At the Angelika Film Center in New York earlier this month, 115 people gathered around the theater’s big screen. But it wasn’t to watch a Hollywood film. They came together to celebrate an original series produced by Bilt — a New York-based fintech firm that gives consumers rewards when they pay their rent.
Unlike some types of sponsored content, the first season of “Roomies” doesn’t explicitly market Bilt’s brand. Instead, the show tells the story of a woman who moves from Ohio to New York, finds a place to stay and attempts to fit in. The first season is about 50 minutes long and released in 1½- to three-minute episodes on social media.
Cyrus Ferguson, Bilt’s senior content director and co-creator of “Roomies,” said the goal of the series was to bring more brand awareness to Bilt. By implementing a narrative approach to the show, which is made in-house, Ferguson said he hoped it would better connect with audiences and give them more positive sentiment when they encounter the Bilt brand. Although Bilt is not a central premise of the show or explicitly marketed in the series, characters have dined at restaurants that are Bilt’s partners and a character paid for a bill using the Bilt app.
“This is about brand awareness and trying to reach a large audience,” Ferguson said. “That’s something we really thought about with modeling it in some ways like these shows of the past that reached a really wide audience and developing these characters that we think could speak to a really wide array of people.
“There are so many different types of people who are or could be Bilt members.”
Other brands are turning to shows and movies to deliver corporate messages and get in front of people fast-forwarding through ads. For example, Google has funded short films to present narratives that soften the image of artificial intelligence. Companies such as HP, Nike and Church’s Chicken have also poured money into documentaries.
Ferguson said that so far, the company is pleased with “Roomies,” noting that each episode can generate half a million views. He declined to say how much it costs to produce, but said the company is already working on its second season. In addition to the original series, Bilt does other types of marketing of its products, including ads.
Ferguson said the idea for the show was approved in late spring. The show’s co-creators, Ferguson and freelance producer, writer and actor Brooke Brazer, developed characters that would be relatable in the same manner as Monica from “Friends” or Jess from “New Girl.”
They issued a casting notice for actors and got 300 to 700 applicants per role for the main cast, said Brazer, who also portrays the character Rain on “Roomies.”
Bilt provides loyalty rewards such as discounts at restaurants for renters who choose to pay their rent by registering their credit cards through Bilt’s platform. Bilt makes money through payment processing fees.
Having a production in-house gives Bilt more control in explaining its brand to audiences.
“Bilt is a fairly complex product, so we know it better than anyone,” Ferguson said. “We know ways in which we can integrate the brand or make it feel like it represents the brand in a quite subtle way, whereas I think if we were to outsource that, that would be pretty challenging to do with the kind of deftness that we want.”
To celebrate the ending of the show’s first season, Bilt invited members of its “Close Friends” group, made up of Bilt users who get access to behind the scenes content and exclusive experiences, to come watch all of Season 1 at a New York theater earlier this month.
Pace University marketing professor Randi Priluck was skeptical whether “Roomies” is effective at bringing more customers to Bilt. She asked her social media and mobile marketing class about Bilt and “Roomies,” and while some students were familiar with one of them, they were not familiar with the other.
“It’s never a good idea to make your customer do all the work,” Priluck said. “They have very limited branding in the series. There are many other things named ‘Roomies’ online, so it’s unclear that it is Bilt.”
Ferguson said there is no one size fits all approach to marketing or social media. For example, a company could hire a content creator to be the face for its brand, but what happens when the creator decides to move on and do something else?
“With scripted narrative content, we can really create a world where anything can happen and any situation can make sense, so that was really the powerful unlock for us,” Ferguson said.
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