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At the close of the business portion of Toyota Motor Sales’ annual national dealer meeting in Las Vegas last fall, one dealer, or “partner” as the brand calls them, walked up to Bob Carter, svp-automotive operations for the car manufacturer’s U.S. unit, to offer a little feedback.

Think large-scale mass marketing and small-scale targeted tastemaker strategies don’t mix? Grab a cold one and think again, Sparky. Anheuser-Busch Inbev this February proved that you can simultaneously go big and execute small to generate just the right blend of mass awareness and influencer appeal.

Muscle Milk in Canada this spring is deploying teams of brand ambassadors at sporting events all across the Great White North. These Protein trainers, as the brand calls them, are tasked with educating Canadian sports fans and athletes about the benefits of a protein-rich diet and handing out samples of the brand’s protein-rich bottled Muscle Milk drinks from branded Volkswagen Toureg SUVs. The brand has teams operating at events all over Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, and hopes to use the program to expand awareness.

U.S. Cellular recently wrapped a five-month consumer experience called Better in OKC that went live at all 41 regular-season Oklahoma City Thunder home basketball games at the Chesapeake Energy Arena. The program ran from November through April 17.

In a TED talk entitled “The technology of storytelling,” celebrated multimedia storyteller Joe Sabia said, “The art of storytelling has remained unchanged… but the way in which humans tell the stories has always evolved, with pure consistent novelty.” Storytelling, and especially the way brands use stories to create a compelling narrative around their products, is making just such an evolution.