Brands Are Taking Over Hollywood Barbie-Style

When it comes to the future of entertainment, brands are everything—Hollywood’s just Ken.

Greta Gerwig’s Mattel-derived 2023 blockbuster proved that millions of people would spend billions of dollars to live in a Barbie world for two hours. And as far as Oscar-winning manager-producer Michael Sugar is concerned, that movie is just the tip of the brand-enabled premium entertainment iceberg that’s poised to bring a sea change to the film and television industry.

“Our belief is that almost every brand is its own Barbie,” the founder and CEO of the Sugar23 production company observed on Tuesday at ADWEEK’s Brandweek conference. In fact, Sugar said that he sees a world in which Ted Lasso is an Adidas joint, while Goldman Sachs is the creative incubator for Billions or Succession.

“I believe that brands can communicate to an audience and to its consumers through entertainment in a different way,” emphasized Sugar, who was joined onstage by Ramon Soto, svp and chief marketing officer for Northwell Health, and Maurice Cooper, chief customer officer for Bath & Body Works. “There’s a consumer on the other side that wants to understand the brand, and they want to feel understood by the brand.”

Here are three test cases the trio cited for how companies can move beyond commercials and product integrations into producing entertainment that makes consumers feel as much passion for brands as Ken feels for beach:

1. A Bridgerton bonanza

One sweet-smelling fandom deserves another. According to Cooper, that’s why Bath & Body Works readily agreed to partner with the belle of the Netflix ball, Bridgerton, for a product collection that debuted ahead of the Season 3 premiere of the Shonda Rhimes-produced hit.

“The intent was to figure out how we could deepen fandom,” he explained, noting how both companies have their dedicated enthusiasts. Cooper indicated that the fan response would even have made the unflappable Eloise Bridgerton gape, with product flying off the shelves and generating over a billion online impressions.

Not surprisingly, the company has also rolled the dice on another Netflix fandom by launching a Stranger Things collection. “Now you can see what a Demogorgon smells like,” Cooper teases.

Both of those experiences provided Cooper with a better sense of the kind of non-traditional entertainment that Bath & Body Works might one day make. “We’re an experiential brand, so how do we help our customers experience what we’re offering in a new and powerful way?” he mused.

And he’s eager to find creative partners to assist in the journey towards what that “new and powerful way” might entail.

“There are production houses that would love a brand check to offset costs,” Cooper said. “But instead of viewing brands as a bank, we should be viewing them as creative partners.”

2. Health matters

If you’re looking for a movie studio to model yourself after, why not the Mouse House? When Soto stepped into his role at Northwell Health—a regional health network that operates in New York state—he ordered up a diagnostic on what’s arguably the most successful entertainment manufacturer in Hollywood history: the Walt Disney Company.

Specifically, he wanted to see how the studio creates the superfans that see Deadpool & Wolverine upwards of ten times in movie theaters or binge Star Wars shows on Disney+ into the wee hours of the morning. It was all part of an initiative to make the Northwell name mean something to the millions of New Yorkers who visit their hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

Like Cooper, Soto found a strategic partner in Netflix. In 2020, the streamer debuted the nine-episode docuseries Lenox Hill, which was filmed at Northwell’s Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. That was followed three years later by Emergency NYC, which followed ER physicians and first responders all over New York. To date, Northwell has been involved in seven TV and film projects with plans for more.

“It’s really important for us to do two things with this new platform that we have,” Soto explained, citing “brand love” and driving a conversation around “social issues” like mental health and medicine.

Naturally, entertainment isn’t always what the doctor ordered, and Soto admitted that Northwell has had its occasional doses of failure.

“We’ve learned a lot from it,” he said. “We show up differently the next time, and we continue to push forward.”

3. When all else fails, get Keanu

For his part, Sugar characterized Sugar23 as standing at the nexus between the old and new versions of Hollywood. “We don’t do branded content—we do premium entertainment,” he said of the company, which has been behind such TV shows and films as Dickinson, Spotlight, and The Turning Point, a documentary series that brought together P&G Studios, Time Studios, and MSNBC Films.

With that experience top of mind, he’s come to recognize that what an entertainment-curious brand needs most is a highly motivated and highly creative partner … like, say, Keanu Reeves.

“Keanu called us with an idea for a show,” Sugar said of the John Wick star, who mostly avoids appearing in ads despite regularly receiving offers with beyond-lucrative paydays. “We said, ‘How about finding a brand partner?’ And he was all in.”

For Sugar, the Reeves anecdote provides a clear road map for where brands and Hollywood can travel together in the years ahead.

“Here’s a guy who will get on a plane for free to work with a brand who is going to enable his passion,” Sugar marveled. “But he won’t get out of bed for millions to do a commercial.”

All together now—whoa.