As a marketer, I spend my days telling clients that content is king, that stories shape perception, and that you need to own your narrative or risk someone else telling it for you. And yet here I am watching my own backyard, Southland, letting someone else write our script. It’s frustrating because if there’s one place that proves why storytelling matters, it’s right here.

Nationally, the headlines are bleak. The talk is all layoffs, downturns, and uncertainty. But while other parts of New Zealand are shedding staff and cost-cutting, we’re hunting for people. Our industries are flat-out busy. House prices in Southland have smashed national records two months in a row. Our food and aquaculture sectors are on the verge of explosive growth with new industries and investment rolling into the region. Data centres are coming to the region too, which will be an incredible business growth enabler – we are bucking trends left, right, and centre, but if you only listened to the national story, you’d think we were in the same sinking boat.

I tell clients every day to tell your story or someone else will tell it for you. That’s not marketing fluff; it’s the reality of how narratives shape markets, confidence, and behaviour. Right now we’re letting someone else’s story of recession, gloom, and stagnation define us, even though our own facts say we’re thriving. And it’s not just annoying; it’s dangerous. Because when we adopt someone else’s doom-and-gloom as our own reality, we feel it. We act like it’s true. Confidence drops. Investment hesitates. People stop seeing the opportunity right in front of them.

I’m bloody passionate about our region and I’d like us to own our space, claim the greatness, and stop relying on the national narrative to shape us. It affects our reality - our economic prowess is directly correlated to our perception, and right now we are not driving it.

We have so much going for us. Our primary industries are humming. Innovative aquaculture ventures are setting up shop. We have lifestyle opportunities and affordability that other regions can only dream of. But unless we start owning this story, celebrating it, and telling it loud and proud, we’re letting the national headlines shape our mindset and our future.

I can’t think of a better real-world example of why telling your own story matters. As marketers we know the power of a good narrative. Southland has an incredible story, a region thriving against the odds, full of opportunity, innovation, and momentum. But in the absence of good storytelling we’re letting silence hand the microphone to someone else. Southland, it’s time to do what I preach to every client: be louder, be prouder, and be relentlessly honest about what’s happening here, because it’s good, it’s exciting, and it deserves to be heard.