The show is only part of what a brand gets

When we made Sweet Homes, we built a house from the ground up with a group of brand partners. Their products became part of the house and part of the show. That gave us plenty to film. It also gave us a responsibility to understand what each of those brands was trying to accomplish.

They had marketing strategies before we called. Products they wanted people to know about. A direction they were taking the business. People on their teams who would need something useful from the partnership long after we finished filming.

Our agency background makes us interested in all of that. So we ask questions. Which products matter most right now? Where is the business headed? What do you want people to understand?

The answers help us figure out what belongs in the show and what we need to capture along the way.

There is a good reason to put a product inside a story. A house gives that product a job. There are choices to make, things to install, and a finished space where people can see how it all comes together. It gives us a way to show what something does and why someone might want it.

Research supports paying attention to that connection. A 2021 review of brand-placement studies found that brands connected to the plot generally had stronger effects on memory, attitudes, and purchase intentions or choice than brands without that connection. Simply making a placement more prominent helped people remember it, but did not provide the same evidence of greater persuasion.¹

That distinction makes sense to me.

There is a difference between remembering that a product was there and understanding why it was there.

With Sweet Homes, we worked the brands’ priorities into how we planned and told the story of the build. We also had to think about how those brands worked together. Each partner had its own goals, and all of them were becoming part of the same house and the same series.

That takes some care. The audience needs a reason to keep watching. A partner needs its product represented in a way that makes sense for its business. The creative work is finding the places where those interests meet.

Entertainment still has a marketing job to do. Nielsen’s research across more than 1,000 campaigns found that enjoyment and the ability to hold interest mattered alongside brand recall. People liking the content is valuable, but they also need to remember the brand involved.²

With Sweet Homes, we can build several kinds of marketing around the same production.

The show airs on Destination America at 8 p.m. ET. We control a substantial share of the commercial inventory around it, which gives our partners access to advertising time alongside the show. Depending on their sponsorship level, we also produce their TV spots.

That gives us room to do different jobs. Inside the episode, a product takes part in the build. In a commercial, the brand can make a more direct point about it. We can think about both while we are planning the work.

After the linear broadcast, the show streams on HGTV GO and the Discovery GO apps. We also make extended and bonus videos for YouTube, running 20 to 30 minutes, with almost entirely never-before-seen footage. They give viewers more context for what happened in the episode and more of the build to follow.

Those longer videos give us room to spend time with details the broadcast episode could not hold. That is useful for a show built around products and decisions: there is often more to understand than the finished result.

Then there is the material the partners take back to their own teams. We provided tailored b-roll packages and libraries of still photography for their marketing. That is a substantial part of what I think makes this model useful.

A brand’s edit team can take the footage and make new videos around the message they need to communicate. The photography can go into social posts, email campaigns, the website, or ecommerce. The people responsible for those channels have material from an actual build, showing their products in a finished environment.

They can use it to tell their part of the story.

Thinking about that work changes how you approach the production. A scene has a job inside an episode. A piece of footage may have a different job in a partner’s campaign. A photograph on a product page needs to help someone look closely at what they might buy. It is worth understanding those needs while you still have the opportunity to capture them.

It is also why the conversation with the brand matters so much. Knowing which products they want to feature helps us make better choices about what to shoot. Knowing where the business is headed helps us think beyond the immediate appearance in the show.

The episode, the commercial, the longer YouTube video, and the partner’s own campaign each have a job. We can plan for those jobs together, using what we learn from the brand to guide the work. How much value that creates depends on the audience we reach, what people take away, and how the brand puts the material to work.

I think our agency experience has made us better at seeing that whole picture. We understand that the marketing team has a job to do, and we like figuring out how the work we are making can help them do it.

Sweet Homes gave us the opportunity to build something people could follow, give brands a real part in it, and leave their teams with material they could keep using. That is the kind of partnership I want to make more of.