT story came from exactly that conversation: the customer said they didn't want something generic, so I told our creative team they wanted something different. The team delivered something everyone involved felt genuinely proud of. That's what good taste looks like in practice. 

It's not a grand artistic vision handed down from above. It's a series of choices, made deliberately, by people who care about the work.

## Storytelling matters. It always has 

The tools we have now make it easier to produce stories at volume, but they don't make the stories better. That part is still on us. It always will be. Develop your taste. Practice the craft. Widen your experiences. And be willing to say something, even when you're not entirely sure it's right. That's how we stay above the line.

---

*This article has been adapted from a talk Leon gave at* [*Customer Marketing Summit London 2024*](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/customer-marketing-summit-london-2024-ondemand/)*.* 

*If you’d like to watch the full recording of Leon’s talk (and others like it from our London event), our* [*CMA Pro+ membership plans*](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/signup/) *give you access to 100+ hours of on-demand footage.*