ASMBLY POV · Audience & Programming
Make Something People Would Miss If You Stopped Making It.
The most exciting thing a brand can build isn't a piece of content.
It's anticipation.
That moment when someone knows there's another episode coming. The title means something to them. They send the last one to a friend. Thursday rolls around and they know what's coming.
That's an audience.
And brands have an extraordinary opportunity to build one.
Some of the most powerful entertainment companies in the world have been built around a simple idea: create something people love, then keep earning their attention.
Brands can build shows, documentary series, characters, formats and worlds with enough life inside them for episode 2, episode 20, episode 200.
That's
fucking
exciting.
Because the creative ambition gets much bigger.
A hotel company could make the travel show I plan a vacation around. An outdoor company could create an adventure series that sends me looking at flights to Patagonia. A car company could make something my son and I watch together every Sunday morning.
There are entire worlds sitting inside brands waiting for someone to find them.
That's part of what excited me when we started making This Is My Ōura Story.
We met Tim, Nicole and Bria.
Three people whose lives had taken completely different turns, connected by discoveries about what was happening inside their bodies.
Each story could carry a film.
Together, they revealed a premise.
Every day, millions of people wear Ōura to better understand their health. Inside those millions are stories about people discovering things about themselves they never expected to find.
Suddenly I could see beyond the three films we were making.
Somewhere, another person is looking at their data and wondering what it means. Another life is moving toward a discovery worth telling.
There's
another one.
That's a powerful moment creatively.
You've found an idea with a future.
A premise creates continuity while leaving room for surprise. The audience understands the territory, then each story gets to take them somewhere new.
Over time, familiarity starts doing interesting things.
A title carries meaning. A format develops its own language. People remember who they've met and bring that history into whatever comes next.
Then you arrive at the possibility I find most exciting:
What if they want another one?
Think about that for a second.
Someone finishes something your brand made and wonders when the next one is coming.
That's an extraordinary relationship.
And it opens up a creative canvas that can expand for years.
A person we meet in one episode could return later. An audience's curiosity could lead the series somewhere we never expected. A format could evolve. New ideas could grow out of the original one.
Eventually, the program begins to carry its own history.
That's where I think the opportunity gets enormous.
There are shows sitting inside companies right now.
A hotel company has every guest, employee, destination, kitchen, bar and strange local tradition surrounding it.
An outdoor company has mountains, oceans, guides, athletes, conservationists and people attempting things most of us would never dare.
A health company has the mysteries of the human body.
A car company has every road on Earth.
You could spend a lifetime telling stories inside any one of those worlds.
Every brand is sitting on an entertainment company.
The only question is what to make first.