It all starts here

00:00:00:23 - 00:00:16:20
Lydia
This is the Audience Connection podcast presented by Casual, the video partner for Global Brands. Nine offices on four continents, creating impactful stories on a global scale with a local touch. I'm your host, Lydia Chan.

00:00:16:20 - 00:00:54:14
Lydia
In this episode, I'm joined by Brad Argent, the head of Ancestry Studios and a real visionary storyteller who is redefining how we use authentic narratives to inspire curiosity and build trust with audiences. Brad has spent nearly two decades bringing Ancestry's mission to life through innovative content and what he calls unbranded storytelling. Together, we had a fascinating conversation about the unique challenges of creating stories that inspire curiosity, the balance between confirmation and transformation narratives, and how you build trust by actually letting go.

00:00:54:16 - 00:01:11:15
Lydia
Brad also shared his insights on navigating the long game of content creation and why thinking beyond traditional advertising is the next evolution for brands. You'll definitely find nuggets of useful information in this one. Let's dive in.

00:01:15:14 - 00:01:33:11
Lydia
All right. Well, I'm really excited for our guest today. He is Brad Argent, the head of Ancestry Studios. So for the few of us who are unfamiliar, Ancestry is the global leader in family history and consumer genomics.

00:01:33:13 - 00:01:35:07
Lydia
Brad, welcome to the show.

00:01:35:09 - 00:01:37:19
Brad
Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to be here.

00:01:37:21 - 00:01:57:13
Lydia
Yeah, I'm super excited for our conversation. I want to start with, really, how you got to where you are today, right? You know, looking at your background, you have a background in psychology. This is some consulting. And now you're this kind of incredible storyteller going all around the world telling these amazing, amazing stories. So, yeah. Tell us how you got to where you are today.

00:02:00:00 - 00:02:25:22
Brad
Yeah, I look at you. It's, I'll give you the elevator pitch rather than the detailed view, and I look, I, I've done a few things that worked, mostly with technology. I did a stint in advertising in the digital space, pre-internet, bubble bursting. I spent a bit of time after that doing some consultancy work.

00:02:25:22 - 00:02:55:19
Brad
And, you know, I've always had an interest in family history. And then back in 2007, I wasn't doing much, and I was really enjoying not doing much, you know, and I noticed this dates me terribly. And since Ancestry was advertising for people to start their Australian business. And of course, this advertisement was in the newspaper.

00:02:55:21 - 00:03:20:21
Brad
Some of you might remember what those things were; they were printed, and anyway, I applied, and, you know, you very rarely get a job that's a hobby, but you've got to give it a shot, right? And, and I was lucky enough to land the gig with someone else. It was two of us. A very smart woman called, Deborah Chesterton.

00:03:20:23 - 00:03:46:10
Brad
And between us, we had to divide and conquer. You know, what we needed to do in Australia to get the business established? And when it came to needing a spokesperson for the business, I wasn't quick enough. And Deborah said she didn't want to do it. So we kind of went, okay, where I will, I need to be faster.

00:03:46:12 - 00:04:11:11
Brad
And so I started doing a, you know, doing the spokesperson work, leaning a little bit more into PR, you know, we've used PR agencies for as long as I can remember in ancestry, and they're very effective. But, you know, you need somebody to represent the brand. Anyway, I did that, and I had been doing that really ever since I started almost 18 years ago.

00:04:14:20 - 00:04:57:20
Brad
And it got to a point where, probably about 8 or 9 years ago. I was looking for something a little bit different to do. And, you know, we started to see things started to see this trend happening. And I made a video with a company called Momondo, and it became a viral hit. But what was really interesting for us was that it had no mention of ancestry in it at all.

00:04:57:22 - 00:05:16:14
Brad
It was us, and it was certainly our product that was used. We DNA tested a group of people, and they ended up being from places that they did not expect. And there actually ended up being two of those random people who were related, and they did not expect that either. So it was a big, it was actually a very big moment.

00:05:16:14 - 00:05:45:18
Brad
And it's been a very successful video for Momondo. That is now, I think, what they now call kayak. And what we noticed was, despite the fact that we had no branding in the show. We saw an uplift in kits, in DNA kits, out in the consumer genomic space, and a very significant uplift, and it was the start of a journey for us.

00:05:45:20 - 00:06:14:04
Brad
Oh okay, maybe there's a way that we can tell stories that isn't an advertisement that's a narrative. So essentially, after that, I was essentially told, Hey, go and work out how to make television. Yeah, that's kind of how we got to where we are today.

00:06:14:06 - 00:06:47:18
Lydia
Which is pretty amazing, right? Because, you know, Ancestry has so many successful projects under the belt and still ongoing, I want to start by defining who your audience is and that it's so, I imagine, really difficult to have that one very specific definition. Right. Because we're all united by this interest in personal history, cultural identity, you know, human connections.

00:06:47:18 - 00:06:54:08
Lydia
Right? So, you know, your audience can really range from many types of people.

00:06:54:10 - 00:07:17:11
Brad
Absolutely. It can, you know, if I wanted to, give you a really short answer. Our audience is anybody who's curious, you know, but to, you know, to pull back into sort of a marketing focus when you spend quite a lot of time and energy trying to understand our audience at a more granular level.

00:07:17:11 - 00:07:57:23
Brad
And, you know, I can't speak with any real title, only consumer insights stuff that we do, but we do segment our audience. In quite a detailed way. And it's a very scientific method that the team uses. But from the perspective of Ancestry Studios, the audience that we are trying to reach is those people who are trying to, I think, consider the product or service, you know, who've seen it around, because we have wonderful unprompted brand recognition.

00:07:57:23 - 00:08:18:22
Brad
Right? So we don't have a branding issue. People know who we are. Awareness is not the problem. The problem that we're trying to solve for is demand. So the people that we want to speak to are people who've heard of us before, have a vague idea of what we do, and have some interest in finding out more about who they are.

00:08:19:00 - 00:08:41:09
Brad
But it's always one of those things that you don't have to do today. There's no real urgency around it. You know, it was off early on. It was saying family history was seen as one of those things that you do when you retire. Because historically, it had time to do it. And, you know, these days so much is available online.

00:08:41:11 - 00:09:12:10
Brad
It is the kind of thing you can do with some immediacy. And so that's what we did. We decided, how do we get people interested? How do we create demand? And so the audience that we're trying to reach is the curious. They're already aware of us. They understand at least some level of the products and services we provide, but they don't have a reason to do it just now.

00:09:14:19 - 00:09:40:23
Lydia
So then how do you, I guess we, or think about the type of content that you're creating, right? My assumption would be, just thinking about, you know, the types of shows produced by Ancestry. It could be, you know, maybe fans of mystery and investigation. Right. You know, a diverse audience exploring identity, right?

00:09:40:23 - 00:10:09:03
Brad
Yeah. There's a lot of nuance to the kinds of programming that we create. It's all a detective story. Right? And family history is really about snooping on our ancestors, finding out what they got up to. Right? That's the hook. It's uncovering a mystery. And so there's a very strong element of that to everything that we do.

00:10:09:05 - 00:10:41:15
Brad
So, yeah, there's that. But we explore notions and stories of identity. And I think all of it is a journey of self-discovery. It's just we don't always frame it that way. You know, if you were trying to tell somebody, you should do your family history because you'll get a better understanding of who you are, you'll have some greater sense of identity, and you'll go on this wonderful, magical, mystical journey.

00:10:41:17 - 00:11:04:16
Brad
It's a little too much to take in, so you have to, I use a phrase, you know, if you want to fix it up, you have to dumb it down. Right. You can't go in selling a big idea. You've got to sell something small and consumable. So we do look at things as.

00:11:04:16 - 00:11:42:03
Brad
Is this about identity? Is this story about discovery? Is this a mystery that we're trying to solve? And everything breaks down into one of two types of stories. They become stories of confirmation or stories of transformation. So, you know, the way we frame most things is that here is an individual who is uncovering something about themselves.

00:11:42:05 - 00:12:13:10
Brad
And the things that they uncover are either things that really resonate with them and make them go, Absolutely, that is who I am. And that is why I am like this. Because with my ancestors, I can see their stories coming through me. So, you know, I like to paint because my three-times-great-grandfather was an artist, so I can see that running through me.

00:12:13:12 - 00:12:43:07
Brad
Or it's a story of transformation where it's like, you know, I can see how all my ancestors have really struggled. And yet here I am being successful or having broken out of that and a background of, you know, poverty and something, and you can see people. And it's one of the things I so much love about the work that I do: you see them become someone else.

00:12:43:09 - 00:13:22:14
Brad
Yeah. And it's such a privilege. You know, I often frame it as in the work that we do, we create cool memories for people that they will take with them for the rest of their lives. And though I might sound like a big and somewhat grandiose thing, it happens. And what I often remind my colleagues at Ancestry is that when you see it happening and you see it on the screen, what you need to remember is thousands and thousands of those moments are happening every day without a camera.

00:13:22:16 - 00:13:24:09
Lydia
Yes.

00:13:24:11 - 00:13:28:20
Brad
And so all we're doing is pushing record.

00:13:28:22 - 00:13:57:22
Lydia
Yeah, yeah. And that's the connection part, right? It's like, you know, this one story's going to resonate with so many people. Right. So going back to storytelling as a demand driver and looking at confirmation versus confirmation stories versus transformation stories, is there one that, for lack of a better word, works better than the other?

00:13:57:22 - 00:14:03:03
Brad
I don't think so, because I think they speak to. Each story speaks to somebody differently, and everybody takes away something a little bit different. I personally prefer the drama of a transformation. I think it plays out better. It's easier, you know, if you, if you start sort of diving into the mechanics of filming, it's easier to get a reaction from somebody when there is a transformation story.

00:14:36:01 - 00:14:54:04
Brad
Because it can be such a shift. But a confirmation story told the right way can be equally as powerful, even if it isn't necessarily as emotionally moving.

00:14:54:06 - 00:14:54:23
Lydia
Yeah.

00:14:55:01 - 00:15:23:01
Brad
But, you know, could we all have those stories in our family? It was like, oh, you know, my great-grandfather was Scottish, I think. Or, you know, we've always celebrated Irish, St. Patrick's Day. So, you know, I want to just prove that there's that connection so they can work as the kinds of stories that might more easily pull people in those confirmation stories.

00:15:23:03 - 00:15:52:07
Brad
Sometimes the transformation stories can be so powerful that people might be slightly reluctant to, you know, if you watch somebody take a DNA test and get a result that really contradicts what they believe about themselves. The risk you run with those kinds of stories is that somebody might go, Oh, well, I'm not sure I want to experience that.

00:15:52:11 - 00:16:19:21
Brad
I'm not ready for that. And it is something that is a concern that we have when we do these things, which is why the vast bulk of what we do is, you know, just a confirmation thing. Or, you know, revealing something that is unknown, but I have my personal preference for the transformation because it's more drama.

00:16:19:23 - 00:16:37:22
Lydia
Yeah. No, that's really interesting. I mean, I never thought about that. Right? Is how, I guess, brands can put out stories that. I mean, at the end of the day, you want stories to touch people, right? But, you know, as you mentioned, it can touch kind of like the emotion of fear. Right. Or this kind of reluctance of finding something out.

00:16:42:02 - 00:17:16:18
Brad
It can, but all in all, when that happens. Well, I think it does delay it because there is, if you like, the other side of that coin, which is if you are watching, somebody goes through something that is, you know, quite transformative, and so, for example, they discover one of their parents is not a biological parent, and they are finding out who their real biological family is.

00:17:16:19 - 00:17:37:23
Brad
It can be initially quite a bit as a viewer. Oh, that's… I'm not sure I want to know that. But then as you watch them go through it and process it and come to a good place with it, what it does is it normalizes and socializes the behavior. So it removes a lot of the stigma around it.

00:17:38:01 - 00:18:08:18
Brad
And I'm always eternally grateful to people who go through those very personal moments on camera because they're making it easier for other people to do that. They're making it something that is okay to talk about, and, you know, I think that is the goal, an issue initially for us when we, certainly when I started, back in 2007, what I wanted to do was make family history one of those things that could be a dinner table conversation.

00:18:08:18 - 00:18:39:03
Brad
It's okay to talk about. It was a little stuffy and dull, and it was kind of sitting in the same category as stamp collecting, and not that I want to throw any shade on flat lists out there. It's an awesome hobby, but I wanted to create something that wanted to make it cool. And you know. Part of that process is to normalize and socialize it. And you get a, you know, you have to have faith.

00:18:46:19 - 00:19:08:09
Lydia
Yeah. Yeah. So I want to, I guess, explore when, when we're looking at confirmation stories versus transformation stories, I imagine the transformation stories take a longer time to tell or are more like a longer form.

00:19:08:09 - 00:19:09:00
Brad
It does.

00:19:09:02 - 00:19:10:17
Lydia
Yeah. Okay.

00:19:10:19 - 00:20:00:01
Brad
Yeah, it does because you need, you know, you can't just rip the band idols. You need to ease somebody into that process. And you know, as a viewer, you want to see them. You know, thinking about it, going through the motions of that and getting to, getting to a point where you're seeing them slowly become, adjusting their sense of self based on this new information, and that is what we do when we create this kind of content; regardless of what type of story it is, it is highly curated.

00:20:00:02 - 00:20:31:02
Brad
So we try and understand, all right, who is the person that we're telling the story about, you know, get a sense of what their personality like? What are they curious about? And then we do our research, and we find stories that we know will resonate with that individual. It's a very, highly curated, highly thought about process.

00:20:31:04 - 00:21:06:10
Brad
We don't just. Throw random history in front of them. It's selected. Yeah. And, I look, you know, the reality of that is that's just the nature of filmmaking, right? You don't have the luxury of the time to, you know, spend hours and hours, film hours and hours of research where it's just, look, here's another agricultural labor in the 19th century, that stuff that can be a little dull.

00:21:06:13 - 00:21:19:13
Brad
What you're looking for is that nugget that's going to move this person along. So there's a bunch of work that happens behind the scenes to create a moment in the story.

00:21:19:14 - 00:21:43:18
Lydia
Yeah. I mean, and that's, you know, where the kind of beauty and art of filmmaking comes in, right? We, you know, we have to not follow those rules, if you will, but we have to leverage, you know, the arc of storytelling really to be able to bring these stories to life and make them engaging.

00:21:43:20 - 00:22:23:09
Brad
Yeah. And look, you know, I've kind of come up with this idea of what we call unbranded content, which is what we make. And the premise behind that is in the narratives that we create and the stories that we tell, we don't mention the brands, we don't necessarily show the product, unless it moves the narrative forward, unless there is, you know, an authentic and organic appearance of something in order that drives the story forward.

00:22:23:11 - 00:22:46:01
Brad
And there's a couple of reasons for that video. One of them is, I don't want to disrupt a narrative by having to force a product placement in or, you know, a brand mentioned in, but also, I think what I don't want is, don't want to it's not necessary for me to do that because I don't have a brand awareness.

00:22:46:03 - 00:23:12:18
Brad
Okay. So what we do is we create the beautiful story, and then we'll put the brand at either end of it, or we use our own talent in it so that there's a strong association between the person appearing on screen and the brand. So it's a lovely way to get a brand in without really getting a brand.

00:23:12:18 - 00:24:01:23
Brad
And, I think any brand that has great awareness but is just trying to drive demand can use this. It's not that there's nothing necessarily special or magical about Ancestry as a brand. Sure. We have, you know, our products, history, and identity products, if you like. That lends itself to a particular type of storytelling, but I think any brand that is trying to solve this problem of demand, as opposed to a problem of awareness, can use storytelling to do that, because a brand is a story, so tell it.

00:24:05:22 - 00:24:30:00
Lydia
Yeah. Absolutely. I think every brand has a story to tell. Right? And it's all about kind of laddering back up to what is truly the mission or the vision of your brand. And usually it's something sometimes quite lofty. Right. Yeah. And so, and that's where, you know, the stories can parallel and come in to that song.

00:24:30:00 - 00:24:40:05
Lydia
Does it ladder back up to this mission or this vision? That it doesn't have to be about a particular product or a particular service.

00:24:40:07 - 00:25:34:10
Brad
Yeah. But the, the. It's a very easy thing to say. It's quite a difficult thing to execute. And I think that the challenge is the internal challenges of that. Trust, you know. Making, you know, filming stuff is not cheap. And, you know, you. We don't we collaborate quite a lot. We make our own stuff occasionally, but often we are collaborating more often than not. We're collaborating, and we will pull back from editorial control even to the things that we are funding, part-funding more often.

00:25:34:12 - 00:26:04:19
Brad
Because, and the reason for that is because we trust the people we're creating with to tell the story now will consult. Absolutely. Because, you know, we want to tell the kinds of stories that we feel are, you know, right. For the brand. But we won't stop the creative people from being creative because ultimately, that's what you're paying for.

00:26:04:21 - 00:26:06:00
Lydia
Yeah.

00:26:06:02 - 00:26:29:11
Brad
You know, it gives them the scope. Now, that requires a significant amount of trust. And it's not just trust between ourselves and our creative partners. It's internal trust where you're going to say, I need to spend money to make something that doesn't mention the brand.

00:26:31:14 - 00:26:36:03
Lydia
Yeah. How do you make that case? How do you get, I mean?

00:26:36:05 - 00:26:40:18
Brad
Yeah, well, I mean, the way that we got that buy-in was almost by accident with the Momondo video, which we, you know, didn't cost us a lot. We were able to do it kind of under the radar internally. It was kind of risky because it was essentially cause-based marketing. It was successful. So really, the way that we did it was almost a guerrilla campaign.

00:27:12:20 - 00:27:46:09
Brad
All right. We did it without a huge amount of detail involved. And we saw the power of it. And then you can, and look, it wasn't just that one thing. We started doing a few other things. We would appear in shows to move a story along and explain something. And what we saw was, oh, okay, we would get a spike in sales from, you know, appearing in a documentary.

00:27:46:11 - 00:28:25:16
Brad
And then what we discovered is, well, hang on, if these things are being broadcast and we buy a spot. In a show that we are also in. It was a multiplier. That spot would perform 2 or 3 times better than it would if we weren't in the show. And so we were coming. Okay, there's definitely some positive correlation between us telling a story and performance now, and you still have more art than science.

00:28:25:18 - 00:29:05:13
Brad
It's becoming, you know, given the nature of, you know, the content consumption world, it's difficult to tell who's consuming what and when these days. So there is an element of, again, trust in the process. And often we only see the effect that these things have when they disappear. So you've got to, you know, it is you going to believe I and that's hard; that requires courage.

00:29:05:15 - 00:29:43:20
Brad
And. Not like not everybody can do that because, you know, it is a significant amount of money. It's hard to go. And I, I'm going to take $6 million out of an advertising budget that I can measure to the nth degree and put it into something that I just think is going to work. Yeah, that's massive credit to the senior leadership team at Ancestry because they have continually supported this approach.

00:29:43:22 - 00:29:55:05
Brad
And, you know, sure, there's been evidence to, you know, to support that and to validate that support. But it requires trust. And I'm eternally grateful for it.

00:30:01:14 - 00:30:28:04
Lydia
Yeah. And, you know, trust for your audience to I and that this is something that we are genuinely investing in, and we are, you know, utilizing our trusted kind of partners who can really, you know, be the ones to tell this story. Right. And going, kind of, putting our trust fully in them as well to tell the story.

00:30:28:08 - 00:30:36:12
Lydia
Right, versus having that story come from all these various different stakeholders or coming from the brand.

00:30:36:14 - 00:30:50:04
Brad
Yeah. And look, and that is it. That is difficult. Letting go is difficult. But it's worthwhile, you know, it.

00:30:50:06 - 00:31:11:11
Brad
And it's not. And look, I mean, no disrespect to, you know, advertising or marketing. Agencies because they do a brilliant job, and, you know, we continue to work with them across multiple platforms, but this kind of storytelling requires something different.

00:31:11:13 - 00:31:46:01
Brad
And it requires you connecting with the right kinds of storytellers. And so, yeah, not really knowing anybody's individual situation, I would say that for most people, for most brands out there, they don't have the existing relationships that they need to do this. They're going to need to get to build new relationships and build new trust relationships. And there are a whole bunch of people out there that can help you with that.

00:31:46:01 - 00:32:12:06
Brad
I mean, we work with the very talented people at UTA to help us find production companies and directors who can work with us and help us tell the story. But, you know, that's not a turnkey solution. It requires building relationships and trusting one another. Yeah. You know, trust and verify, trust and verify.

00:32:12:07 - 00:32:34:01
Lydia
So, Brad, along the kind of similar lines, in your opinion, where should brands storytelling sit? Right. Or on brands, brand storytelling within the organization. Right. Is it marketing, is it PR, or is it comms? Is it a separate function?

00:32:34:03 - 00:33:17:07
Brad
Yeah. I mean, it's a very interesting question that I, we sit within the creative team, and there's a reason for that is partly because I, you know, the guys in Ancestry Studios are creative people. And you know, the one thing creative people need above all else is other creative people. Yeah. So, the relationships that we have with comms team, with marketing, are deep.

00:33:17:08 - 00:33:46:10
Brad
And it's not just that, you know, we work very closely with finance, very closely with our legal department. We work very closely with social media teams. But I think at its heart, it has to be creative because the tendency that you have, if you shift more towards a marketing or a comms environment, is about marketing and comms objectives as opposed to creative objectives.

00:33:46:12 - 00:34:11:22
Brad
And, not, you know, not that there isn't oversight from both marketing and comms. Absolutely is. And I provide really good advice to us, and we consult with them frequently. But the heart of it for me lies in creative, because ultimately it is a creative process.

00:34:12:00 - 00:34:45:09
Lydia
Yeah. A whole separate department then, of course, separate from them. So, Brad, I want to, kind of, get into a little bit of the nitty-gritty when it comes to, like, multi-platform, you know, channel distribution. And so can you talk a little bit about the approach, like the channel strategy approach? So, you know, what if I kind of look at specifically social and say YouTube, right?

00:34:45:09 - 00:35:10:22
Lydia
I see a lot of content. A lot of, you know, various different, again, programs from Ancestry. Yeah. Even talking about output length, right? Like that, because that's the question we're always asked, like, how long should this piece be? Is it ten minutes or five minutes? Is it, you know, 50 minutes when we're looking at putting it on streaming platforms, PBS, you know, etc.?

00:35:11:00 - 00:35:44:01
Brad
Yeah. So look, I mean, it's a very interesting question. And, you know, we've debated it quite a bit before we kind of got to where we are. So I will let, let's look, let's talk about content length runtime. Think short-form content has a place. Absolutely. It's stackable. It can be intriguing.

00:35:44:03 - 00:36:12:20
Brad
And I think it can activate people. And so whenever we create stuff, we create things with multiple platforms in mind. So are we going to pull a scene list out of here? We need something that's under three minutes for Instagram. And maybe for. We need something that's shot portrait for TikTok. So we do think about those things.

00:36:12:20 - 00:36:49:10
Brad
But when we're creating the content, if we're creating something for broadcast, we kind of, you know, already have predefined runtimes. But if we're creating something where there isn't any real fixed boundaries, what really determines runtime is budget. Ultimately, but narrative, it should be driven by narrative. It should tell the story. If the story takes 12 minutes, the runtime is 12 minutes.

00:36:49:10 - 00:37:24:07
Brad
If it takes 57 minutes, that's the runtime. What we're finding about content consumption, particularly on YouTube, is people are very comfortable watching longform on YouTube. And, you know, we were considering that 12 months ago, maybe 18 months ago now. We were considering a fast home, which, you know, which is essentially a sub channel with a specific category or feel to it.

00:37:24:09 - 00:37:47:05
Brad
And we were looking at that, and we were looking at how do we become part of that, and what was necessary for us in order to participate in that was to license a bunch of content that we could play out on that fast channel. And, you know, I was thinking about that, and I kind of went, well, I have a YouTube channel.

00:37:47:07 - 00:38:15:16
Brad
Why don't I just license content for YouTube? And then I can control the content. I can determine whether or not I want to monetize it and have advertising on it. And there's a debate for and against that. But I can then cultivate my own audience, and I can use other channels, such as social channels, to drive people to that channel to participate.

00:38:15:18 - 00:38:49:07
Brad
And you know that our YouTube channel is not just about here's a bunch of long-form content. There's a little bit of short form. There's content about the product, content about the services. This is how you start your family history. This is why you would take a DNA test. So it allows us to serve people like, or give them access to more brand-focused content in the guise of simply a family history channel, if you like.

00:38:49:09 - 00:39:17:21
Brad
And we work with a partner, Little Dot Studios, who manage a lot of our YouTube content for us. And, it's been a game changer. Okay. You know, it's one of those things that just makes so much sense to outsource because they understood the platform and understood how to get people engaged on it.

00:39:17:23 - 00:39:49:01
Brad
How to get, you know, more views, longer views of things. And it's a great way for us to connect with our audience. So, you know, I think for us it's definitely the way forward. We will still make content and broadcast content. We would absolutely make streamer content. But we're now focusing more on acquiring content for our channel.

00:39:49:01 - 00:40:29:22
Brad
So licensing content and creating that place where people can come and consume that. It's been eye-opening, diving into the world of content licensing and the vagaries around that, but, you know, it's been fascinating, and, again, if you're, you know, if you're a brand out there, there's always going to be content that you kind of can access that will be supportive of the brand message that you're telling.

00:40:30:02 - 00:41:06:13
Brad
And. It's available. It's not always cheap. Yeah. But you know, and let's look to use an example, if you were a car manufacturer, why wouldn't you license back the catalog of Top Gear? Hey, you know on that show they're going to talk about cars that are not your cars. But that's okay because as a brand, you're confident enough with the product that you've got.

00:41:06:15 - 00:41:24:01
Brad
It's all right for them to talk about other cars because you're about cars. You're not just about your brand. You're about cars. And you know, again, that's a leap of faith that's required. But I think it's possible. I think it's possible for everyone.

00:41:24:02 - 00:41:47:21
Lydia
Yeah. Before our chat, I typed into ChatGPT, you know, what are the kind of top shows out there about genealogy, basically? And, you know, Ancestry shows came up as the top ones, but there are not many. Right. I think, or rather, they're somewhat hard to find. I think only maybe a couple of auto shows kind of came out of that.

00:41:47:21 - 00:41:49:00
Lydia
Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:49:01 - 00:42:14:15
Brad
Yeah. I looked at, you know, they obviously the flagship is Who Do You Think You Are, a brilliant series that has been running for many, many years in the UK and Australia. And it ran for like 7 or 8 seasons in the US. It's a beautiful show. We make a show in the UK called DNA Journey, which we actually licensed for our US and Canada.

00:42:14:16 - 00:42:47:21
Brad
YouTube channels. It's a British show with British talent in it, but it seems to resonate very well with U.S. audiences. Making a brand new series out here in Australia, which I just wrapped on a couple of days ago. So most of the distributors that we talked to tell us there is an appetite for more of this type of content.

00:42:47:23 - 00:42:58:23
Brad
One of the challenges that we often face, though, is an asset. Like, who do you think you are, that you are so good that everything is compared against it?

00:42:59:01 - 00:43:32:09
Brad
So it can be, you know, it could be a challenge to convince distributors that, you know, it's worth investing in something else. But, yeah, there is space out there for more. Absolutely. And, you know, a large chunk of my time is spent developing potential shows. And anybody who's spent any time in the, you know, development environment knows you have to develop 100 shows before one gets picked up.

00:43:32:11 - 00:43:34:13
Lydia
Yeah. For sure.

00:43:34:14 - 00:43:49:08
Brad
And it is a long game. This show that we've just wrapped on took seven years to get right. Who Do You Think You Are took 14 years before they commissioned the first. First episode.

00:43:49:10 - 00:44:02:12
Lydia
Yeah. And I think that's really great to hear. Right. Because people kind of need to understand the time frame for these things.

00:44:02:13 - 00:44:11:04
Brad
Absolutely. And it is one of the challenges that we face.

00:44:11:06 - 00:44:34:00
Brad
If we get a commission today, I've got a couple of shows at the moment that I'm hoping will get commissioned if I get a commission today. I mean, we're, you know, right now we're in December 2024. I will be lucky if I see something on air in Q4 of 2025.

00:44:34:01 - 00:45:04:00
Brad
So, most, but not all, companies have a tendency to run on a 12-month cycle. And it's a challenge to get them interested in things that are right at the end of a 12-month period and to keep them motivated about it. And look, that's the best case; you know, the worst case is it's two years and, in some cases, 7 or 15 years.

00:45:04:01 - 00:45:18:01
Brad
But which is why you don't just pursue one idea; you pursue many, many things because so few of them will hit and even fewer will hit soon.

00:45:18:02 - 00:45:42:00
Lydia
Yeah. And Brad, I think that is a really great kind of segue. Way to wrap things up. In our conversation, what is sort of what's your advice, right, to our audience who's maybe looking to dig deeper into their brands and telling these stories. And you know, it's sort of just hearing like, hey, these things don't come to fruition right away.

00:45:42:00 - 00:45:48:20
Lydia
Right? So what advice do you have for them to make things happen?

00:45:48:22 - 00:46:22:03
Brad
Yeah. Look, if you are sort of thinking about, okay, how can I leverage, you know, leverage this for my brand, think outside the brand, find somebody who is good at making things. Find an agency. UTA is a great agency that we use, but there absolutely are others out there who can help you get into and navigate the creative space, because it's very different from other things that you might have done. It's not like making an ad; it's very different.

00:46:29:06 - 00:47:01:19
Brad
And create a trust relationship. You've really got, you know, and ultimately it's a risk, and you've got to take upon it if, you've got to believe in it, and if you're a brand who is considering playing in this space, you know, you have great brand awareness and just want to drive demand, you know how crucial.

00:47:01:21 - 00:47:30:09
Brad
Good at good demand activity can be to driving revenue. So you know there's an upside; if it works, you know there's an upside. And even if it doesn't work, at least you're creating something that is beautiful and enduring. And that's the other thing to keep in mind. You're creating content, and you're putting it out in the world. It has a very, very long tail.

00:47:30:11 - 00:48:00:12
Brad
So if it doesn't expect, you know, it might not be an immediate success. It might take a while for it to build momentum or build an audience, but it's always going to be there, particularly if you create it and you own a chunk of it. You know you have control over it. I think it's the next, the next logical phase in the evolution of major brands.

00:48:00:14 - 00:48:08:11
Lydia
All right, Brad, thank you so much for being on the show. I really enjoyed our conversations. I really appreciate your time.

00:48:08:13 - 00:48:11:10
Brad
It's a real pleasure, mate. You know, thanks for connecting.