Why Brands Should Start Thinking Like Entertainers, Not Advertisers

Prior to 2025, I wasn’t much of a YouTube user—at least not beyond watching the occasional how-to video to save a few bucks working on my Toyota or troubleshooting something around the house. But recently, my viewing habits have really ramped up. I’ve found myself subscribing to channels that actually entertain me.

For example, my wife loves home renovation shows, and by proxy, I tend to find myself watching as well. After exhausting most of the shows on our streaming subscriptions, we turned to YouTube—and to our surprise, we discovered shows that were even better than what we had been watching.

I’ve also experienced this shift firsthand from the production side.

In 2023, I released an original docuseries on a brand-new YouTube channel—no following, no ad spend, just a good story. It was filmed in a vérité style, following a high school football team through a full season, often drawing comparisons to shows like QB1 or Last Chance U. One of the most common comments we received was that the production value exceeded what people typically expect to find on YouTube. And they showed up for it. The audience found the series quickly. Views climbed into the hundreds of thousands, comments rolled in, and a loyal community started tuning in each week.

With a background in commercial video production, I had spent much of my career producing the pre-roll commercials many of us tend to skip before the real show begins. So it was exciting to be on the other side. The experience completely changed my perspective on where advertising and content creation are headed.

That series opened the door to conversations with brands—particularly football-centric brands—who saw the value in being part of something that felt real. Brands that previously wouldn’t have given me the time of day without an existing relationship or referral. This was because I wasn’t pitching a commercial, but a series that reflected the identity of their customer base. Leveraging the assets, we could pull clips for co-branded campaigns or go even deeper by integrating brands directly into the story as natural sponsors. On the back end, we could attach links to products and brands organically appearing in the episodes to convert viewers into customers.

Beyond YouTube, this trend has exploded on platforms like TikTok. With our series, scenes shared on TikTok routinely broke into the hundreds of thousands—and sometimes millions—of views. Granted, we were sharing for exposure, not conversions, but the opportunity to convert viewers into customers still existed. It gave brands even more opportunities to maximize the value of their video assets.

But the question remains: why aren’t more brands doing this themselves?

This isn’t a new concept, but it's still incredibly rare. One of the best examples I came across actually dates back to around 2017. I discovered a growing outdoor brand, one we all know now, through a YouTube documentary. To my surprise, they had an entire library of films, including some feature-length docs on topics I genuinely cared about. That winter, I was in my local outdoor shop looking for a jacket, when I saw the Patagonia logo. I immediately recognized it from their films and I became a new and loyal customer.

For years, I’ve said YouTube would swallow the entertainment industry. That used to feel like a bold prediction. Now it just feels like where we’re headed. And it might not stop there—it could easily absorb a huge share of the ad dollars currently spent across digital. And in my opinion, it should.

The brands that figure this out early and start creating content people actually want to watch are going to be way ahead of the game. Before spending five or even six figures on a package of commercials or a one-off brand video, it might be wise to consider routing those dollars into developing your organization’s YouTube channel—and treating it like a modern-day TV network. Build a content strategy designed not just to inform, but to regularly entertain your customers, earn their attention, and keep them coming back.

This is exactly why I’ve started offering YouTube shows and original series as a service to my clients and prospects. Right now, there’s a massive first-mover advantage just waiting to be claimed. And with the rise of generative AI video flooding timelines, producing authentic, story-driven content will only become more valuable. It’s not just about reach—it’s about building trust and positioning your brand as one people actually want to spend time with.