From Brand Storytelling to Owned Media

I still remember when Major League Baseball Advanced Media handed each club two Motorola Flip cams at the 2009 Winter Meetings in Indianapolis. At the time, they felt like cutting-edge technology, small, handheld cameras that shot in 720p with built-in editing software. This was long before the iPhone, but it was enough.

We started using those cameras to capture moments that fans had never really seen before. Not staged content. Not polished marketing pieces. Real moments.

I remember handing one of those cameras to Adam Wainwright while he was staying with his family at the Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City. It snowed that night, and he filmed his kids seeing snow for the first time. It was simple. Authentic. Completely unfiltered.

On the drive back to St. Louis from Jefferson City, news began to break that we were finalizing a deal with Matt Holliday. When he arrived, we used our second Flip cam to capture Matt signing his contract, then walking from the clubhouse to the press conference.

Again, nothing overly produced. Just access, timing, and the instinct to document what was happening.

At the time, we weren’t thinking about “content strategy.” We were thinking like journalists.

What’s happening? Why does it matter?

What would the audience want to see if they were standing right here with us?

That was the filter. Over time, it became a system.

We weren’t just posting updates; we were establishing a rhythm. Posting with consistency, sharing a point of view that audiences could begin to recognize and trust.

The more we leaned into that approach, the more it separated our work from everything else in the feed. Because it didn’t feel like marketing. It felt like access.

Point of View Is Everything

If there’s one lesson that carried through everything, it’s this: point of view is the foundation of effective storytelling. Not the platform. Not the format. Not even the technology. It is all about point of view.

We chose the word “insider” very deliberately.

Initially, it was a practical decision to differentiate ourselves from the league-run account out of New York. But it quickly became something more than that. It became a philosophy.

We weren’t trying to compete with beat writers at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. We weren’t trying to replicate national media coverage. And we certainly weren’t trying to be investigative journalists digging for controversy.

We weren’t going to Woodward & Bernstein our own organization. We knew who buttered our bread, or grilled our hotdogs, if you will. But that said, we knew exactly who we were and just as importantly, we knew who we weren’t.

That clarity gave us an advantage.

We could embrace our role as insiders, people with access, perspective, and proximity. 

We would spend the following years building a storytelling approach around it. We showed fans what they couldn’t see anywhere else. We brought them closer to the team in a way that felt genuine.

But that only works if it’s grounded in trust.

So, we made another decision early on: credibility would always come first. We weren’t going to rush to be first with a story if it meant getting it wrong. We weren’t going to ignore reality when difficult moments arose.

When news broke, whether it was an investigation involving the team or a tragedy involving a player, we covered it. Not sensationally, but honestly from our own point of view. That balance mattered.

Because once an audience starts to question your credibility, everything else you produce loses value. And in a world where attention is easy to get but trust is hard to earn, that distinction becomes everything.

Primitive Tools, but Advanced Thinking

It’s easy to look back at those early days and focus on how limited everything was. Flip cams. Basic editing software. No real distribution infrastructure beyond social media. But that’s not what mattered, because the advantage was never the technology.

It was access.

We weren’t trying to manufacture moments; we were simply trying to capture them.

When Adam Wainwright filmed his kids experiencing snow for the first time, there was no production plan behind it. No content calendar. No approval chain. Just the recognition that this was a moment fans would connect with. And it would be up to him as to whether we shared it or it would simply be a family memory captured forever. 

When Matt Holliday signed his contract and walked to the press conference, we didn’t overthink it. We documented it as it happened because we understood the value of being there when the story was unfolding.

Looking back now, everyone has a device in their pocket that can shoot higher quality video than anything we had at the time. The barrier to entry has essentially disappeared. But the gap hasn’t closed, if anything, it’s widened.

While technology has become more accessible, disciplined storytelling has not. What separated our work then and still separates effective brand storytelling today is not the gear, it is the mindset.

I’m talking about that journalist nose for news, the ability to recognize what matters. The discipline to capture it in a way that serves the audience. And the consistency to do it repeatedly until it becomes recognizable.

Adding Entertainment & Engagement

We had fun experimenting during those early years. We were making it up as we went along, although I would describe that in C-Suite Speak as “informed experimentation” at my annual budget meetings with the bosses. 

Candidly, that “informed experimentation” is what I loved the most about my role. 

At first, everything we did was rooted in journalism, capturing real moments, documenting what was happening, and sharing it with our audience as clearly and authentically as possible. 

We started exploring scripted brand entertainment, finding ways to tell stories episodically, to create anticipation, to give audiences something they could follow over time.

One of the earliest examples of that was a project we launched on Instagram called #TheFrontOffice. It was a silly, comedic behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the organization, told in a “mockumentary” way that leaned into narrative structure posing as documentary.

It wasn’t just “what happened today.” It was “come back tomorrow to see what happens next.” 

I wrote a script that was a parody on the TV show The Office. Phyllis Smith and Fredbird both said yes to experimenting with us. Once they were in, our players and front office big wigs fell like dominos, agreeing to go along with the project. 

It put us on the pioneering end of this new platform. We were ahead of our time. It is funny for me to think about that now as Hollywood is now focusing short episodic storytelling for the phone. 

Back then, we were just looking for a way to get people to follow our new Instagram account. We were also motivated by the idea of being the first to try something new. 

At the same time, we were developing brand engagement campaigns that invited the audience to participate with us, putting the “social” into what is too often “anti-social” media. 

Campaigns like #StandForStan, #STLisLou, #LoveRed2, #CardsRatPack, and #CompleteGamer were a way to get fans involved in shaping the team’s story while fostering a sense of belonging.

We were Telling, NOT Selling

The biggest leap of faith we made was that we needed to be telling, not selling. I believed that if we did a good job telling stories, the selling would naturally follow. 

That idea had some strong opposition early on in our journey.

It took some time to convince our sales team that a story about a player could sell as many tickets as a coupon offer. Luckily our metrics demonstrated this over time, but it wasn’t the conventional wisdom about marketing.

Traditional marketing is built around messaging; what do we want to say, how do we position it, how do we drive a specific action. It’s often interruptive by design. It asks for attention.

Storytelling works differently. When it’s done well, it earns attention.

It draws people in because it’s rooted in something real. Real moments, real people, real stakes. It doesn’t need to overstate its importance or manufacture urgency. The value is inherent in the story itself. That’s what we were tapping into. We weren’t trying to convince fans to care about the team. They already did.

Our job was to bring them closer to it. To give them access, perspective, and context in a way that felt authentic. To show them things they couldn’t see anywhere else, and to do it in a way that respected their intelligence.

And over time, that approach builds something that traditional marketing struggles to create. Trust. Not transactional attention. Not short-term engagement. Trust.

The kind that compounds and keeps people coming back. The kind that makes everything else you do more effective.

That’s why I’ve long believed that one of the best investments a brand can make is hiring someone trained as a storyteller, whether that’s a journalist, a filmmaker, or a writer who understands structure, character, and narrative.

Because when you apply professional storytelling techniques inside a brand environment, something shifts. You stop creating content for the sake of filling a feed and you start building something that has meaning.

What This Means for Brands Today

The opportunity for brands today is even greater than it was when we started in 2009. The tools are better. The platforms are more powerful and the barriers to distribution are essentially gone.

Every brand today can operate like its own media company. Yet, most don’t. They’re still thinking in campaigns and focused on short-term metrics. They are producing content that looks and feels like marketing. Which is exactly why it gets ignored.

The brands and individuals that are breaking through today are the ones who have made a different shift. They’ve stopped renting attention and started building owned media.

They understand that their story is not a series of isolated posts. It’s an asset. Something that can be developed, expanded, and leveraged over time. And they approach it accordingly.

They establish a clear point of view. They invest in professional storytelling, not just tools, but talent and discipline.

They create systems that allow them to produce consistently without burning themselves out. And most importantly, they play the long game. Because this isn’t about going viral. It’s about becoming valuable to your audience, to your partners, to your employees, and to your market.

That’s as true for a professional athlete navigating NIL opportunities as it is for a founder, a public figure, or a family thinking about how to preserve and share their story.

The principles don’t change.

If you want to build something that lasts, you must move beyond promotion and into storytelling. Not casually. Professionally.

The Shift to Ownership

Looking back on what we built, I can see that we weren’t just creating content, we were building an owned media asset.

In the beginning, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like an extension of communications and a better way to connect with fans. We thought it was smarter approach to telling the team’s story. But over time, the value of our work began to compound.

What started as posts and short-form video evolved into programming. What started as access-driven storytelling evolved into something audiences expected, trusted, and returned to consistently. Eventually, it became a weekly TV show. And not just a TV show, but an owned media platform. 

That’s the shift. When you approach storytelling with discipline, consistency, and a clear point of view, you’re no longer producing content to fill space.

You’re building something that has value. Something that can live beyond any single platform. Something that can be repurposed, expanded, and monetized. Something that becomes a durable derivative generating asset.

It’s about taking control of your story. Organizing it. Capturing it. Preserving it. And then developing it into something that can be shared strategically, professionally, and on your terms. Because in today’s world, the people and organizations that win are not the ones who rely on others to tell their story. They’re the ones who own it.

Your story is one of your most valuable assets. If you approach it with the same level of intention, discipline, and professionalism that the best storytellers in the world bring to their work it can become something far more powerful than marketing.

It can become something that endures.

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The Storytelling for ALL® LinkedIn Newsletter is a biweekly newsletter examining how stories are developed, protected, and brought to life in today’s evolving storytelling economy.

Every other week, I explore the creative, ethical, and economic forces shaping books, films, documentaries, and other story work through the lens of development, rights, collaboration, and long-term value.

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The ideas shared here are intended to contribute to a broader conversation about sustainable, independent media, not to promote specific projects or investment opportunities.