Latest news with #AndrewFaridani
Forbes
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
A Masterclass In Brand Building: The Importance Of Immersive, Owned Content
Andrew Faridani, President and CEO at BreezeMaxWeb. There's no denying that tequila is having a moment. The celebrity playbook has been followed to the letter: Launch a premium bottle, wrap it in a sleek label and let personal brand equity drive initial sales. Clooney did it with Casamigos, Jordan followed with Cincoro and The Rock pushed Teremana to impressive numbers in record time. But the category is getting crowded, and smart marketers know that being "celebrity-backed" is no longer a differentiator. That's where Naked Diablo comes in. This isn't just another tequila brand with a famous face. It's a company taking one of the boldest and most unconventional steps ever seen in spirits marketing: launching a reality TV series to tell its origin story. This move is sure to intrigue and inspire marketers and business professionals alike. The show is a strategic bet that blends entertainment, branding and business in a way few others have attempted, certainly not in the spirits space. Rather than just a vanity project or passive PR stunt, it's an owned content asset designed to drive long-term equity and cultural relevance. From a marketing standpoint, it's brilliant. While Naked Diablo may be the first tequila brand to take this route, it's worth noting that other brands have found success with similar immersive approaches. Red Bull, for instance, launched its own media house and produced everything from extreme sports documentaries to the Stratos space jump. Or consider Dove's Real Beauty Sketches campaign, which felt more like a short documentary exploring women's self-perceptions than an ad. Even in spirits, Hennessy's "Never Stop. Never Settle." docuseries highlighted real-life changemakers to connect with audiences on a deeper level. These examples demonstrate how immersive content strategies can create brand worlds that extend far beyond traditional advertisements. Most brands primarily rely on social media, influencer marketing and e-commerce funnels to connect with consumers. Those work, but only to a point. The problem is attention. Everyone's fighting for the same impressions across the same platforms, with diminishing returns. What Naked Diablo is doing—and what the other brands I've mentioned (and others) have done—is flipping the script. They're not advertising "around" content. They're becoming the content. Think about the leverage. Streaming a show means global distribution. It creates a visual and emotional story arc that positions the brand not just as a premium spirit but as a movement built on grit, ambition and international reach. You're not being sold to, you're being invited to watch a company grow in real time. That's more than marketing. That's immersion. From a performance standpoint, an immersive content approach gives a brand an incredibly rich ecosystem for engagement wherein you can control the messaging, the visuals and the narrative pacing. More importantly, in some cases, this strategy allows the brand to own the first-party data that comes with viewership: geography, age ranges, episode drop-offs, rewatch rates and share metrics. That's data that most brands pay platforms to rent. There are also psychological benefits. Consumable, behind-the-scenes content gets people emotionally invested. In Naked Diablo's case, the reality TV approach shows the human side of the founders, making them relatable and easier to trust. It lets viewers see the struggles and hard work behind the brand, building a story of resilience and drive. When people buy a bottle after watching the show, they're not just buying tequila—they're buying into a story, a journey and a mindset. That creates loyalists, not just customers. If you're building a brand in a competitive category, ask yourself this: Would I rather be another ad in the feed or the brand everyone's talking about? What Does This Mean For Other Brands? Not every brand needs to launch a full-scale reality TV show, but every brand can think about how to "become the content" in its own way. For instance, you could build a mini-documentary series about your founding story featuring team members and real customer experiences to create emotional connection and trust. Another approach is to host a regular live show or podcast where you (and, in turn, your brand) share honest insights about the industry, talk openly about challenges and discuss market trends. Doing this positions your brand as a trusted source of knowledge rather than just another company trying to sell something. Brands can also create interactive video experiences where viewers make choices within the story. While Netflix pioneered this with "Bandersnatch" in entertainment, similar interactive formats can be adapted for product education or customer onboarding to increase engagement. Additionally, some brands develop their own media platforms or newsletters that become essential reading within their niche, similar to how Morning Brew became a $75 million brand by focusing purely on content value first. The key takeaway is that brands moving beyond interruptive ads to become the content people seek out will build deeper loyalty, stronger data streams and long-term brand equity. Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation-only community for sales and biz dev executives. Do I qualify?
Forbes
28-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How To Future-Proof Your Tech Stack In The Age Of Digital Disruption
Andrew Faridani, President and CEO at BreezeMaxWeb. As the technology landscape evolves at an unprecedented pace, we've entered an era where agility isn't optional—it's essential. This underscores the critical need for businesses to reassess and future-proof their technology stacks to remain competitive. Whether you're a mid-market business or a global enterprise, the systems, platforms and software tools you rely on today will either fuel tomorrow's growth or become tomorrow's bottlenecks. So, how do you build a future-proof tech stack—one that's not only capable of handling current demands but also resilient enough to evolve with your business, your customers and the market? Let's delve into what it truly takes to prepare your technology ecosystem for the next wave of digital transformation. Future-proofing doesn't mean chasing the latest tools. It means investing in systems and structures that can flex, scale and adapt over time. At its core, a future-ready tech stack is: • Composable: It's built from modular components that work together seamlessly. • Interoperable: It's able to connect with APIs, third-party tools and internal systems. • Scalable: It can support growth without requiring complete overhauls. • Resilient: It's designed with redundancy and failover in mind. The flip side of future-proofing and innovation is inertia. And in tech, inertia can get expensive—fast. I've seen this play out across industries. It's customer relationship management platforms that can't scale with customer data volumes. It's marketing automation tools with limited integration capabilities. Or it's legacy enterprise resource planning systems that are unable to support cloud-native apps. It's not that the tools are "bad"—they were just built for a world that no longer exists. Choosing software today is no longer about finding the most features at the lowest price. It's about finding alignment with long-term strategy. Here's a simple framework I call FUTURE to guide your decision making: • Flexibility: Can the tool adapt to evolving workflows and team needs? • Upgradability: Does the vendor have a strong product roadmap and commitment to updates? • Team adoption: Is the software intuitive and likely to be embraced by users? • User support: Are the documentation and customer success teams robust? • Reliability: What's the uptime? Service-level agreement? Security posture? • Ecosystem: Will it integrate easily into your existing and future systems? By applying this framework to your selection process, you can prevent costly vendor regret down the road. You don't need a complete tech stack overhaul to start preparing for the future. Small strategic shifts can have a major long-term impact: • Run quarterly tech stack audits: Identify overlap, unused licenses and performance bottlenecks. • Prioritize open APIs and integrations: Reduce vendor lock-in and increase agility. • Request product roadmap briefings: Ensure vendors are building for the future, not just the now. • Align tools with business outcomes: Every tool should be tied to measurable key performance indicators. As I often remind clients, your tech should serve your strategy, not the other way around. The most successful organizations over the next decade won't be the ones with the most tools—they'll be the ones with the most adaptable tools. That's the essence of future-proofing. Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation-only community for sales and biz dev executives. Do I qualify?
