Built In Audience
We build the audience before the cameras start rolling.
For years, film and television has largely worked in one direction.
Develop the idea. Raise the money. Make the programme. Then find the audience.
At Trueish, we think there’s another way.
We start thinking about the audience at the same time we start thinking about the project.
AN OLD IDEA FOR A NEW INDUSTRY
The thinking behind our approach comes from many years working in the music industry, where Trueish founder Jeremy Nargi was using audience insight long before today's social platforms existed.
From the earliest stages of developing an act, we were already testing.
Music was tested in clubs. Audiences were built and reached through early text-messaging databases. Different videos, imagery, creative treatments and even colour grades could be tested to understand what people responded to.
Street teams, mailing lists, message boards and emerging online communities helped us identify an audience and build momentum before a record reached the wider market.
It wasn't marketing added at the end.
It was part of the development process from the very beginning.
Today's technology gives us vastly more sophisticated ways of doing the same thing. We can understand communities, test creative ideas, measure engagement and begin building an audience while a project is still taking shape.
That's the thinking we're bringing to Trueish.
Don't wait until something is finished to find out whether people care.
Find The Audience Early
A built-in audience isn't simply putting someone with a million followers in a programme.
Numbers without relevance mean very little.
We're interested in the relationship between the story, the people involved and the audience surrounding them.
A smaller highly engaged community can be considerably more valuable than millions of passive followers.
So we look at reach, engagement, relevance, communities and momentum together.
Every Trueish project starts with a simple question:
Who Is Going To Care About This?
Not vaguely. Specifically.
Where are those people? What communities already exist around the subject? Who is already talking about it? Who can become part of it? And how can we begin reaching them while the project is still being developed?
That might mean building a project's own social channels. It might mean working with cast or contributors who bring relevant communities with them. It could mean tapping into an existing cultural conversation, a particular profession, location, subculture or lived experience.
Sometimes it's several of those things at once.
The important part is that audience isn't something we leave until the marketing campaign.
Audience Development IS Development
Build. Test. Learn
Starting early also gives us something traditional development doesn't always have: feedback.
We can see which ideas create conversation. Which characters people respond to. Which pieces of content travel. Where an audience is developing and where it isn't.
That doesn't mean allowing social media to write the show.
It means not developing in a vacuum.
By the time we're talking to producers, broadcasters, platforms, financiers or commercial partners, we want to bring more than:
“We think people will watch this.”
We want to be able to say:
“Here are the people already paying attention.”
LESS BLIND FAITH. MORE EVIDENCE
Nothing in television is guaranteed. We don't pretend otherwise.
But there's a considerable difference between asking someone to back what might happen and showing evidence of what is already happening.
Interest. Engagement. Data. Momentum.
It gives everyone involved a stronger starting position before the cameras start rolling.
BEYOND THE SCREEN
We think about the IP from day one.
From the moment a script or concept reaches us, we're looking beyond the programme itself. What is the world? Who is the audience? And what could this become?
That might mean opportunities across publishing, fashion, beauty, collectibles, audio, experiences, partnerships and more. Not every project should become everything. Any extension has to feel authentic to the story and its audience.
But identifying that potential early means we're not trying to bolt a brand onto a finished programme. We're developing the story, building the audience and understanding the wider commercial potential together.
The project can be the beginning, not the end
We don't build an audience around a finished project.
we build the project with the audience in mind.