The Next Great Advertisement Might Be a Story You…

Imagine opening your phone to watch an advertisement. Except it does not feel like an advertisement. There are characters. Conflict. A cliffhanger. Maybe an entire fictional universe. And instead of skipping after five seconds, you want to know what happens next. That future is arriving quickly. Two seemingly separate marketing developments tell the story. Fanta is building its own "Haunted Universe," while microdrama apps are experiencing explosive growth around the world. Put those trends together and something interesting appears: Brands are beginning to think less like advertisers and more like entertainment companies. <h2>Fanta Is Building Something It Can Own</h2> Fanta's new Haunted Universe introduces original characters, stories and lore around Halloween. The company wants Halloween to eventually become for Fanta what Christmas has long been for Coca-Cola. That is a much bigger ambition than launching a Halloween commercial. It is intellectual property. Instead of borrowing attention from popular culture every October, Fanta can potentially build characters and stories that consumers associate directly with the brand. The company plans to expand the concept through content, collectible packaging, limited-edition products, physical experiences, influencers and future collaborations. Fanta says last year's Halloween activity generated 10 billion impressions, helping give the company confidence to turn the season into a repeatable platform. Now look at what is happening with microdramas. Downloads of short-drama apps grew 95.5% year over year during the first half of 2026, reaching 1.45 billion downloads. The number of active advertisers on those apps increased 132%, while creative output jumped 151%. Consumers clearly have an appetite for short, addictive, vertical stories. Marketers have noticed. <h2>We Are Entering the Cliffhanger Economy</h2> TikTok taught brands to make content shorter. Microdrama may teach brands something even more important: Make people want the next episode. Traditional advertising operates individually. You see an ad. The ad makes its argument. The ad ends. Storytelling operates differently. Episode one creates curiosity for episode two. Characters develop familiarity. Audiences become emotionally invested. Inside jokes develop. Communities form. That creates something tremendously valuable for a brand: returning attention. You are no longer purchasing someone's attention from a platform every single time you want to reach them. You are building something they may voluntarily return to. <h2>AI Could Accelerate the Shift</h2> There is another piece of Fanta's strategy worth watching. The Haunted Universe was developed with a combination of agencies, creators, artists, writers, technologists and AI-assisted production. Fanta's leadership emphasized that the project took roughly a year and a half rather than emerging instantly from an AI prompt. That may be one of the better ways to understand AI's role in creative marketing. AI does not have to replace human creativity. It can increase what creative teams are capable of producing. More variations. More characters. More localized content. More experiments. More episodes. More opportunities to analyze what audiences respond to and adjust accordingly. The advantage comes from combining technology with taste, strategy and human judgment. <h2>This Is Not Just for Giant Brands</h2> A small company does not need to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it can think episodically. A contractor could document bizarre problems discovered inside houses. A lawyer could create a recurring 60-second series explaining unbelievable legal situations. A realtor could follow one neighborhood every week. A restaurant could build recurring characters around employees, customers or kitchen life. A financial adviser could produce a continuing series where one fictional family's financial decisions evolve over time. Instead of asking: What should we post today? Ask: What could we create that someone would want to follow? That is a completely different marketing mindset. <h2>Advertising Is Becoming Entertainment</h2> Fanta's Haunted Universe and the rise of microdrama point toward the same future. People do not dislike marketing simply because it comes from a business. They dislike marketing that gives them nothing in return for their attention. Entertainment changes that exchange. You give someone curiosity, emotion, information, humor or suspense. They give you attention. And in a world where almost every company can buy impressions, the brands capable of earning the next view may have the real advantage.

Back to all articles Get your free market report