Gap just made a hire that most brands aren’t ready to talk about yet.
Not a CMO or a Head of Content: A Chief Entertainment Officer.
Here’s what I think is actually going on. The brands winning attention right now don’t look like “advertisers”. They look like studios.
Red Bull cracked this decades ago and barely runs a traditional ad. What they built instead is films, athlete stories, events and content people actually want to watch. The logo only shows up organically though headwear and the drink, but most importantly the entertainment comes first. That’s why it feels like culture and not a media buy.
Most brands are still doing the opposite. Forced Product shots, generic messaging, AI slop that fills the calendar but slowly trains the audience to scroll right past.
That’s what Gap is actually naming with this hire. Not “we need better campaigns. More like… “someone needs to sit at the top and ask one question across every platform: would anyone actually choose to watch this?”
That’s a different job and a different room. A different way of thinking about what marketing even is. And most marketing departments aren’t structured to answer that question honestly.
The brands that figure it out first won’t feel like advertisers anymore. They’ll feel like something worth following.
👇have you see this shift elsewhere??