A fabled story of its own

The Tribeca Film Festival was the brainchild of Robert DeNiro and his business partner Jane Rosenthal, arising as a cultural phoenix almost literally from the ashes of 9/11 within view of the fallen World Trade Center. A promoter of the independent film scene, it has always sported plenty of star power, including in 2026 appearances by legends such as Bruce Springsteen and Madonna along with a raft of film and TV stars including Emilia Clarke, Paul Rudd, and Aubrey Plaza, and music artists such as Katy Perry (bringing along her beau former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), Finneas and A$AP Rocky.

Rebecca Glashow became CEO of Tribeca Enterprises last year and oversaw her first Festival and X conference this year. With her background as the CEO of BBC Studios, she knows the world of quality content and quality brands well. In our conversation Glashow marveled at the “energy” throughout the Festival and championed the “wide and inclusive umbrella for storytellers…going beyond feature documentaries and independent films to include short films, music, podcasts and other contributions from the creator economy.” She noted that the New York City setting helps Tribeca “draw from so many different storytellers, including those among media companies and brand advertisers.”

Tribeca X drafts off of the creative exhaust fumes that surround the Festival. Glashow observed that the link between the two is natural because “[Tribeca] is in the brand business more widely, we have a brand studio, we work with brands around the Festival, and we own a commercial production company called Missing Pieces.”

Tribeca X understandably leans into celebrating the human creative spirit, all the more vital in a time of encroaching AI, and this carried across many of the sessions involving brands, creators, marketing gurus and more than a few celebrities.

Antonio Lucio, the legendary brand marketer from giants such as Visa, PepsiCo, HP, Meta and now PayPal, framed it best: “Empathy is the key to being an effective storyteller and you don’t get that from AI; the best stories are about the imperfections of humanity.” Interestingly enough, that message of empathy is also at the heart of Steven Spielberg’s newly released Disclosure Day.

Is anything more human than experience?

The Tribeca Festival and its adjoining Tribeca X are nothing if not an “experience” – screenings, talk backs, networking, awards, eating, drinking, and parties. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear at Tribeca X a serious lean-in on the increasing value of experiential marketing. It’s hardly a new concept, with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (1924) often cited as the first example. But Elizabeth Rutledge, Chief Marketing Officer of American Express, sought to set the record a bit straighter by highlighting that Amex’s first foray into experiential marketing was as a sponsor of the first Cunard liner global cruise in 1922.

Amex has always been viewed a “premium” brand, but Rutledge says that consumer expectations for what to expect from such brands are shifting. For Amex this means going beyond traditional media campaigns to focus on experiences such as F1 races, where Amex sponsored the on-track audio feed for crowds at F1 events. It has been doing the same at tennis’s U.S. Open for years.

Rutledge was also proud of Amex’s association with women’s sports. Rather than simply placing Amex logos on LPGA pros golf bags, the company asked golfers to identify small local businesses, and Amex placed those companies’ logos on the bags. That’s pretty heady stuff for a local boutique or beignet store that operates on a very human scale.

Tribeca is all about storytelling, but how do stories find their audiences?

Some on the “business” side of show business have lived by the motto: “Content may be King, but distribution is God.” Antonio Lucio provided another useful nugget in this context, noting that “it’s not just about your story; it’s about how the audience receives your story.”

Joivan Wade, a British actor and the CEO of Wall of Entertainment, framed the challenge and the opportunity during the Tribeca X session “From Viral to Valuable: Building Creator Franchises That Last.” For Wade this means “don’t talk to the audience - talk with them.” For Wade, a successful creator isn’t seeking to get people to simply view specific content but to connect to the creator herself over time. In fact, Wade isn’t a fan of the term “audience.” He declared, “I don’t want to rent an audience; I want a long-term relationship.”

The need to find not only your audience but your fans is what turns creators into businesses. Clinton Kelly is a well-known celebrity from his days on What Not to Wear on the TLC cable network and The Chew on ABC. Today he is the talent on Chewed Up on YouTube and the digital video universe, a show Kelly jokingly said “should have been called Chewed Up and Spit Out” since he and his co-host Michael Symon are refugees from the linear TV world. Even as a celebrity with a significant visibility, Kelly noted the ongoing challenge of having audiences find your content and observed that the product isn’t the content, it’s the relationship with your customers.

Creators and “suits” need a positive co-dependency

When I worked as a senior executive inside of media companies or as a strategy consultant from the outside, I always saw my role as a “suit” (business rather than creative executive) as focused on turning great content into great businesses. John Donne nailed it when he said “No man is an island,” and as Tribeca X highlighted, that’s pointedly true for creators.

Jack Coyne started the company Public Opinion in 2022, and it has morphed from quick man on the street interviews about New York City trivia to Track Star, a music-naming game show now also a podcast. Coyne shared his unexpected business journey which included the mundane task of learning QuickBooks (which he became good at). Along the way, Coyne, as a lucky creator, found a business partner in Gus Wenner of Wenner Media who now supplies the strategic, financial and marketing backbone to help propel Coyne’s company to greater heights. As Coyne pointed out, “there is a story tied to the money you are making for partners” and that’s a whole storytelling journey of its own.