The Patron Play: Why Entertainment is the Brand-Creator Economy’s Trust Fix
Nearly half of creators are quietly telling brands the same thing: we feel the pull and our audiences feel it too. CreatorIQ’s newly released...
Crocs Just Launched a New Mascot. Here’s the Bigger Bet Underneath it.
Today, Crocs announced the launch of its new mascot Niles, a six-foot two crocodile character built from the silhouette that’s been stamped on the...
Why a Camera Won’t Save Your Brand’s Podcast: Q&A with JAR’s Roger Nairn
The rush toward video podcasting has created a familiar problem for brands: the presence of a camera is being mistaken for a strategy. As...
Creating Brand-Funded Entertainment That Buyers Take Seriously: Q&A with Banijay’s Carlotta Rossi Spencer
The challenge for brands entering entertainment is no longer convincing the market that the category has value. It is building work that can survive...
Using Community to Meet a Global Sports Moment: Q&A with WTA’s Charlie Tetrick
Global sporting events often arrive with a familiar brand playbook: official sponsorships, media buys, logo placement, and short-term campaigns built around borrowed attention. But...
The Acorns Playbook: What a Money App Can Teach Brands About Strategic Storytelling
Most brand leaders, when pressure testing brand storytelling, ask the questions, “Why? What does it do? What results can it drive? What does this...
Building Cultural Relevance Through Entertainment: Q&A with BRANDVIEW’s Hal Burg
Talk to anyone on the entertainment side of the business of brand storytelling and they’ll tell you: there’s a strange disconnect at the center...
Authentic Is Live: Aivanta Launches a Newsletter for the Brand-Creator Economy
The latest publication from Aivanta brings a distinct lens to one of the most dynamic conversations in modern marketing. Over the past several years,...
Rethinking the Creative Assembly Line for the Modern Era: Q&A with MakeMake’s Angus Wall
There has long been a structural disconnect at the heart of creative production. Ideas are developed in one place, executed in another, and refined...
Using Cultural Specificity to Reach Global Audiences: Q&A with Elias Gallego and Dave Meyers
There is a persistent instinct in brand storytelling to smooth cultural edges in pursuit of global reach. The assumption is that the more specific...
Modern Media’s Three-Way Street: How Convergence and Echobend Are Redefining the Brand-Creator-Studio Relationship
The relationship between creators, brands, and studios is still finding its footing. Creators have migrated to the center of audience attention, and the brands...
Speaking the Language of Growth: What Brand Storytellers Can Learn from the CMO’s New Reality
Today, the most important conversations in brand storytelling have moved from the writer’s room to the boardroom, where marketing leaders are being asked to...
Closing the Hope Gap: Afdhel Aziz on Building Good is the New Cool and Scaling Impact Through Storytelling
Control has long been the default setting of brand communication. And yet, in a cultural moment defined by what researchers have termed a measurable...
Using Deep Archives to Serve Digital-First Audiences: Q&A with Little Dot’s Alex Hryniewicz
What kind of content is possible to produce when audience insight, archival depth, and platform-native thinking are treated as creative inputs? Moons of Our...
BrandStorytelling 2026: Taking Stock and Next Steps
Entering 2026, brand storytelling sits firmly in its second act. The question is no longer whether story belongs in brand strategy, but how it...
This Week in Brand Storytelling
It’s ‘Food, Not Boobs’ in Carl’s Jr. and Hardees’ Brand Refresh Our tip of the day; invest 3 minutes and 16 seconds in watching...
Artists or Influencers?
Shay Carl Butler, widely known as ShayCarl, describes himself first as a father & husband, and secondly as a “YouTuber.” One of the most...
Digitas Newfront: Q&A with Scott Donaton, Global Chief Content Officer of Digitas
I first met Scott Donaton back in the late ‘90s when he was Editor and Publisher of Ad Age. It was during his tenure...