Now it’s Goodnight from the Sideshow: The case for entertainment as the growth mechanism, not the creative afterthought
by Harvey Austen, managing partner of Small World, part of the Mother Family
Ronnie Corbett was a family friend growing up. Which led, inevitably, to an infatuation with him. His stories. His timing. His craft. The way he made you wait half a second too long for a line, and then landed it perfectly. He’s also the reason for my love of sketch comedy.
Everything below is really just an argument for why brands should take entertainment as seriously as Ronnie Corbett did.
And that’s not just an opinion held by agencies like mine, look at who’s actually spending money on it.
Gap just hired former Paramount executive Pam Kaufman as its first chief entertainment officer, a genuine EVP role reporting straight to the CEO, with a new office on Sunset Boulevard. Prada brought in Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins to make a short film for its latest collection – not an ad. Lavazza launched a series directed by Francesca Scorsese, starring her and her father drinking espresso around New York. Albertsons Media Collective partnered with Procter & Gamble on a scripted family sitcom about a taco business. Dick’s Sporting Goods runs its own studio, Cookie Jar & A Dream, which has already won two Sports Emmys and premiered a documentary at SXSW alongside Netflix and A24.
Small World has taken the same approach with Mall Rats, a TikTok-first sitcom for our client Hot Topic, treating creators as cast and the stores as a set. It became Hot Topic’s top-performing franchise content of the year, delivering 17.1M+ views across its first two seasons and a 16 point gain in intent to visit stores. Proof that entertainment doesn’t just build goodwill, it moves culture and commerce. The partnership is now expanding into a new format, Hot Takes, a game show built on that momentum.
Proof that entertainment doesn’t just build goodwill, it moves culture and commerce. The partnership is now expanding into a new format, Hot Takes, a game show built on that momentum.
The research holds up too. System1 found that ads have quietly become less entertaining and more “sell, sell, sell” since the 1990s, while the features that actually build brands in people’s memory, like story, character and timing, have fallen out of fashion. When they tested what happens when brands bring those features back, in a 2025 study of almost 900 ads, the most entertaining examples produced 39% more memory of the brand, twice the lift in awareness, and nearly three times the lift in brand image.
Creating something that is entertaining isn’t just something ‘to show your mates down the pub’, it’s measurably effective.
