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MONICA CHEGE
HEAD OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATION JUBILEE HEALTH INSURANCE
We’re all competing in a world of surplus – surplus products, surplus content, surplus “big ideas.”
What’s scarce is trust.
The brands that rise to the top, especially in high-stakes and high-end categories, are not always the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones whose story people believe when it really matters.
That’s how I’ve come to think about storytelling as a marketer: not as a garnish around strategy, but as one of the ways you run the business. A good story shapes how a brand shows up in the boardroom, in the media, on a billboard, in a WhatsApp chat with a customer – and at 2 a.m. when someone is staring at a hospital ceiling wondering whether their insurer will keep its word.
Health is unforgiving territory for shallow branding. At Jubilee Health, where I lead marketing and communications, I’ve learned that if the story is not clear, honest, and grounded in how the business actually operates, the brand will not get the benefit of the doubt when life gets messy.
Over time, my philosophy has settled around four disciplines: positioning through narrative, building emotional equity, aligning story with strategy, and proving it in the real world.
Crafting narratives that sit where real decisions are made
If you want to be at the forefront of your audience’s mind, your story has to live where decisions are actually taken – in audit committees, HR discussions, family conversations, investment meetings.
That starts with a simple test I use with my team:
If you can’t explain the role of the brand in one human sentence, you don’t have a narrative – you have a brochure.
At Jubilee Health, we make a deliberate shift from product-led messaging (“comprehensive cover”, “wide provider network”) to a narrative about continuity: protecting the life you’ve worked hard to build from being derailed by health shocks.
That story gives us a seat at more serious tables. When a CEO, HR director or business owner is thinking about their people, they’re not just asking, “What’s the limit?” They’re asking, “Who makes sure our team – and their families – don’t fall apart when something goes wrong?” If your narrative answers that question clearly, the brand naturally moves toward the top of their list.
Designing emotional connection and recall around real tensions
Emotion in brand-building is more than just being sentimental; It’s about being honest.
In healthcare, the underlying tension is the same whether you’re talking to a salaried employee, a business owner, or an individual with a family: What happens to us if something goes wrong? The anxiety isn’t only about cost, it’s about chaos, loss of control and the fear of making big decisions in a crisis.
Our storytelling at Jubilee Health leans into that tension with respect. We don’t trade in fear, instead, we talk about protecting rhythm and dignity: keeping children in school when illness strikes, keeping a business running if a key person is hospitalised, allowing parents to age with more comfort and less anxiety.
When you stay with those truths over time, you shift from “brand awareness” to association. People may not remember every ad, but they remember, “This is the brand that talks about keeping our lives steady, even when health issues come.”
That’s where recall lives, especially in categories where customers don’t think about you every day, but must think of you first on the day that counts.
Aligning storytelling with strategy-so it shows up in the numbers
I learned this the hard way: a beautiful campaign that doesn’t move a real business decision is just expensive theatre.
So, I start with strategy, not slogans; Are we trying to grow SME penetration? Protect our corporate book? Drive retail adoption? Improve retention in a specific segment? Each of those requires a different story, and not a recycled “one-size-fits-all” brand line.
At Jubilee Health, we map our narratives directly to the customer journey and the P&L.
- If the priority is SMEs, our story with entrepreneurs has to answer their real fear: “If I fall sick, does my business fall with me?”
- If we’re speaking to families, the narrative must touch legacy, discretion, and access without friction.
- If retention is the focus, the story has to reassure existing customers that they’re not just a policy number they’re in a relationship that still sees them.
When you do this well, you can see the story in the numbers: better quality leads, fewer objections in sales conversations, higher renewal rates. You know the narrative is working when teams on the ground start quoting it back to you in their own words.
Showing proof – because trust is earned, not declared
The most powerful sentence in any brand story isn’t written by marketing. It’s spoken by a customer.
In insurance, trust is not built by saying “we pay claims quickly” in bigger and bigger fonts. It’s built when a family can say, “When we needed them, they paid, and they made it easier than we expected.”
At Jubilee Health, some of our most meaningful proof points have come from simply stepping back and letting real experiences speak.
Our job as storytellers is to elevate those moments without exploiting them to show that the big narrative we talk about in boardrooms actually holds under pressure.
When that loop between story and experience is healthy, you feel it. The brand sounds more believable, front-line teams feel prouder, customers are more willing to recommend you, because the story matched what they lived.
The real work of a modern brand storyteller
In every sector, but especially in high-stakes categories like health, I believe storytelling that sells trust rests on three non-negotiables:
- Clarity of role – your narrative must answer, in plain language, why your brand matters when it’s hardest to be a customer.
- Emotional accuracy – you must understand what your audience protects, fears and hopes for, not just what they can afford.
- Strategic coherence – your story must serve the business agenda, not sit beside it.
When those three align, storytelling stops being a “nice to have” and starts behaving like a serious lever of growth and reputation. It opens doors, de-risks choices, and keeps your brand centred in conversations about where money, loyalty and trust will go next.
That, for me, is the real job.
Monica Chege is the Head of Marketing at Jubilee Health.
