Screams! Laughter! Magic! What Brands Can Learn From Genre Entertainment

It's all about boosting your cultural connection and customer relevance

In the entertainment industry, genre is fundamentally important for emerging production houses. Understanding and using genre can help creators navigate the complex industry landscape and stand out in a crowded market. It can help with a framework for storytelling, finance and marketing. The American Film Market organization, for example, estimates that horror is one of the most profitable areas in film.

But the value of genre isn’t just for those in the industry. Understanding what makes the most popular ones so successful also provides some key takeaways for non-entertainment brands.

The best formats—whether in theaters or streaming—succeed because they offer more than mere consumption. They bring people together and allow them to share cultural moments. Viewers lose themselves in captivating narratives and explore wider worlds.

This holds true too for the best brands, too. Building emotionally relatable stories and creating worlds beyond your product are key to capturing consumer attention and nurturing a genuine fanbase.

Be more horror, and tap into ready-made fandom

Horror is a genre with a strong fan culture that easily migrates from social platforms to the small and even big screen. Recent hits have had a huge impact. Like Kane Parson’s The Backrooms series. Lo-fi and homespun, the semi-anthological YouTube offering based on an urban legend has percolated and grown, attracting an avid fanbase. Now in development as a feature film, it shows the power of recognizing an existing interest and building a brand from there.

Just like production companies looking for their first break, identifying a specific fanbase and creating something fresh for that audience can work well for brands. The comparison with horror is not about creating something on a shoestring, but about attention, care and crafting an emotional response. The recent Nosferatu, for example, doesn’t rely on jump scares. It’s a beautifully evocative piece of filmmaking.

Dover Street Market in London is a great example of a brand tapping into a well-defined fanbase in this way. It identified that gourmet fashion shoppers—those who religiously follow runway shows and read fashion critics—weren’t well served. By creating a high-level shopping experience that brought the runway to life through thoughtful curation and immersive design, it essentially invented the concept store. Celebrating its 20th birthday last year, it remains a stronghold of innovation.

At another end of the scale, Zara Home is a masterclass in spotting and catering to a captive fanbase. It understood the emerging fandom for interiors and now offers a one-stop shop for fashion-conscious shoppers who want the same level of quality for their homes as they do for their wardrobes.

Emulate comedy to bring audiences together

While horror excels at connecting to pre-existing fanbases, comedy conjures social experiences. Today’s humor hits bring youth audiences together, providing streams of characters and one-liners that become cultural currency. Shows such as What We Do in the Shadows have spawned endless memes and catchphrases, engaging younger audiences who want to be in the know.

Brand building is equally about connecting people and building culture—about moving with the times to nurture enduring fandom. Nike’s “Just Do It” or Budweiser’s “Whassup” are, in a sense, comparable to Homer Simpson”s “D’oh!”—enduring expressions of shared experience.

But comedy isn’t just about creating shareable cultural moments. It also knows how to make social commentary accessible. The likes of The Simpsons and South Park excel at tackling taboo topics head-on and responding to prevailing sentiments in near real time. Authentic social commentary can play an important role for brands. Just think of United Colors of Benetton in its 1980s and ’90s heyday when it called out racism, homophobia and global conflict through its graphic campaigns.

Follow the fantasy playbook on transmedia storytelling

Fantasy delivers an equally valuable lesson in brand building. The most successful recent fantasy series are the ultimate exemplars of how to create immersive brand worlds. The Last of Us, for example, blurs the boundaries between entertainment, gaming and branding as the pinnacle of transmedia storytelling. Netflix, meanwhile, is expanding its hugely successful fantasy properties such as Stranger Things into real-life experiences, closing the loop from on-screen to real-world immersive.

The possibilities for creative engagement are endless if you take your cues from fantasy in his way. This approach gave momentum to the Mattel Barbie juggernaut last year, reviving a brand many thought obsolete. There was also Balenciaga collaborating with Fortnite, LVMH opening a museum dedicated to Dior, and more recently Louis Vuitton launching an ice cream store in Italy. These are pure transmedia moments: marketing brands through cultural hubs, and creating both cultural and commercial impact.

The key takeaway is clear: Building emotional connections and cultural relevance is essential.

Brands need to think strategically about how to create those moments. Having the genre magic back of mind can point the way.

Whether by tapping into subcultures, crafting aspirational narratives or building multidimensional brand worlds, taking a leaf from the best in entertainment can deliver genuine fandom and enduring cultural relevance.