In Brussels, evidence used to be enough. Not anymore. In this episode of Associations Unplugged, host Anna Gumbau sits down with Gökşen Çalışkan (Senior B2B Advisor at Euractiv) and Simona Romeo (Associate Director at Kellen Europe) to unpack why narrative has become essential for associations that want to stand out, stay relevant, and actually move policy without losing their credibility. They get into what narrative really means (and how it’s different from talking points), why policy communication in Brussels has become more political, and how the rise of the attention economy and populist movements has changed the rules for everyone in the bubble. In this conversation we uncover:
- The three building blocks of a strong narrative: audience centricity, emotional arc, and systemic delivery
- Why your association is not the main character of its own story
- The five things great narratives have in common
Why “safe communication is invisible communication”
- The two habits associations should drop immediately
- How to balance technical precision with emotion without oversimplifying
