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Tribeca Enterprises' Jane Rosenthal On Authentic Storytelling + Applying A Human Touch When Using AI

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In our new “Emotion Economy,” storytelling has never been more important to the marketing mix, as in order to get consumers to act, one must first get them to feel. Consequently, brands who can tell the best stories about what they do and stand for, in ways that convey both passion + authenticity, will ultimately emerge as the most engaging.

Billee Howard

With that in mind, for my most recent piece, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jane Rosenthal, Co-Founder + CEO of Tribeca Enterprises, home of the Tribeca Film Festival. Jane is an entertainment industry insider who has produced some of our most beloved films including: Meet the Fockers and the Oscar nominated Bohemian Rhapsody. She also leads Tribeca Studios with Paula Weinstein, the company’s branded production arm, which brings to bear Tribeca’s unmatched storytelling expertise, on behalf of some of the world’s leading companies such as DICK’S Sporting Goods, Bulgari and Procter & Gamble. We spoke about everything from the importance of passion and authenticity in storytelling, to the need to never forget the power of human creativity when it comes to AI. Following is a recap of our conversation:

Billee Howard: So, congratulations! I just heard about all the Oscar nominations for Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Jane Rosenthal: Thanks so much. I’ve been working with Queen since 1996, so it's been a long journey, but it's great.  I'm just really excited with the response to the film and especially for the band and Jim Beach.

Howard: I'm a huge classic rock fan and a huge fan of the movie, so it's nice to see that you're being recognized. I think that’s a really good jumping off point. You know my column is from the perspective of the CMO. The fact that storytelling is such a critical driver of any business today, I thought it would be really interesting to talk to you about your thoughts on best practices and what any marketer can learn from you.

Rosenthal: It's very easy to say—passion— it’s something that resonates with your very soul. Understanding that is what makes a great producer.  What Robert De Niro, Paula Weinstein and I do, both individually and together, is when we find a story and decide we are going to commit to produce, we really have to believe in it because sometimes you might be living with it for 20 years.

That was certainly the case with Bohemian Rhapsody and various iterations of it and the upcoming The Irishman: I Heard You Paint Houses, which will be out at the end of next year directed by Martin Scorsese. Bob (De Niro) and I have worked on this project for a very long time and by the time the movie comes out, it'll be close to 14 years since we began. So whether you’re a producer and have the luxury of that kind of time, or a marketer who has to be extremely agile, you must be passionate about what you take on, and you really must believe in it and go with your instincts.

Being a good producer is about surrounding yourself with the best people, the best writers, best directors, production designers, casting, etc. All of that creates the ultimate piece. When all goes right, it’s like the conductor bringing everything together and all of these discordant notes to play beautifully at the same time. The key to success is learning from your failures and picking yourself up and taking what you’ve learned and doing better the next time. I personally have learned more from my failures than my successes. I think truly creative people are always striving for perfection.

Howard: You set up a lot of good ideas there. When I talk to a CMO client, I often tell them they have to think about being an Executive Producer of their own brand. That’s something that must happen now on a day to day basis because brands are in essence studios themselves. Are there any tips you can share from your own experience that CMOs today should keep in mind in this regard?

Rosenthal: You've got to be true yourself. Be true to the story, you've got to be honest. With every new platform, no matter what it is, you’ve got to be authentic. I know that word gets so overused, but you have to genuine. An audience sees through the bullshit quickly.

To your point about brands as studios today, this is nothing new. If you look historically at the beginning of the movie business, Gulf and Western bought Paramount. Major corporations bought entertainment companies for years and daytime television was brought to you by Procter & Gamble. The ’60 and ‘70s brought you Hallmark Hall of Fame and the GE Theater. Brands have always wanted to have more than 30 or 60 second commercials, and the ability to create more meaningful and impactful experiences with the audience and their consumers. Look at product placement in films from Reese's Pieces in E.T. to the ultimate product placement being the Legos movies. Now we see a lot of brands have created their own studios. I would caution that just because you can make X product, it doesn’t mean you know how to tell a story.

Howard: So, is there anything you want to share about taking the history of what Tribeca has always done and applying it rather effectively to brands like DICK’S Sporting Goods and others?

Rosenthal:  We're a film festival. We started after 9/11. Our mission was to bring people back downtown. If you had told me in 2001 that 18 years later we would still be here producing our festival, I would have said you’re insane.

Tribeca Studios happened organically because our partners started asking us to produce content for them for the festival and then we were offered to do pieces during the year. In 2002, American Express asked us to help support and produce a spot they were creating for the festival and then eventually we were working with them on pieces for AMEX small businesses content that would appear directly on their channels. It was a way for us to be more involved with our partners throughout the year, and it was also a way for us to keep the lights on the other 355 days of the year we weren’t doing the Tribeca Film Festivals.

Howard: So, what is your approach when working with brands?

Rosenthal: We listen very carefully to our partners’ needs and the stories they want to tell. We then work with our writer/directors until we are all comfortable with the authenticity of the story and go back to our partners. We are dogged about finding the right story. There have been times when a partnership hasn’t been the right fit and we didn’t do it. At Tribeca Studios, we approach our business and relationships with our partners the same way we do as producers.

Howard: Is there a brand purpose at the core of all you do? The focus of any brand today must go beyond how it profits to what it does on a grander scale to contribute to society beyond just the bottom line. A lot of the most compelling brand stories that I've seen have that type of a through line in their creative and their narrative. I was just curious if you had an opinion on that.

Rosenthal: Oh, absolutely. That's also how we started. Robert De Niro and I had been producing movies for 10 years before 9/11 happened. Tribeca was born from the desire to help our downtown communities. What could we do as filmmakers to help? If you weren't firefighters, if you weren't police officers, what could you do? How do you change a narrative when a community has been shocked by disaster into hope? Movies have an enormous healing power.

So, we have always been about being socially conscious and about impact. This is occurring more with brand clients. We’re also seeing how important storytelling is to major companies who are taking stronger leadership positions for our country because it's not happening in Washington.

This trend is evident with our partners such as DICK’S and the effect of sports on communities throughout the country, and with supporting storytellers with AT&T, CHANEL, and P&G thorough diverse mentorship programs that create real opportunities for new voices. Our company is 70% women and we work constantly to support diverse storytelling, especially by women in the industry with mentorship.

Howard: I actually met Paula [Weinstein] at an IBM storyteller's event. I know you guys are very involved with how to use technology to reimagine or help drive creativity further. Do you have any thoughts on how you are continuing to evolve that thinking on both sides of the house, whether it be traditional film or with brands?

Rosenthal: We have an extraordinary immersive arcade at Tribeca where audiences can see the latest in VR, non-linear and mixed reality storytelling - the most imaginative storytellers who are telling stories in a curated way. I think that when you start to look at mixed reality specifically, we don't yet have the kind of distribution needed. The hardware is not there yet, but we are involved in showcasing some extraordinary large scale immersive experiences.

I still believe human creativity is a differential. I am excited about so much of AI and it is a potential aid in storytelling, but it’s not the 100% the storyteller. I still love what is the human mind and human creativity. I don't necessarily want something to turn into a Frankenstein, so that it appeals to absolutely everybody, that’s just not art. So, I guess I would say there are pluses and minuses to it, just like anything else.

Howard: Is there anything that you’ve recently worked on that you’re exceptionally proud of and want to share?

Rosenthal: There is a piece we recently finished for MCM that will debut in the spring exploring the history of women’s fashion in hip hop that’s really exciting. We are constantly looking for methods to bring things to audiences in ways that are different but just as all things in storytelling, requires 100% authenticity. That’s the key to telling greats stories and creating great content today, without question.

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