CONTENTFRANCHISEARCHITECT

Most brands build content calendars.

I build intellectual property.

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Install your content operating system

A framework for designing, managing, and continuously improving a portfolio of repeatable content formats (franchises) aligned to business objectives. Content franchises = digital IP that builds brand equity.

The system is composed of recurring formats (franchises). Begin by defining the strategic inputs that guide the portfolio.

Define your strategic inputs:

1
Business objectives — What do you want content to achieve for the business?
2
ICPs — Who are you trying to reach through content?
3
Brand & product narratives — What stories and positioning should the audience remember?

Where AI operates:

ICP research — Synthesize audience research into the ICP definitions every downstream franchise inherits.

Output

The strategic foundation for the content system.

→ Feeds phase 2

First, define: how many recurring formats (franchises) should exist?

Then define each format's (franchise's):

1
Business objective — Why does it exist? (brand awareness, product adoption, thought leadership, lead capture)
2
ICP — Who is it for?
3
Audience journey stage — Where is the audience? (discover, evaluate, adopt, expand, advocate)
4
Narrative — Which brand or product story does it tell?
5
Structure — What repeatable mechanics make the format (franchise) work?
6
Primary + secondary platforms — What platform is it native to, and where does it live?
7
Primary KPI — How is success measured? (impressions, link clicks, watch time, demo requests, retention rate)

Where AI operates:

Structure research — Break down what makes proven franchises repeatable, so a new format's mechanics start from evidence rather than instinct.
Brief writing — Turn the defined objective, ICP, journey stage, and narrative into a production-ready brief.
Brainstorm partner — Pressure-test premises, angles, and structural variations before anything reaches production.
Edit, color, and audio — Optimization passes across the finishing stack.

Output

A portfolio of strategically defined, repeatable formats (franchises).

Every franchise serves a distinct business objective by moving a specific audience through a specific stage of its journey.

→ Feeds phase 3

For every franchise in your portfolio, run a continuous learning loop.

Run the learning loop:

1
Measure — Evaluate performance against the format's (franchise's) primary KPI.impressions, watch time, CTR, leads, product adoption, revenue influenced
2
Optimize — Identify what's driving or limiting performance.hook, thumbnail, title, caption, narrative, structure, distribution
3
Iterate — Apply learnings to future versions.scale winners, refine underperformers, launch spin-offs, reposition formats (franchises), retire formats (franchises) that no longer serve

Where AI operates:

Performance analysis — Read each franchise's numbers against its primary KPI rather than vanity metrics.
Optimization signals — Surface which variables are driving or capping performance — hook, thumbnail, title, narrative, distribution.
Iteration planning — Model where to scale, refine, spin off, or retire, then feed it back into the next plan.

Output

A continuously improving portfolio and a more effective content system.

↻ Loops back to plan

One Piece Cast Answer 50 of the Most Searched Questions About the Anime & Manga

50 Most Googled Questions · WIRED

BTS Guess Their Songs Played Backwards

Reverse the Verse · SiriusXM

What is Mr. Krabs' Net Worth?

Inside Bikini Bottom · Nickelodeon

One shoot.
Weeks of assets.
Across all surfaces.

Scroll to watch it fan out.

The AEO angle: detailed metadata, full transcripts, and chapter markers turn every video into a durable signal to LLMs — compounding into share of voice when ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini answer questions about your brand or product.

Numbers,
Not adjectives

1B+

views

WIRED Autocomplete Interview — the most-watched video franchise in Condé Nast history

— 350+ episodes
— Parodied by Saturday Night Live

NETFLIX

Now streaming

WIRED Autocomplete Interview

10+

years

in content strategy, video production, and brand-building

+150%

impressions

in under a year

~5x

baseline engagement

average performance of franchise content vs. non-franchise content

18%

engagement rate

on franchise episodes distributed via LinkedIn

Webby

Award nominee, 2024

"Mathematician Explains Infinity in 5 Levels of Difficulty"

MTV VMAs

featured

Nick on the Street, Nickelodeon

6-Figure

content budgets

and double-digit content production teams

Most brands build content calendars. I believe they should build intellectual property.

A calendar is disposable — a slot to fill, then forget. A franchise compounds. It has a premise you can recognize in one frame, a structure you can infinitely repeat, and a role in the funnel that gives it a reason to exist. Run enough of them at once, across the right audience journey stages, and they stop being just an awareness play. They become a content ecosystem that drives business results.

I've spent the last decade building that content operating system for brands. At WIRED, I took over the highest-performing social video franchise in Condé Nast history and scaled it past 300 episodes — and managed another franchise that earned a Webby nomination. At SiriusXM, I created the company's first original social video franchise, resulting in millions of views and engagements across platforms. At Nickelodeon, I created a franchise that wound up on the VMAs red carpet. At Teachable, I'm doing it again, but in the technology industry: building a content franchise architecture designed to increase brand and product awareness, consideration, and conversion.

The best marketing doesn't pay to interrupt attention. It creates something worth paying attention to.

What makes a franchise, a franchise?

Premise

One heartbeat concept a viewer recognizes in a single frame.

Structure

An iterative structure that is purpose-built for a particular platform.

Talent

Recurring, recognizable people — internal or external expert, creator, or celebrity — the audience comes back for.

Ecosystem

Repackaged across social platforms, blog, and email, so one shoot becomes weeks’ worth of assets.

Funnel role

A defined purpose — awareness, consideration, or conversion — so each franchise drives business results.

Target audience

The ICP you are trying to reach.

Franchise architecture

Scroll to see the funnel →

VideoSocialWebBlogEmailPodcastUGC

Every content franchise, at every stage of the funnel, carries the same set of multimedia extensions, cross-pollinating a myriad of marketing channels.