Communicating a historic first and sustaining the message past the launch

Andrea LaToya Williams is strategic communications & publicity lead for “Unveiling History.” 

“Historic” is one of the most powerful words in communications, but it is also one of the most temporary.

I was reminded of that this year while leading strategic communications and publicity for “Unveiling History,” a documentary project chronicling the inaugural NCAA men’s and women’s soccer programs at Tuskegee University.

At the beginning, the communications hook seemed obvious. This was a first, and a new chapter was beginning at an institution with a long and significant history. There were inaugural teams, inaugural matches and student-athletes who could forever say they were there at the beginning.

For a communicator, those moments are gifts because they give journalists a clear reason to pay attention and audiences an immediate way into the story. They also create a challenge because eventually, the first game gets played.

The ribbon gets cut, the new leader starts the job, the product launches or the anniversary passes. The history-making appointment eventually becomes simply a person doing the work.

Then what?

That question changed the way I approached communications around “Unveiling History.” Instead of treating the milestone as the story, I began thinking about it as the doorway into a much larger one.

Here are five lessons I learned about building communications around a historic moment and sustaining the story after the moment passes.

1. The milestone is the entry point, not the entire narrative

There is a natural temptation to put the “first” in every headline, pitch and social post, and initially, that makes sense because milestones provide both context and news value.

But repetition quickly produces diminishing returns. You cannot keep announcing that history is being made after the history has already been made, so the better question becomes: What did this milestone make possible?

For Tuskegee soccer, the inaugural season provided the initial frame, but underneath it were stories about access, representation, leadership, family, identity, opportunity and what it means to build something that did not previously exist.

Those themes have a much longer life than an inaugural game.

Communicators working around major launches should begin identifying those deeper narratives before launch day arrives. The milestone may earn the first headline, but the meaning behind it can create the next 10 stories.

1. Look for the people underneath the institutional story

Organizations naturally communicate from the organization’s point of view, while people experience milestones much more personally.

One of the most valuable shifts in our communications strategy was moving from asking, “What is happening at Tuskegee?” to asking, “Who is experiencing this, and what does it mean to them?”

That shift opened entirely different storytelling possibilities.

A student-athlete is not simply a member of an inaugural roster. She has a hometown, a family and a journey that brought her to that field. Parents have their own perspectives on watching their children become part of something that did not exist when they were growing up, while coaches are not simply launching programs but establishing culture, expectations and traditions in real time.

Even geography can create a new narrative because a national story can also become a hometown story when you understand where the people inside it come from.

That lesson extends well beyond sports. Whether communicating a merger, leadership appointment, organizational transformation or major anniversary, some of the strongest stories may exist several layers beneath the institutional announcement.

Finding those stories requires communicators to listen before they pitch.

1. Build multiple narrative arcs before you need them

A communications strategy becomes vulnerable when everything depends on one hook, particularly when that hook has a short shelf life.

For an unfolding story, I have found it more useful to think in narrative lanes. There may be an institutional story alongside individual stories, local and hometown stories, stories about culture and representation, leadership stories and behind-the-scenes stories. There will also be unexpected narratives that only become visible once the work begins.

Those different lanes create opportunities to reach different audiences and media outlets. A story that does not make sense for a national sports publication may be compelling to a hometown newspaper, while a player’s experience may resonate with a culture outlet. A lesson about building something from scratch may have relevance for a leadership or business audience.

Thinking this way also prevents communications teams from trying to force every development into the same narrative.

The goal is not to manufacture more stories. It is to recognize the different stories that are already there and understand where each one belongs.

1. The people closest to the story will often show you what you missed

Communications professionals are trained to identify narratives, but that does not mean we automatically see all of them.

Families, participants and communities often recognize meaning that an institutional communications strategy can overlook, and that has been particularly important for me while working on a documentary project.

A quote from a parent can change how you understand a player’s journey, while a conversation with a student-athlete can reveal that what seemed significant from an organizational perspective is not necessarily what mattered most to her. Audience response to social content can also reveal an emotional connection you had not anticipated.

None of that means abandoning strategy. It means leaving enough room within the strategy to listen, learn and adjust.

The strongest communications plans provide direction without becoming so rigid that they miss the story unfolding in front of them.

1. When the story is still unfolding, communications has to evolve with it

Traditional publicity often works backward from a finished product. The project is completed, the campaign is developed, the press release is written and media outreach begins.

“Unveiling History” required a different approach because the story and the communications strategy were developing simultaneously. The documentary was following a season that was still happening, which meant games were being played, players were having experiences we could not predict, media interest was creating new opportunities and social storytelling was helping us understand what resonated with audiences.

That required flexibility, but it also required discipline. Not every moment needed to become content, not every compelling story needed to be told immediately and access to people’s experiences did not automatically mean we were entitled to use them.

That distinction is especially important when real people are at the center of a communications effort. Speed and relevance matter, but maintaining trust matters more.

Ask what the milestone reveals and whose life is different because it happened. Consider what stories are now possible that were not possible before, and think about what will remain interesting after the word “historic” disappears from the headline.

The best milestone communications do more than tell people that something important happened. They help people understand why it matters and give them a reason to keep paying attention after the moment has passed.