Stept’s Next Step: Why this Production Company Is Merging Advertising and Entertainment

L-R , Meredith Rodriguez and Davey Spens

Stept Studios has merged its creative and entertainment divisions into a single, integrated team - aiming to blur the lines between branded campaigns and entertainment storytelling.

Davey Spens, who joined Stept four years ago to help build its entertainment offering, now leads the merged division as head of creative and entertainment. His appointment marks a natural evolution as the company pushes into deeper, more integrated storytelling.

“I was really excited when I joined the company to help build out the entertainment team and to focus really hard on pure storytelling – whatever format that took – whether it’s original feature films, immersive films that live in exhibition spaces or branded films,” Davey says, speaking with LBB. Until recently, Stept’s entertainment output has been separate from its creative division that Davey and Meredith led, with Davey focused on creative development and IP and Meredith leading the business strategy and sales.

The merger, bringing together both creative units, is primarily a response to an industry-wide attitude shift towards how it perceives and understands branded entertainment in relation to the changing shape of the traditional advertising landscape.

“It’s been really interesting to see how the market has evolved to be way more mature when it comes to approaching branded entertainment and branded content,” says Davey “If I’m perfectly honest with you, I think the most exciting frontier in media at the moment is branded entertainment and brand-funded storytelling, in whatever form that takes.”

He notes that the typical “interruption model” for commercials continues to change and evolve, coinciding with a shift in the entertainment space, which has altered the type of material that’s commissioned and therefore changed the variety of storytelling that audiences are exposed to.

This has resulted in a fertile middle ground, where brands with the capacity to tell stories have found a means to engage and connect with their audiences on a deeper, more meaningful level. “What happens in the middle,” says Davey, “is this interesting space made up of brands looking to engage, brands that know their audiences – maybe better than channels and platforms do now – and being able to create very engaging material for their audiences and leaning hard into that model.

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“We started a little entertainment unit at Stept that grew and grew and we watched the commercial landscape change. It made sense for us to put the smart, strategic, agency brains, next to smart entertainment brains, and make them one team.”

The merger was also formulated to better serve Stept’s clients, enabling them to seamlessly move between the commercial and entertainment space. “We have different start points at Stept and people come in for different things,” says Meredith. “People that were working with us on brand campaigns and commercial work want to get into the entertainment space, and that transfer of knowledge was best if everyone worked together and shared that information.”

It also signifies a return to Stept’s roots - the company was started by three professional athletes who were making films as they were competing professionally in the world of sport. “So it always grew out of this passion to tell stories that accompany very simple human narratives about what human beings can do, be, believe and achieve,” says Davey. “It’s always had a sensibility that it was passionate about telling stories, and it would explore and push every boundary of what that means.” Sports brands were the first to recognize Stept’s unique ability to blend these worlds, as their client list expands across auto, tech, CPG and travel, they continue to work on the brands like Salomon, Arc’teryx and Oakley.

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Creating a Universe of Stories

Davey, says Meredith, represents an “expertise” in both creative and entertainment because of his background in commercials, brand campaign work and entertainment. “So he was exactly the right person to do that,” she says. “It’s a leadership role at the company to help drive the vision of how our creative entertainment is a solution, but also to amplify the way that we think, no matter who we’re talking to.” “

The wider team is made up of an array of talent from differing backgrounds encompassing production, agency or outside of the industry completely, all bringing a unique skillset into the fold to feed into Stept’s wider creative vision. In addition, there are a number of ‘specialists’ embedded within the division, which give Stept the scope and capabilities to work on specialist briefs and subject areas.

“We try to create a really flexible model where we can do both – we can think in broad and brave ways, but we can really lean hard into specialisms,” says Davey. “The department is a collision of lots of interesting ideas and people who make things, and I'm just lucky enough to hold it all together.”

The model, despite its flexible nature and team make-up, has helped to establish a tighter, more rigorous vision for the type of work that’s made at Stept. “That vision is to create a world of stories that move people, for every brand we work with.”

It has been fine tuned to help brands unlock ways of thinking that they may not have considered before - stepping outside of their typical realms and unlocking an unexplored ‘universe’ of stories. It’s a process that begins at the beginning of working together, with a creative and entertainment workshop that takes a brand’s marketing plan for the year ahead, and encourages the team to think “a little bit around the edges” of what would normally be done.

The result - the team generates ideas that are focused on engagement, instead of interruption. “It’s an engagement model, rather than an interruption model,” says Davey “How can we take the ideas and plans you have as a brand, and lean hard into all of those spaces where we can engage audiences and be really audience-first.”

The division’s storytelling universe is ever-expanding, as more brands begin to step into a story-driven approach. “There’s so many clients and brands that are sitting on insane stories, and they haven't yet realised the power of those stories,” says Davey. “It could be stories about the brand, stories about audiences, stories about subcultures, stories about products, visions, dreams. It doesn't really matter. We start with your capital and your stories and show how we can engage people with them and build a deeper affinity with audiences.”

Meredith notes that Stept’s entertainment offering has appealed to brands that want to think beyond their typical roster of agencies, without replacing them. “They're looking for us to be ‘additive’ as a specialist partner that looks at their opportunities a little bit differently. The knowledge and the experience that we have is what really separates us, and is where we become a really viable secret weapon to sit amongst the agencies on a brand’s roster.”

An example of all of this lies in Stept’s longstanding relationship with sportswear company Salomon. Marking a new vision for Salomon TV, Stept’s creative and entertainment team worked with the brand to create a series of short films and accompanying suite of media assets that deliver a unified brand message about the connection between humanity, nature and community.

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Leaving Fingerprints

Stept’s Creative and Entertainment division is steadfast in its commitment to impacting and shaping culture through the work that it produces. And whilst you can never control or predict someone’s first interaction with a brand, you can try to ensure that their experience is a lasting and impactful one.

This is a driving force in Stept’s mindset, which prioritises the idea of work that leaves ‘fingerprints’ on the world, creating a lasting impression that can be traced back through a multitude of stories, no matter what format they’re presented in.

“You can't control where your audiences will meet you out in the world,” says Davey. “So we want to be out there, engaging and creating stuff that people want to share and want to talk about. I think it's really important that the work we create leaves this residue and these ‘fingerprints’ behind in culture. And because I get out of bed to make meaningful things, the more meaningful and positive that those prints can be, the better.”

It’s about producing work that makes a genuine and lasting impact, a commitment that has been woven through Stept’s identity since day one. Every piece of storytelling is rooted in a question: ‘what change do you want to affect?’ It asks brands to consider their wider legacy and place in driving and shaping conversation. Some questions are more difficult than others, ranging from building brand awareness to reframing how a brand is perceived or introducing a new facet – there are “some really hard communication goals” to meet, but they’re met in a way that’s “story-based and engaging.

“This company has always been making the best branded and engagement based storytelling,” says Davey, “and I think this is a recognition of how big the company has got and what it's grown from, that we've decided to put two teams together to reflect the genesis of the company in the first place.”

“It's a reminder,” adds Meredith, “that the way that we work, works.

“And we think that it's the right time for it to work for other people, too.”