How Nonfiction Will Cover the Arts, Media, and Entertainment Industries
Arts, media, entertainment, and business have never been more intertwined. Nonfiction Notes is our approach to covering the landscape.
Introducing Nonfiction Notes, a blog and newsletter to discover how artists, storytellers, and brands are building audiences in arts, media, and entertainment.
We started Nonfiction to help build strong brands and loyal audiences for companies dedicated to creative expression in arts, media, and entertainment. As part of this process, I speak with people across the music, film, publishing, sports, and gaming landscape, many of whom have the same question about building a brand and audience in the current environment. That question goes something like this: “People are overwhelmed with entertainment options and dislike advertising; how do we build a brand and audience in this environment?”
I admit it is not easy.
New business models, like streaming and the direct-to-fan model, and technology platforms, ranging from subscription platforms to social media, Web3, and AI, are shaking up the industry. This evolution will bring considerable change to music, film, publishing, broadcasting, sports, and gaming. New technology presents significant challenges and opportunities alike.
Media culture is moving at warp speed.
A new song is uploaded to Spotify every 1.4 seconds. On TikTok, entire movies and shows are released in 3-minute increments. Podfasters, a small but growing percentage of audiobook and podcast listeners, crank up the listening speed to 1.25x, 2x, or faster.
The gale winds of technological change have led to brands and platforms believing they need to move at the speed of culture, prioritizing pace and volume, seeking to be first to an emerging trend. This has created a swell of content.
Similarly, there is a cult-like focus on the future over the present. Where brands believe they need to chase what’s next to keep pace, they push culture into overdrive, creating a spiraling effect. More, faster, more, faster.
This is a challenging environment for artists, storytellers, and platforms of any size to operate within. Absent a long-term creative vision, one can succumb to the whipsaw effect, chasing trend after trend.
What’s old is new again.
Just like the explosion of fast food rekindled the slow food movement, slow media counters the bite-sized dopamine-driven media culture. US Vinyl sales have grown for 17 consecutive years, even if 50% of vinyl buyers today do not own a record player. Long-form blog posts perform better than short-form. Some news media organizations recognize is good business to move away from breaking news coverage to serve a market starving for in-depth reporting.
Paradoxically, these two worlds fuel each other. Booktok drives physical book sales. Instagram is responsible for a new generation of art buyers, and social media can drive print subscriptions. These are just a few examples.
Straddling two worlds.
We are currently straddling two worlds. Fast and slow, short and long, superficial and deep, new and old.
While audiobooks are a growing segment, physical books still dominate the publishing world. TV seasons are getting shorter, while episodes are getting longer. In film, 2023’s Best Picture, Oppenheimer, ran three hours long, and the year’s highest-grossing film, Barbie, was almost two hours. While shrinking, print still dominates the share of the magazine market. In podcasting, the most popular podcast on Spotify, The Joe Rogan Experience, averages 2hrs 38min 07sec.
The role of brand partnerships.
Looking for more creative ways to connect with customers, brands have been turning to media and entertainment companies for decades, and that trend is increasing. Adidas’early pairing with hip hop is an early example. Along the way, there have been unexpected partnerships like CoverGirl creating a Star Wars makeup line with Lucasfilm and Kroger Co linking with Disney.
More recently, new media brands have gone the route of creating their own product brands based on successful films, shows, and records. Independent film company A24 launched a Gen-Z-focused makeup brand based on their hit show Euphoria and has been successfully merchandising hit films with books, records, and clothing.
While the lines between advertising and art are often blurred, major deals like these can create powerful partnerships that generate results for both sides. Brands can provide vital funding that helps bring new creative projects to life that the public may otherwise not have seen. In return, brands get placements alongside highly-vetted and culturally relevant creative material.
Rise of the independent artists.
The structures of today’s arts, media, and entertainment industries are hardly recognizable from the time before smartphones and the internet. While major labels, studios, and publishing houses remain relevant, they aren’t the only viable path to a sustainable creative career.
Motivated and resourceful artists of all mediums can now bring their creative vision to life independently. Tools that were once only available to the few who were granted access by major players are now in the hands of the many. Still, creating quality material is no easy task. It takes dedication, skill, and a willingness to learn.
Remaining independent also places the business and marketing burdens on the creators' shoulders. In addition to working on the art, creators have to learn the mechanics of distribution networks, financial models, marketing. There is a steep learning curve. The reward for this extra effort, however, is greater creative control, a deeper connection with fans, and the opportunity to maintain ownership of one’s work and participate in more of the financial upside.
While difficult, a successful independent career is possible. We think the independent path will lead to more voices in arts, media, and entertainment. At Nonfiction, our core belief is that a world with more storytellers is a better world.
Our approach with Nonfiction Notes.
Using a mix of case studies, interviews, essays, and observations from the field, we will explore the brand and marketing strategies companies and artists in music, film, publishing, sports, gaming, and cultural institutions are using to build audiences. What we know from our experience, is having a clear strategy allows companies and artists to act with purpose in a changing landscape.
We will look back in time, deconstructing case studies from the past. We will also cover those pushing forward at the forefront of innovation in arts, media, and entertainment today. By investigating historical and contemporary stories, we will see if these two perspectives can be used together.
Nonfiction is a brand studio for arts, media, and entertainment companies committed to creative expression. Through this newsletter, we aim to provide valuable insight for artists, storytellers, and platforms. In doing so, we aim to empower people and companies to build authentic and sustainable audiences and businesses.
We are inspired by the rise of independent artists and the ecosystem surrounding them. Our aim is to be an essential partner to the people building the new structures of arts, media, and entertainment.
Your participation.
We invite your active participation in this endeavor. You will find opportunities to engage and offer your opinion in the newsletter and our blog posts. Your input is vital.
We also hope to bring others on board, individuals who are also passionate about building a sustainable and authentic arts, media, and entertainment industry.
We believe the future of arts, media, and entertainment has more voices, not fewer. Authentically building a sustainable audience is hard work. Hopefully, this newsletter can be one small part of reducing the barriers to more creative storytelling in music, film, publishing, broadcasting, sports, gaming, and cultural institutions.
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