Marketing platform Mailchimp just launched its own entertainment division, Mailchimp Presents, to produce short-form original series, movies and podcasts with a focus on the common experiences and struggles of entrepreneurs and small business owners. “These folks are often isolated, thinking about work all the time,” said Sarita Alami, production lead of Mailchimp Presents, and the company’s senior manager of brand marketing. “We have this great opportunity to create content that resonates with them in a way that hopefully reminds them that they’re not alone.”

“At launch, the content is a mix of original productions, licensing agreements, and creative partnerships with production companies like Pineapple Street Media, Pop-Up Magazine and Los Angeles-based Scout Productions,” reports Fast Company. Additional partners include Caviar, Vice Media and WME. “Mailchimp Presents’ own internal team is about nine people, with backgrounds at such companies as Turner, AMC, HBO and Netflix.”

Mailchimp recently introduced new marketing, website and CRM tools. According to Mark DiCristina, senior director of brand marketing at Mailchimp, the initiatives are related, but are separate elements of the overall company strategy.

“What Mailchimp Presents allows us to do is liberate ourselves creatively a little bit to be able to tell rich and compelling stories, and let the communication about our platform and our products be a little bit more direct,” he said. “It’s the awareness layer that we’ve obviously already been investing in with things like podcast advertising, but it’s evolving and maturing into this storytelling and entertainment space.”

Content is available for free via the Mailchimp Presents site and will not feature advertisements. “Mailchimp isn’t saying how much it’s spending on the original content,” notes Variety, “but its first four video productions alone cost more than $6 million, according to IMDb budget estimates.”

Related:
Shopify Opens Its Own Studio to Create Inspirational Content For Wannabe Entrepreneurs, Fast Company, 1/23/19