Brand-Building Media Company
Brand-Building and
Scripted Entertainment Podcasts
Our podcasts go beyond typical, boring talking-head productions. In addition to the full-length interview, we write and edit a compelling narrative non-fiction "news story" to bring out the "story-behind-the-story" of the podcast. These edited news stories are "broadcast ready" and can be used on your site, or sent to media outlets.
We also have experience creating scripted fiction podcasts for training. (Yes, entertainment podcasts are the new training tool!)
We also provide host services if you either don't have the time or the desire to interview.
Listen to snippets and samples of both, our "talking head" podcasts and edited narrative non-fiction stories.
What do you do when literally hundreds of thousands of tourists per year ride the train right past your town -- taking their tourist dollars with them -- on their way to Brugge? How do you get people to come to your little-known town? Why, you use entertainment as a tourist lead magnet, of course! ( A Jet2holidays survey showed that one in four people choose a specific vacation location based solely on reading about it in a novel. Further, bookings to those "novel places" were made wtihin one day of readers finishing the novel.
After doing the demographic and psychographic research, we decided that a cozy mystery novel would align with the demographics and psychographics of potential visitors. The results? With the Castle of the Counts (Gravensteen) and the Belfry playing heavily in the novel, the city saw a 17% and 25% increase in visitors to those areas respectively in 2024.
LOGLINE: In the shadows of Ghent's Gravensteen, where medieval whispers echo through stone, a priceless manuscript vanishes without a trace. As the Belfry's bells toll a warning, local librarian Sophie Van Damme finds herself tangled in a web of history and intrigue. With time ticking away in the Castle of the Counts, Sophie must unravel cryptic clues hidden in plain sight among Ghent's iconic landmarks. Can she crack the case before the culprit slips away into the mist-shrouded canals? 'A Waffle lot of Trouble in Ghent' - where cobblestone streets hold secrets, and every chime from the Belfry brings our sleuth one step closer to the truth!
BRAND-BUILDING PODCASTS
A major art marketing site reached out to use to host, produce and edit a series of "creative career pivots" as an aspirational lead-building tool to promote their products to newbie and seasoned artists. We suggested not just doing "talking head" podcasts, but also adding compelling NPR-like documentary-style features stories.
The story of how Christina Wells went from a 45-year-old nurse to a Broadway musical star.
Carla went from nearly 30 years as a 911 emergency and SWAT dispatcher to full-time, on-staff paid screenwriter.
Retired instructional designer Monica found creative freedom -- and income -- as an artist entrepreneur.
SCRIPTED PODCASTS
Scripted entertainment podcasts are the new training and lead-generation tool. Below are two samples of narrative story-based podcasts that got great results for our clients.
When a biopharma company wanted a unique, entertaining way to reinforce that it is often the "little missteps" that lead to big compliance violations, we suggested a podcast in the CBS Mystery Radio series genre. From episodes such as "Grime and Punishment" to "Clause and Effect," the series was the perfect format to suss out the mystery of root cause violations.
THE EXPERIENCE: Each episode focused on real FDA regulatory violations, using based-on-fact company cases. The mix was just enough fact (from the actual violations) and just enough fiction (in fake cases) to keep the stories interesting, yet accurate. The series was written in a style that could best be described as a cheeky parody of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater series of the mid-’70s and early ‘80s--complete with spooky sound effects and a voice talent with a Stacy Keach-like delivery. The outcome of the story is different for each choice the user makes.
THE RESULT: Other than listeners becoming completely engrossed in the story because of the active detective role they took on, this pharma giant reduced its FDA violations to ZERO after the Compliance Mystery Series was launched. (The previous FDA inspection resulted in more than a dozen violations.)
Due to proprietary information contained in the produced (audio) version of the podcast, we are unable to share the audio file. However, you can view the script where confidential information was redacted, and some details of the story were changed to protect confidential information.
Narrative Story-Based Version
Managers at an e-commerce company were getting so much pushback from employees who didn't understand how the company's corrective action policy worked, that they hired us to create an easy-to-understand, yet entertaining, way to explain the policy. Employees only saw a punitive intent behind the policy--dubbing the HR department "Probation Nation"--which managers had a hard time overcoming. Because employees stated they used podcasts on a daily basis, we chose that media as our platform.
THE PREMISE: We decided to embrace the "Probation Nation" moniker given by employees to the new HR policies, and create a podcast where the HR policy is personified and comes to life.
THE MARKETING COPY: We created a movie poster for the podcast that was placed through the company with a QR code for the podcast. We also sent out emails with this copy:
Performance Management gets such a bad rap. Just ask Patti, a corporate corrective action policy personified and come to life in this podcast. Patty feels just like you: misunderstood and wanting to live up to her potential.
Oh…and she also wants you to know she’s really not out to get you.
Long-form interview
