Storytelling training

The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust manages projects that support the Armed Forces community across the UK. With a growing desire to communicate their impact clearly and effectively, the team identified storytelling as a key skill to enhance their content and communications strategy.

They turned to Emma at You Say Agency, known for her tailored, human-first approach to training, to lead a bespoke workshop designed to build narrative confidence and communication consistency across the team.

The Challenge

The Trust’s communications team came with a mix of experiences and backgrounds, and while everyone understood the value of storytelling, they were looking for:

  • A unifying method for approaching storytelling

  • Practical tools to embed this approach in their everyday work

  • A space to reflect, grow confidence, and develop as a team

The training needed to be sensitive to different learning styles, adaptable across experience levels, and - importantly - engaging and energising for a team often working at pace.


The Solution: Emma’s Bespoke Training Approach

Emma designed and delivered a two-part workshop series:

Part One: A highly interactive session introducing storytelling principles tailored to the Trust’s context. Participants explored narrative techniques, voice and strategy alignment, and practical ‘sense-checking’ tools to test the clarity and emotional resonance of their content.

Part Two: A follow-up session to reflect, apply, and review real-world examples. The team brought content they had created since the first workshop, sharing feedback and insights in a dynamic, collaborative environment.

"Emma's workshop just worked so well for us – she really took the time to understand us as individuals, and where each of us was coming in to the process from different levels of experience and perspective. We wanted a method that would give us a way into storytelling across our comms, but Emma gave us more than that with tricks and techniques to sense-check ourselves whenever we're creating new content, and to make sure we're always coming back to first principles."

"She gave us space to go down all sorts of useful rabbit holes and our follow-up session was such an eye-opener: to see how everyone had applied what we'd learned to create some truly incredible new content was an absolute joy. And of course, one of the most important things for rare 'away time' as a team is that you have a laugh and learn a bit more about each other, and Emma also made it a tonne of fun."
Claire Rick, Director of Strategy, Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust

Results & Impact

  • A shared language and framework for storytelling now runs through the Trust’s comms.

  • Team members report increased confidence and clarity in crafting content that reflects their values and impact.

  • The follow-up session revealed a creative leap in how storytelling was being embedded across platforms and projects.

brand guidelines

Isle Utilities is a global innovation consultancy working at the forefront of water and environmental solutions. With a rapidly expanding international footprint, Isle recognised the need for a unified global brand voice—one that could reflect their core values while giving each regional team the space to express their unique identity.

To bring this vision to life, Isle partnered with Emma at You Say Agency, to bring in a specialist in strategic tone of voice development and brand storytelling.

The Challenge

The Isle team faced a familiar challenge in global organisations:

  • How do you create a consistent brand tone of voice that still feels authentic across regions?

  • How can you harmonise input from multiple stakeholders - each with distinct cultural and business perspectives?

  • And how do you turn that into a practical brand book that’s usable, approachable not finished and stuck on a shelf?

The project required both linguistic clarity and strategic diplomacy, balancing coherence with flexibility.

The Solution: Emma’s Strategic Approach

Emma led the project from discovery through to delivery, focusing on:

Stakeholder Engagement: Working closely with senior leaders and marketing teams across multiple continents to capture the diversity of voices and priorities.

Tone of Voice Development: Defining a core tone rooted in Isle’s mission and values, while allowing regional nuance to surface meaningfully.

Brand Book Creation: Developing a clear, usable, and beautifully structured brand book—complete with tone of voice principles, messaging examples, and adaptable tools for regional application.

Throughout the process, Emma kept the project moving with precision and poise, navigating time zones, calendars, and differing opinions with ease.

“Working with Emma on our global brand book was an absolute pleasure. She maintained a seamless timeline, skilfully balancing the input of multiple stakeholders to ensure every voice was considered throughout the review process. Her impeccable time management not only kept the project on schedule but even allowed us to incorporate additional elements into the global brand book, giving each region a distinct voice."

“This attention to both detail and flexibility helped us create a truly comprehensive and resonant global brand book, perfectly aligned with our global vision.”
Anna Gunn, Global Head of Marketing and Communications, Isle Utilities

impact

Emma’s work with Isle Utilities showcases the power of empathetic strategy and precise execution. By centring people while structuring process, she delivered a brand framework that will grow with Isle’s global ambitions.

Need to bring coherence to your international brand voice?
Partner with You Say Agency for guidance that respects both the global picture and the local grounding.

world refill day

World Refill Day on 16th June is a global public awareness campaign designed to accelerate the transition away from single-use plastic and towards reuse systems to prevent plastic pollution and help people live with less waste.

YouSay Agency was the retained PR agency for City to Sea from 2019-2023, working in partnership with the inhouse Head of Campaigns and Policy & PR Manager.

We advised on strategy, researched campaign ideas, created media packs, led on citizen research, liaised with partners and spokespeople and coordinated media outreach.

  • 600+ pieces of media coverage with a potential, estimated reach of over 1 BILLION people around the world! A 50% increase on 2022 results.

  • Consumer: The Times, Naver (Korea), Associated Press, Bloomberg, BBC, Country Living, Evening Standard, Yahoo Taiwan, The Guardian & PA.

    • Trade/targeted local: Edie, Circular Online, Packaging Today and Packaging Europe, Bristol 24/7, Bristol Post/Live, BBC Bristol

courtauld 2030

milestone report

Emma was commissioned as copywriter and communications lead on statutory annual data reporting for WRAP.

The milestone report needed to effectively look back at data to 2018 whilst also communicating the ambition to 2030, simultaneously incorporating the findings from 12 different sub-reports covering food, GHG and water use in a challenging timeline and with changing datasets.

It was Emma’s role to work to find the strongest narrative, effectively communicate strategic messages and create a call to action in what was a potentially challenging story, with several partners including central government and retailers who all had different viewpoints.

Coverage was balanced, messages cut through and met KPIs.

This is one of several reports Emma has produced for WRAP.

Contactless Coffee

When lockdown was introduced in March 2020 our client City to Sea had to pivot their plans and fast. Key staff in the campaign team were furloughed. A planned World Oceans Day campaign needed to be postponed, but the CEO didn’t want to leave a void and there were concerns over misleading claims over contamination on plastic, leading to many food and drink businesses removing refills as an option.

Working directly with the CEO we created a campaign called Contactless Coffee to support, inform and reassure businesses that the pandemic didn’t need to mean a surge in single use cups and containers.

The campaign was backed with international evidence, the team worked with key national chains to get them onboard for launch and they created a simple step-by-step guide for businesses.

Launching less than two months later Contactless Coffee was a huge success getting traction in:

  • Sunday Times, BBC News, The Guardian, iNews, The Grocer, Packaging News, Resource Magazine, Bristol 247, Bristol Live, BBC Bristol.

get togethers

[Soil Association]

Working with the Get Togethers team, as a communications consultant from 2020-2024, Emma worked on three years of a lottery funded campaign called Get Togethers. In that time she:

The campaign smashed its KPIs.

  • 80,000 resource downloads - five times the benchmark.

  • organised 4,976 Get Togethers, reaching 145,310 people. Participation grew, from 747 events in the first year to 1,563 in the third – 289% over target.

  • Several elements, including the community campaigns were absorbed as legacy into Food for Life, post lottery funding to continue their success.

media relations

The common thread that runs throughout our agency is media relations. Our team works tirelessly, whether in bustling in-house press offices or assisting various charities, brands, and organizations in enhancing their visibility, connecting with fresh audiences, and influencing behaviours is a core offer from our agency.

Highlights include

  • Securing a cover and double page spread for School Food Matters in Waitrose Weekend to mark their 10th anniversary.

  • Placing the Refill x Chillys reusable water bottle on This Morning's coveted Christmas gift show, as well as Runners World, Real Homes, Psychologies, Guardian, Countryfile and more.

  • BBC Countryfile covering Innovative Farmers and featuring a unique on-farm trial.

  • Getting significant broadsheet and radio pick-up for an eco finance story for the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission.

  • Acquiring substantial coverage for eco cleaning brand Ocean Saver’s new supermarket ranges in the Grocer, Country Living, Country Townhouse, Woman & Home, Good Housekeeping, Independent, Metro, iPaper, Yours, My Weekly and Best.