Storypulse™ creative intelligence

Make every film earn its budget.

Book a First Look

Storypulse™ finds your opportunity gap: where your video spend pays back, where it doesn’t, and the space you could own in your audience’s mind.

 

Then we close it for you.

The problem

You’re already spending on video. The question is: what are you getting in return?

 

Paid views stop when the spending does. And too few teams can say what any single film is worth. It's no wonder you're stuck with this.

72%

of views on company YouTube channels look paid for.

Share of company channel views

Look paid for​72%
Everything else​28%

 

What does “looks paid for” mean? 5,000+ views, but fewer than one like per 1,000. People who chose to watch tend to react. People who were served an ad mostly don’t.

7×

more new subscribers per view on company YouTube channels whose views are mostly earned, compared with those whose views look paid for.

New subscribers per 1,000 views

Mostly earned views​5.0
Mostly paid-looking views​0.7

An audience you earn is worth far more than one you buy. Most companies have it the wrong way round.

12×

The best creative can multiply the return on the same media spend up to 12 times.

How much each can multiply return

Being a well-known brand already​20×
Creative quality​12×
Targeting​1.1×

Being well known matters most. That takes years, not one campaign.

Sources: Casual Films, Company YouTube Benchmark, September 2026, 1,492 company channels; “looks paid for” means 5,000+ views with likes under 0.1% of views, a signal rather than proof of spend; subscribers per view are medians across 1,062 channels; links between measures show no cause. Thinkbox, The drivers of profitability, 2023, about 28,000 campaigns, mostly consumer brands; three of the factors it measured. Read our research.

How it works

Video on easy mode. From brand launches to UGC, we handle it.

 

Ecosystem

Your channels, your competitors and your audience, mapped. What’s working, and why.

Assessment

Every film read against what works, so you know what to keep, fix or stop.

Metadata

The titles, descriptions and tags that get each film found.

Distribution

Each film in front of the people it’s for, cut for every channel it runs on.

Measure and optimise

What each film does, tracked. Then improved as we go.

Every result feeds the next brief. Every lesson is banked and built on.

What changes

Far less cost and complexity in your video function.

A clear view of distribution

 

See where every film goes and who it reaches.

The right quality for the job

 

Spend on craft where it pays back, and save where it doesn’t.

Attribution

 

Know what each film does for the business. Clear, easy-to-read, and actionable data.

“Casual have directly contributed to the health of our business. To produce the same work with our internal team would have required at least 4x more people and significantly more expense and complexity.”

Brand Program Manager, technology company (5,000+ employees)

How we find your gap

Who is this film actually for?

 

It's the most important question in the business. We answer it with six questions, using what your audience already watches, says and searches for.

01

Who they are

The people you need to reach.

02

What they believe

What they think of you and your category today.

03

What they want

The problem they’re trying to solve.

Your
audience

04

What you need them to do

The one action that counts.

05

What blocks them

The doubt or habit in the way.

06

What will convince them

The proof they’ll actually believe.

Where the answers come fromYour films and postsWhat people say under themWhat they search forYour competitors’ audiences

Your white space

Stop sounding like your competitors. Own a subject they can’t.

 

Well-executed is now table stakes. What stands out is real people and subject matter you can make your own.

The cornerstone

Your purpose

Start with why your business exists. Then every film has a reason to exist too, and your channel stops being a string of one-offs.

✓  A channel worth following✓  Films that build on each other✓  Ideas that don’t run dry

Where your white space is

Not owned bya competitorWhat youalready haveWhat your audiencealready rewardsYour whitespace

We name one subject, with the proof behind it.

The plan sets out

01

The purpose every film serves

02

The aim of every channel, and who it is for

03

What people should think, feel and do

04

What to make, recut or stop

One partner

Casual finds the gap, makes the films and gets them seen.

 

One brief, one team, from First Look to final numbers. Your story never gets lost in translation through the process.

A portrait with notes on story, audience and setting drawn over it

Storypulse™

Finds the gap

Reads what’s working for you and your competitors, and decodes your audience. See Storypulse™

A camera operator on a Casual shoot

Production

Makes the films

Eight offices. Seven countries. Backed by the Casual Guarantee.

Storypulse™ measurement

Distribution

Gets them seen, and measures them

Metadata, distribution and measurement, handled for you.

The evidence

What we know, and how we know it.

 

We read a year of uploads from 1,492 company channels, the annual filings of 817 companies and twenty years of our own films. This is what it shows.

A set build with a projected waterfall, behind the scenes on a Casual shootA presenter at a conference, from a Casual filmA shopkeeper serving a customer, from a Casual filmA portrait from a Casual film
1,621

company and brand YouTube channels in our benchmark

177,759

videos from the past year, read one by one

70.7bn

views on a year of uploads from 1,492 company channels

817

company annual filings read for what YouTube brings in

5,704

recorded films from brief to delivery for 805 clients (and counting)

324

verified findings on what makes films work

250+

awards won by Casual films

500,000+

data points across the benchmark

What it shows

7×

more views per subscriber a year on fast-growing brand channels that earn their audience than on Fortune 500 and Global 2000 channels.

Views per subscriber a year

Fast growers that earn their audience​17.0
Fortune 500 and Global 2000​2.3

The fast growers also post about four times as often: 7.2 uploads a week against 1.8.

0

of the 62 companies whose annual filings mention YouTube put a number on the leads, sales or revenue it brings in.

Company filings read

Mention YouTube​62
Say what it brings in​0

From 514 US filers and 303 UK and EU annual reports. Where YouTube comes up, it is mostly as a competitor, a partner or a place for investor news.

9 of 30

company channels link at least one upload in ten to a place to act, such as a sign-up, a demo or a dealer.

Channels with a trackable link to act

Link to a place to act​9
Don’t​21

So fewer than a third can count a single step from a film to a place to act.

Sources: Casual Films, Company YouTube Benchmark, read through the YouTube API, September 2026 (fast growers: 75 mostly earned brand channels with 10,000+ subscribers, against 736 Fortune 500 and Global 2000 channels; links between measures show no cause). Company filings: 514 US filers, September 2024 to September 2026, and 303 UK and EU annual reports. YouTube Channel Objectives Audit, September 2026 (30 channels, 5,636 uploads). Stills from Casual. Read the research behind it.

Start small

Start with a First Look.

A First LookWhat’s working, in about a week​
The strategyA plan for the year, in about eight weeks​
The yearPlan, films, distribution and measurement together. Stop at six months if you like.​​
​
Start3 months6 months9 months12 months

Book a First Look

See your opportunity gap.

Your First Look shows what you earn and what you buy against five competitors, the space you can own in your audience’s mind and what to do next.

1

Tell us a bit about your company.

2

We’ll come back to you with any questions.

3

Your First Look arrives within five working days, with a 30-minute walkthrough.

It’s for B2B companies already publishing films on YouTube or LinkedIn.

Questions

Can’t see your question? Email us at info@casualfilms.com.

It finds your opportunity gap, and then we close it. We read the films you and your competitors already publish and set them against our own research and twenty years of making films. Then we handle the rest: the metadata that gets each film found, the distribution, and measuring and improving as we go. When you need new films, we make them.

Within a week. Your First Look arrives within five working days, with a 30-minute walkthrough. A plan for the year takes about eight weeks.

Yes. We set the titles, descriptions and tags, put each film on the channels where your audience will see it, and track what it does. You get a clear view of where every film goes and who it reaches.

It shows where your money already goes and what it returns. You spend on craft where it pays back and save where it doesn’t, and you stop paying for views that never become an audience. Because we handle the work end to end, your team doesn’t have to grow to keep up.

Every recommendation comes with the reasoning and evidence behind it. So when someone asks why this film, why now and what it should achieve, you’ll have a better answer than an impressions count. Once it’s out, Storypulse™ measures how the audience actually responded. Which is the honest answer to “did it work?”

Some of it, yes. And the plan tells you which. Some films are worth making properly. Some your own team can shoot on a phone. AI speeds a lot of the work up, but it won’t replace the real people your audience responds to.

No. We do the work: the analysis, the metadata, the distribution and the measurement. There’s nothing for your team to run.

Because the judgement comes from making films. Lots of them. Twenty years, 5,704 films and cuts for 805 clients, and a habit of asking which ones actually worked.

It reads your team’s films the way it reads everyone’s: what each one does, and what would make it land. The reads come to you. And we hold the films we make for you to exactly the same standard, so you’ll see those too.

No. A number doesn’t tell you what to fix. Every read says what a film does and what would make it land.

You can, and the plan is yours to keep either way. The hard part to build in-house is the comparison: your channels set against your peers’, with every film read the same way.

We agree how it’s handled before anything starts, in writing and in line with your own AI rules. Anything we publish only ever uses public films.