A waitress from small-town Ohio is unwittingly ensnared in her jet-setting twin sister’s international jewelry heist scheme — and ends up falling for the dashing Interpol agent who’s tracking down her kidnapped sibling. The end!
OK, the story isn’t quite that rapid fire. But that’s the gist of “The Golden Pear Affair,” a “microsoap” that runs 50 episodes, most clocking in at under two minutes, produced by P&G. The show, which debuted online earlier this year, is meant to entertain. But it also functions as an 80-minute ad for Native, P&G’s personal-care line that includes deodorants and body wash, which makes cameo appearances throughout the narrative, starting with the brand’s Japanese Golden Pear scent.
“P&G invented soap operas, and this is the modern-day version,” says Stevie Archer, chief creative officer for ad agency M+C Saatchi Group (which wasn’t involved in the project).
Amid the tech talk that will inevitably swirl around AI at Cannes Lions this month, microdramas and other series shot in vertical video are set to be a hot topic on the Croisette at the annual advertising festival. The microdrama format originated in Asia, and it’s now being quickly adopted — and adapted — by U.S. studios, producers and brands as a vehicle to reach younger (i.e. Gen Z) audiences gobbling up short-form video hits on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.
“Every conversation I’ve had recently is about microdramas and virtual product placement in microdramas,” says John Attard, co-founder of Framewerx, an AI production tool start-up. “Brands want control, and they want quality.”
Microseries are a natural fit for Madison Avenue. Marketing gurus have spent decades on the art and science of distilling a brand message into super-short 15- or 30-second ad bursts. An engaging vertical series can produce bigger bang for the buck than one-off collabs with digital influencers, execs says, coming in with a relatively affordable production budget. The cost for a microseries can range between $100,000 and $300,000 for 60 1.5-minute episodes, says Attard. And that’s a fraction of the cost to produce a typical Super Bowl ad. “Brands can experiment with this format,” he says.
Traditional Hollywood players are scrambling to get into the action. Range Media Partners earlier this year announced a partnership with Google’s 100 Zeros to produce a slate of microdramas scheduled to debut in the fall of 2026, including shows in development from “The Bachelor” creator Mike Fleiss, “American Idol” creator Simon Fuller and director McG, who was an executive producer on “The O.C.”
The internet giant, whose Android smartphones battle Apple for market share, came to Range Media Partners with a question: “How can we make Google cooler?” says Rachel Douglas, partner with Range Media on film and TV. Originally the partnership started with feature-length movies, before they expanded to also include short-form premium series. Compared with longer-form projects, microseries come in at lower price points and are less subject to “gatekeeping” (meaning there are fewer layers of approvals required by brand execs), Douglas says. Range Media’s maximum budget for microdramas is $350,000 for 90 minutes of material.
In the microseries model, brands are “part of the storyline and get to be more creative,” Douglas says. What surprised the Range Media Partners team was how eager traditional talent were to sign on to the 100 Zeros microseries for no up-front fee; instead, they will get a share of revenue from sales of their episodes on Google TV’s microdrama platform. “If it’s successful,” Douglas says, “they can make millions of dollars.”
Others taking swings at microdramas include NBCUniversal’s Peacock, which has licensed several shows from ReelShort and is gearing up to release two Bravo original unscripted microdramas this summer: “Salon Confessionals” with Madison LeCroy, breakout star of Bravo’s “Southern Charm,” and “Campus Confidential: Miami,” featuring Georgia Gay, daughter of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Heather Gay. Meanwhile, Fox Entertainment has inked a multiyear deal with popular creator Dhar Mann’s production company for an initial slate of 40 original scripted vertical-video shows that will premiere on Holywater’s My Drama app.
Issa Rae (of HBO’s “Insecure”) signed a deal for the exclusive premiere of original microdrama “Screen Time” on TikTok and the PineDrama app. It became a viral hit, garnering almost 75 million views within a week of its April launch. Produced by Rae’s Hoorae Media, “Screen Time” centers on a double-date movie night disrupted by a mysterious figure who hijacks the TV and forces the couples to confess deep, dark secrets.
“Issa Rae’s show is an incredible signal of where this is headed,” says Scott Brown, founder and CEO of Second Rodeo, a start-up microseries studio. What’s notable about “Screen Time,” he says, is that “it’s a well-executed thriller,” demonstrating that the short-form format can work across different genres.
Second Rodeo’s releases to date have included “Playback,” touted as the first-ever musical microdrama that marked the acting debut of popular digital creator Hannah Stocking. Brown, who has worked in the past with viral YouTube king MrBeast, says he believes that microseries represent a brand-new medium, akin to the advent of half-hour TV shows and feature-length films. He’s scheduled to speak June 24 at a Cannes Lions session titled “The Microdrama Boom” alongside Stocking.
“We aren’t trying to make Netflix shows in a vertical aspect ratio,” he says. “It’s a new form of storytelling.” The key points for a hit microdrama, Brown says, are ensuring there is “conflict density” and “plot density,” as well as a “cathartic third-act payoff.”
By sponsoring a microdrama, a brand can weave its messaging in a more integrated way than a typical influencer campaign, he says. Perhaps just as important, it doesn’t feel like a traditional ad: “When the brand can create a reciprocal relationship with the audience, you earn a marketing ask with consumers.”
TV veteran Susan Rovner also is diving head-first into the microseries movement. Together with ex-Showtime president Jana Winograde, she co-founded MicroCo, which is aiming to launch a vertical-content platform called aTwist later this summer. “Part of what attracted Jana and I to this space was that in our traditional jobs, we were really starting to manage decline,” says Rovner. She’s the former president of Warner Bros. TV and more recently was head of programming for NBCUniversal television and streaming.
In Rovner’s view, microseries have the same narrative requirements as longer-form entertainment — they’re just on a much faster timeline. MicroCo’s rule of thumb is that a show must hook a viewer within 3 seconds (give or take a few seconds). And each episode break needs a cliffhanger “that makes you want to continue to swipe,” she says. MicroCo’s shows have a production window of three to four months from concept to launch, compared with up to two years for a season of traditional TV.
And, says Rovner, “Because the budgets are so low, we can take bigger creative risks.”
The trend promises to dramatically change the way brands reach audiences, says Erica Coates, CEO of creative agency and production studio MDRN Logic. The viewing habits of younger viewers have changed: Gen Z and millennials are more apt to share things they’re viewing, and microdramas make that easier. “They have habit of clipping content and making fan content, and sharing that with their own followers,” Coates says. “And they’re very sensitive about being advertised to: Anything that feels overtly like an ad is distasteful to them.” Adds Michael Bennett, MDRN Logic’s chief growth officer, “Everybody has gotten so nervous about doomscrolling and how to counter that.”
For brands, Coates says, the way to win “is to make the brand or service a character in the story.” For Sony Interactive Entertainment’s “MLB the Show 26,” MDRN Logic created six short-form episodes starring content creators Austin Schultz and Justice Alexander (aka LGND) — in which they were each shown as three different characters in different stages of the game’s progression toward the major leagues. The campaign scored some 20 million views in all.
Marketers are now starting to require vertical video in their advertising proposals, says Damian Pelliccione, CEO of LGBTQ streaming platform Revry. “Our audience is doubling on mobile platforms,” he says. “As hard a pill as it might be to swallow [for traditional entertainment companies], it’s the reality of the new consumer.” Revry is responding by making vertical-video versions of all its originals that can be fed to multiple platforms.
Creators are more interested in longer-term deals with brands, and microseries offer a great way to do that, says Jenny Penich, CMO of creator-focused marketing agency Influencer, which is owned by ad giant Publicis Groupe. “Creators are compensated for their output, so the remuneration for a microseries looks different,” she says, adding that the company’s data shows a measurable lift in positive brand sentiment for marketers that work with creators over longer periods of time.
Meanwhile, microdramas are set to get their own three-day festival and fan event in New York City this fall. The ALZA Festival, targeted to take place in October, was founded by Pete Torres, former COO of the Tribeca Festival, and Rita Vinnik, formerly head of TikTok’s creator initiatives. “I started seeing a migration of creators — and brands — to telling their stories in vertical format,” Torres says. “But there was no physical festival to feature them.”
Microdramas remain an emerging space and brands are still in a test-and-learn phase. But M+C Saatchi’s Archer predicts that the format will endure as another arrow in the marketing quiver.
“The paid, interruptive model [of advertising] is harder to get engagement on,” she says. “At the end of the day, people will always engage with storylines.”
Pictured top: Hannah Stocking in musical microseries “Playback”; Brittney Jefferson in Issa Rae’s microdrama “Screen Time”; Justice Alexander (aka LGND) as three different characters in promotional vertical series for video game “MLB the Show 26”
Leave a Reply