Brands are making…TV shows??

0:08This episode of Stylish is brought to you by Myer. This season, shop a major line of global names in Australian designers new to mile.

0:18Hello, happy Friday. Welcome to Stylish. My name is Madison Sullivan Thorpe and today I am very excited because I am joined by my co-host for today, Priya McPherson, who is no stranger to Stylish. We have had her on the face-to-face episode. Priya is founder of fashion label Sage Avenue. Priya, welcome back. Oh my god, I'm so excited to be here. Love being behind the microphone. Thank you for having me. Well, we love having you behind the microphone, so this feels like a perfect arrangement. Now, you've been on Face to Face, but in case you don't know, Friday is our corner of Stylish where we talk brand, campaigns, we talk career stories.

0:53Today, we're kind of, we're saddling two of those horses. We're doing brand and campaign. I'm really excited to have you here. How are you feeling? I'm a bit nervous. You should not be nervous. You're amazing behind the mic. Thank you. That's so kind. I think naturally the nerves just play up a little bit when you're doing something new that you haven't done before. I mean, I have done it once, but not often. So yeah, a little nervous, but I am truly so excited. I feel like brand, fashion, it's so me. I live and breathe it every single day of every week of every year. So I'm really excited. I'm excited because I feel like what we're going to get stuck into today will be so great.

1:28Now, look, we do start every Friday episode with word of the week. Now, I always joke that Rhi and I break the rules all the time because it's almost never a singular word. But what's your word of the week? Well, actually, I listen to the Friday episodes all the time. I'm going to bring it back to its origin of one word. Oh, go, girl. I'm going to do it. I'm going to come hot and strong and powerful with the word wonder. I've just recently been to China traveling for work. I came back yesterday and it was incredible. I was traveling. I was seeing manufacturers. I was walking fabric markets. I mean, I walked a fabric market that had 20 ,000 stores in one.

2:04And I've at least seen four of them on this week in China. It was insane. But I think there's nothing like being immersed in a culture to make you just stop and wonder. You know, you look around how people move, how they eat, how they believe, how they love, how they dance, what they wear. I think it's really incredible. It's very easy in your day-to-day life to get a little bit on autopilot. You wake up, you exercise, you go to work, come home, have a bit of choccy and you go to bed. You know what I mean? Like you can get tunnel vision sometimes. It's on repeat. And I think that this trip has really let me stop to wonder.

2:37And I think that's a really beautiful thing that I want to encourage everybody to do tomorrow when they wake up. Go have a little wonder when you're driving to work. It's beautiful. It's a little magical. And yeah, my recent trip made me wonder and I think it's important to share too. I love that so much. What a beautiful sentiment. I actually had a girlfriend recently teach me something and I want to play this with you. It's that you have a rose, a thorn and a banana. So when someone comes back from a trip, you say, what was the rose? So your highlight, thorn, is what didn't go so great. And then the banana is something surprising and fun.

3:08Oh, my God. Okay, putting me on the spot. First rose, let's start on a high, is I started my business three years ago and I believe that the people who make our products are half of my business. Yeah. And to be able to meet them in person and just be like, hey, how are you? We talk every single day. I love to connect and seeing the people who helped me bring my business to life. It was such a special moment and that would definitely be my rose. My thorn would probably be having to wake up at 1am to leave for the flight. I think that is just speaking volumes for my trip though because it was all around incredible and my thorn was the fact that I just had to get up at 1am for a flight.

3:42So it was a really good trip all around. Sign of a brilliant trip. Exactly right. I think my banana would be the food. I have grown up with an Asian background so it wasn't new to me but the food and the spices and the way they make things was definitely banana. I loved it. I'm such a food girl too, honestly. I'm such a food girl. I usually have restaurants booked before I've even booked flights. Oh, I'm 100%. Are you a check the menu? I'm absolutely a check the menu. Me too. Me too. We're digressing. Okay, so let's get into today's episode. Today we are exploring how entertainment is dominating both the fashion and business space.

4:18We're going to unpack why brands seem so drawn to entertainment right now, what's working and why and where we see this all going. But we're going to get into it right after a word from today's sponsor.

4:31Question for you guys. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? If it's bordering on ridiculous, it could be your wardrobe's fault. Maybe you have too many clothes or maybe you've just outgrown the ones you have. Either way, taking forever to get ready is a telltale sign that your style needs a shake up. and that's where Maya can help. They're going through a bit of an evolution themselves, sparking a fresh new chapter grounded in individuality, expression and newness. Yes, Maya are welcoming a host of new labels, both from Australia and abroad, and we get to reap the benefits. From tomorrow, you can shop a fashion forward lineup starring by Johnny, the Wolfgang, Sonia Moda and Kinney, introducing big energy, bold silhouettes and modern femininity to Maya and our wardrobes at home.

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5:47so you might have seen this all playing out across socials but if you haven't essentially what seems to be happening in market right now is that brands are making tv shows or mini series if you will have you seen this everywhere it just seems to be everywhere we've seen it from the likes of in style with their intern series on tiktok tower 28 a brand very close to my heart they did a series called The Blush Lives of Sensitive Girls, which, genius. Converse have tapped Amelia de Moldeberg to host their new blind dating show, Chuck Mates, McDonald's, Oatly, even Bratz Dolls. What a throwback. There are so many brands creating mini television series.

6:27And it's essentially for their social media pages. Priya, when did you first notice it? Because you've mentioned you've noticed it everywhere, but when was the first time you're like, huh, I'm clocking this. Yeah. Crocs came out this year, February the 13th. They debuted a five-part miniseries. It was kind of like a micro drama. It was two minutes per part. And the first episode, it was about a girl in her twenties. She works at Crocs. She's single. She lives in an apartment. And every time she would go to work, she would see another pair of Crocs out the front of another apartment. And it was a men's classic clog croc.

7:00And it was completely bare. And before she would go to work, she'd be like, hmm. And she'd pick up a charm from her croc and pop it on his croc. Yeah. And it was amazing because it became this like flirtatious drama. She would go to work. She would talk about her apartment and you take them through the journey, but also intertwining a charm with the croc. And it got 3.6 million views on the first part. Insane. Don't they call them gibbets? Gibbets. Yeah. I'm like obsessed with that word. You know, those words that you just learn and you're like, I love that. I'm like a gibbet. It sounds like a little fantasy creature.

7:32I love it. Literally. And you become like, I want this jibbit. I want this jibbit. I don't have Crocs, but maybe I need them just so I can get a jibbit. Literally, neither do I. Sounds like an excursion for us. I feel like we need to go. I think it's really important here to reference a business of fashion quote we came across when we were researching. And it says, rather than paying content creators to make content for them, both brands and media companies are increasingly finding ways to do so themselves. Decades-old beauty brand Mary Kay, jewellery brand Alexis Batar, fashion publication in style and celebrity tome people have all produced narrative series for social media.

8:03It's all in hopes of connecting with Gen Z consumers, anticipating that if they can entertain them, they can sell them product. I think this quote really shows that you're not shouting your product, but rather you're telling a story that's worth everybody's time. Yeah. Everybody's time is so precious these days. How do you cut through a market that can be so saturated at the moment? You're pinching the time and you're making it worth it. Totally. And I think as well, it comes down to the product becoming a prop, not the protagonist. And I think that's why this affinity for long form content, and it is funny to call a two or three minute video long form, but in the current doom scroll climate, and despite, you know, average four, five, six hour screen times, it is a long form piece of content.

8:45And I think, you know, we talk about some of the examples I've spoken about Tower 28 being a great one. Their entire brand DNA is centered on being made for sensitive skin. And what I loved about that blush campaign that they did to launch their blushes was it had nothing to do with payoff. It had nothing to do with, you know, where the product belonged. It was about sensitive personalities and sensitive friendly products lending themselves in it, which I think goes back to that prop, not protagonist play. Yes, I love. And it's such a good point. I have another example I wanted to share with you really quickly.

9:17Came up on my feed two days ago. So it's really top of mind for me at the moment. The algorithm's listening to us. I know, it literally is. Or I don't know, Paige Lorenz is going above and beyond with her marketing at the moment, but do you know her brand Dairy Boy? Yes. Yeah. Country cool vibes, sweatshirts, oversized jumpers. That's really the vibe. But two days ago she posted a video and it was kind of like a tryouts system. And so it was for her Dairy Boy sport collection. And she was sitting there amongst a table of people and everyone was coming to audition and they had so many different unique things to show.

9:49Like I I remember somebody was making a butterfly out of a balloon. I checked this morning, Derry Boy has 307 ,000 followers. That video two days ago got 1.4 million views. You're going to assume that half of those people are brand new people that haven't seen your business before. I'd be willing to bet that it's even more. Like I just think the algorithm skews so differently now. It doesn't need to be someone you follow or that someone whose content you interact with. 100%. You interact and you'll get served it again and another piece of content from that brand. Hopefully it's converting to sales for it too.

10:24No, of course. Well, everybody was wearing Dairy Boy Sport in the audition. So it was just, it was perfectly fitted. I was so engaged. I was like, oh, love this. What a funny skill. And I was laughing as these people were wearing the product. And so I'm having a fun and happy experience. Yeah. And I'm associating it with this brand and what they're wearing. That's not a perfect recipe. I don't know what is. It's the total emotional response. And to go back to like such a historic reference, I always think this about the Qantas ads. They have no reason to be making me cry. Oh, my gosh. And as someone who's not an emotional person, I find myself crying at I Still Call Australia Home and that ad every single time.

11:04Yes, I am an emotional person. And I will say it took tears. It gets you every time. It took tears. It gets me every time. And I was still quite like it was a few years ago now and I was still in my early 20s. So like traveling for me was such a big thing. And I just remember feeling this sense of like home, comfort, warmth, all from a video that they had made. How incredible is that for a business to be able to tap into such a deep emotion for somebody at everybody's different ages of life and still have such a deep meaning and relate it to a brand? Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. And I think that's one thing we always forget is that I think people go like brands don't have a place playing in emotion.

11:41that is the subsequent response that often happens though whether it's your customer service experience whether it's the content you're engaging with yeah as you said now you're like dairy boy feels fun it feels warm it feels energetic to you 100 because you've seen this great video exactly right I think as well one thing I have learned myself especially as a business founder of a fashion business but also as a customer myself I always remember how someone's made me feel yeah it's not about what they say or what they do I will always take away the feeling and the emotion. And so if a brand can tap into making you feel something, that will last longer than anything else.

12:17Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. So I guess to sum it up, all of these miniseries serve a purpose. We'll look into why this is happening right now after a word from today's sponsor. For many of us, our dream is to smell so good that people chase us down the street to ask what we're wearing. Well, Fragrance First personal care brand, Gem, is making this wish come true as they expand their range of indulgent deodorants into body care and hair care. Think milky body washes, sugary exfoliating scrubs and smoothing hair care in sweet scents like coconut vanilla, vanilla sugar and vanilla macadamia.

12:50Gem is all about making daily care feel decadent while deeply nourishing your hair and body with the most hydrating ingredients. Discover their new range in-store and online at Kohl's. And a huge thank you to Gem for making this episode of Stylish possible. I think it's time we distill why this is happening, Mads, don't you think? Absolutely, let's break it down. Let's do it, girl. I believe there are four reasons and I want to share them with everybody. I think the first one is a really important one. And it's the fact that brands are trying to compete with entertainment. Yeah. Entertainment brands like Netflix, your social media platforms like TikTok.

13:21It is where everybody's eyes are right now. It's the way the world is going. And so it's a way that a brand can compete with these big players. Yeah. And increase their brand awareness. Another one is greater cultural relevance. It allows brands to gain far greater cultural relevance. And when I say that, I mean globally. Like they can reach so many more people with these entertainment videos, these shorts on YouTube, Instagram, on TikTok. They're sustaining people's attention over multiple episodes and seasons. And I think that's really strong and incredible. Another one, owning attention instead of renting it.

13:53So I think instead of relying on your influencers, your celebrities, your content creators to share your brand story or extend your reach, they're creating it as their own attention source. Yeah. And this means that they don't have to rent it. They own it. That is amazing for a business to own something that gives them so much reach and power and not having to rely on people and not having to be like, oh, that content wasn't amazing. That wasn't good. You know, you have it within your arms and your reach and you can share your brand the way you want to. Yeah. It's like it becomes its own person.

14:25I think that's pretty cool. And the last one is storytelling as a strategy. Let's be real. I think this is really reflective of something that's happening across many industries right now. storytelling is becoming an essential strategy for 2026. Seriously, it's happening everywhere. And I think it's also a core business capability instead of a support function. But we'll get into that a little bit more. Yeah, it's so interesting, like just to piggyback on some of those concepts. Obviously, my experience having been in beauty, I think a lot of the time now when you're launching a blush, you're not competing with the beauty category or the blush as a subcategory now.

14:57You are competing for that airtime. Like I think about my own TikTok algorithm. It's like Netflix scene shorts, it's creative logs, it's, you know, even just on my phone, my favourite writer's sub stack, it's a recipe that I've put into ChatGPT because I'm asking like, what can I cook with, you know, chicken, tomato paste and like the leftover zucchini. So it's that brands aren't just competing for the airtime or competition against their own category or subcategory anymore. It's the like span of attention that is small and fleeting. And I think for so long, the playbook was that brands hired creators or celebrities and they piggybacked on their audiences to get that attention.

15:34I think that's less guaranteed now. And much to your point, it's renting, not owning that asset. And so I think now it's not hoping that that celebrity or creator's relevance rubs off, but it's, you know, that model is kind of getting dated because it's expensive, it's inconsistent and it's borrowed. And so having and owning and creating that asset themselves is a much better play because, you know, it can, as we saw with Dairy Boy, the results can be absolutely incredible. A hundred percent. I think there's also a level of the fact that creators are getting paid. I mean, I'm a creator myself.

16:09I only take on deals that I really resonate with. But how do you know that for other creators, right? Obviously, you are so connected to them. You share the values. That's why you follow them. but I think you do lose that sense of authenticity sometimes. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I think that's the other side of the coin. Yeah. I think creators do also offer authenticity. So, you know, you're getting it either way but I think it is important to mention that, you know, they're getting paid and so are they actually doing this because they really care about it or just because it's a part of their job?

16:40And I think that's why the creator landscape feels so slippery because people are kind of like, have you ever bought this with your own money? Do you interact with this brand or is this... Are you looking at this as a job and it is a check? I've been thinking about something. I wanted to get your thoughts on it, Mads. I feel like you would have a wealth of insight to this. So when Brad's become the storytellers, I've been thinking about whether they lose the authenticity or gain control. And to the listeners, to give you a bit of backstory into the way my mind was thinking with this question was, I know I'm kind of going against what I said before, but I have always felt that creators add that authentic real side to a brand.

17:14And I think that brands are quite polished and curated, right? But now we're seeing brands trying to manufacture authenticity internally. So my question to you comes, can a brand still build trust when they know the storyteller is also the one selling it? I think they can. I don't think they lose authenticity automatically, but I think they lose the ability to pretend they're not selling something, which is where I think creators have often filled that gray spot of, oh, we're selling to you, but because it's from my page, you don't feel like you're being sold to by this brand. so the luxury of pretending you're not selling something is gone yes and so I think you know the bar is higher audiences know where the content has come from who's made it and so much to your point when you were saying you know brands are very polished and curated yeah I don't think they can be too much in these sorts of formats because it can't be too polished can't feel too strategic because people can smell that inauthenticity or fake manufacturing yeah or that manufacturing too much.

18:13And so I think the content needs to be genuinely funny. Yes. Emotive. So even if it's not funny, it needs to be like incredibly moving. It needs to be culturally relevant or, you know, emotionally in tune to kind of where we're at and where we find ourselves. So long as audiences get to the place they give the brand that permission to go, I allow you to make me laugh or I allow you to make me feel a certain way or to talk about a culturally relevant topic. Yeah. I think then it gets to come through authentically. But there's a lot of points that have to line up there. Yes, 100%. I totally agree.

18:47It allows them to connect so much deeper than normal. But I think it means then that they're walking a fine line. Yeah. Because they're so close to the person now. And they've built that attention and that trust. Brands have to be really careful here. Because you walk the fine line, it could go incredibly well, or it could go incredibly wrong. Yeah. If you're bringing in culture as well, you have to be careful. It's incredible because it does allow people to connect, I think it's a fine line. And I'm really intrigued to see where it's going to go because right now I'm all here for it and I'm loving it.

19:19But I hope that a brand doesn't just do something wrong by it, if that makes sense. I definitely think we'll see more of it because I definitely feel in market here and both overseas, there is kind of like a creative fatigue. I think there's a personality drive. Like I think creators who are personality fueled, You know, we're talking like Jake Shane, you know, the podcaster. He just did the, you know, the Vanity Fair red carpet. He's had great success, just announced by a variety that he's doing a TV show now as well. There's more of that that we're seeing. But even then, it's like, how do you maintain that authenticity?

19:51I think that's where we'll see more of it come through. And what's fascinating, I guess, is that brands used to interrupt entertainment, but now it's them becoming part of it. Yeah. Like they want in on the fun. They're like, OK. Hand in hand. Let's go. Yeah, they're trying to become the entertainment rather than piggyback on someone else doing it for them. A hundred percent. So cool to own a brand and be like, I'm just going to become a producer now. I'm going to add that to my resume. Let me entertain you. Let me entertain you in the way that I think I can do it best. Okay, so now we've dove into why this is happening.

20:21Let's get into whether we think it's actually working. Because I want to start with InStyle, the reference that we spoke to earlier in the app. So I know we referenced their miniseries, The Intern, earlier. and they've had tremendous results from this. And if you're listening and wearing your AirPods or your wired headphones, we won't. Or in the car. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I always forget that you can do it. Or in the car. I'm just such a headphone girl. Just keep looking straight, though, no? Straight ahead, left and right when you're at the lights. Look, it's such a great series. It's a bit of a mockumentary series where interns taking them through the office, kind of playing into all of those, I guess, notions and jokes that sort of sit within, you know, that fashion intersection of what it might be like to be working at a fashion magazine.

21:02I love how this intern series really takes you through a regular day at the office. Yeah. But in a fun, engaging way. I literally feel like I'm the intern. Yeah. According to InStyle's deputy editor and showrunner, Jonathan Borge, season three of The Intern brought an increase of 36.5 thousand followers on TikTok. There are a total of 1.6 million engagements on the seasons across platforms, and there are 5 million TikTok views on season three, episode one, starring Mickey Gordon. with 99 % of those viewers being non-followers and 59 % under the age of 24. Is that not a drop the mic moment? Oh, I mean, someone at InStyle is like, yes, this idea of hate off.

21:42What I loved about this as well, hence why I made the comment about Dairy Boy and going, I think that a lot less of them would be followers is that that stat of 99 % of them not being followers is really interesting. But what I found most fascinating by this stat was the 59 % under 24 because traditionally InStyle is not a magazine that would be resonating with a Gen Z audience. It is very much a millennial Gen X publication that's been around for quite some time now. So I do think this just goes to show when you diversify format and content asset, you have the ability to tap into a brilliant audience that otherwise you're not accessing.

22:21I think that this really shows as well that being under the age of 24, Or you've got to assume these people are quite, they're energised. They want to know what they want to do with their life. Where do they want to go? And watching InStyle would be an incredible experience for them because they can understand the workplace a little bit more. Yeah. And they're more eager. And so through their transformation of being a young adult, they're resonating to this brand and they're always going to remember that. They're a really good consumer to target right now and I think they've nailed it. Yeah, and as evidenced by the fact that they gained 36 ,500 followers on TikTok after the series dropped.