Meet Jeff Marshall, Public Power Storytelling Extraordinaire

January 9, 2024

Feeling Called

I’ve always loved telling stories. As a kid, I wrote books and drew comics. I made flip-book animations, and claymation movies with a VHS camera. As a college student, I steeled myself for a career path filled with routines and beige tones. So, imagine my relief when I discovered that even in the professional world, stories were still needed.

Feeling Challenged

I was a voracious college student. I chose honors classes, I volunteered as a lab assistant, and I hounded my professors for feedback. I was just so eager to explore and to learn! Upon graduation, I cut my teeth at a fast-paced advertising agency. Brimming with axioms and anecdotes, it didn’t take long for my idealized vision of marketing to collide with the concrete bed of reality: Effective communication is hard.

It’s hard to cut through. It’s hard to hold attention. People are the heroes of their own stories. Just because I’m eager to speak doesn’t mean people are eager to listen. The axioms were still true, but my understanding had finally caught up. The challenge I gave myself was to learn how to deliver messages so clear and elemental that the audience would digest it instantly.

Use Electricity Wisely

One morning, I noticed that our billboard had a light out. Rather than ask for it to be repaired, I used it as inspiration.

I devised an experiment called a “drive-by” or sometimes “the billboard test.” I tested new designs by asking my art director to sit in a rolling chair and I would push him past my computer screen. If he didn’t catch some meaning out of my message, then it was back to the drawing board. That philosophy underpinned everything I designed and everything I wrote, even as I moved out of the advertising world into public power communications.

Feeling Powerful

Electric utilities are full of technical jargon: load profiles, thermal envelopes, and rate schedules are on the tame side of the vernacular. My goal of absolute clarity was challenged. Yet, there was mentorship all around me. I just had to listen and apply what I had learned:

Grab Attention Instantly

If I want them to open their correspondence and read the details, I have one chance to grab their attention. And as the esteemed professor Dave LaBelle taught me: “The eyes eat first.”

Feelings over Features

Make the feeling inescapable, only then can you communicate the details.

Metaphors Made Real

I heard many times that water behind a dam was like a giant battery behind the electric grid. One small piece of metal attached to this billboard made that concept a little easier to understand.

Effective communications are a critical function of every business. I take that responsibility seriously, even if the results look fun and even flippant. There are a series of underlying principles steering the process. I am ecstatic to work with utilities and related organizations across the nation to help them communicate effectively to their members, customers, and constituents. There are a lot of stories to tell.