The Creative Brief Is Broken (And Why That Makes You More Valuable)

Advice From the Pros

The Creative Brief Is Broken (And Why That Makes You More Valuable)

The creative brief isn't dying because people forgot how to write one. The conditions that supported thorough briefing have collapsed.

@milesworks

Miles Jennings is CEO of Mediabistro and its parent CognoGroup. He previously founded and led Recruiter.com through its NASDAQ listing, executing more than 10 acquisitions over nearly a decade as CEO and COO.

10 min read • Originally published March 20, 2026 / Updated March 26, 2026

@milesworks

10 min read • Originally published March 20, 2026 / Updated March 26, 2026

In this article: Why Briefs Broke | How to Thrive When the Brief Is Thin | Three Mistakes That Make It Worse | FAQ

A global study by the BetterBriefs Project surveyed more than 1,700 marketers and agency staff across 70 countries and found that 78% of marketers believe their briefs provide clear strategic direction. Only 5% of creative agencies agreed. Both sides, meanwhile, ranked the brief as one of the most valuable tools in advertising, and the most neglected.

The gap between those two numbers is where creative work goes to die. And now, with an always-on culture and “chat briefs,” being common, it may be even worse: just vibes and a deadline.

If you’ve worked in creative for more than five years, you recognize this. The creative brief, once a multi-page strategic document covering objectives, audience, tone, competitive landscape, mandatories, and success metrics, has degraded into fragments scattered across Slack threads, Figma comments, and half-remembered conversations.

This isn’t about one lazy client or one overworked account team, but seems structural and baked in as normal.

Why Briefs Broke: Five Structural Failures

The traditional creative brief was built for a different era. Campaigns had development timelines measured in months. Brand managers had time to write thorough documents. Teams had dedicated strategists whose entire job was translating business objectives into creative direction.

That infrastructure has largely collapsed, much like software engineers are now faced with project directions without long-term, nuanced input from product managers.

The Staffing Collapse

Waves of layoffs across media and tech from 2022 onward gutted many marketing teams. The person who would have written your brief is covering three roles, and strategic documentation is the first thing cut when timelines compress.

Timeline Compression

Where traditional campaign development stretched over months, many teams face turnarounds measured in weeks, sometimes days, especially for digital and social content. There’s barely time to execute, let alone write a five-page brief before execution starts.

The Platform Explosion

Platforms and their corresponding advertising budgets are splintering. TikTok, Threads, LinkedIn, Instagram Reels, programmatic display variations, email sequences, and landing pages. Each deliverable theoretically needs direction, but teams are producing more briefs per campaign than ever. Each individual brief gets thinner.

Tool Fragmentation

Briefing information increasingly lives across multiple tools (Figma boards, Notion databases, Loom videos, comment threads) rather than in a single strategic document. The brief hasn’t disappeared in many organizations. It’s fragmented.

When you have to reconstruct the strategy from six different sources, the result may feel like having no brief at all.

Strategic Ambiguity by Design

There’s a political dimension too. When decisions require sign-off from many stakeholders, creative briefs are getting shorter and vaguer on purpose.

A specific brief creates specific points of disagreement. A vague brief (“make it feel premium,” “speak to millennials,” “position us as innovative”) slides through approval chains without friction. The cost of that internal efficiency gets transferred entirely to the creative team, who inherit the ambiguity.

Julie Revelant, a freelance B2B healthcare copywriter and brand strategist at Revelant Writing, sees this firsthand. “Marketing, sales, and senior leadership often have separate visions, even if they’re initially aligned,” she says. “The first draft is delivered, but with so many stakeholders, the project can quickly take a different direction.” The creative team is left, as she puts it, “to make the connections and pull all of the pieces together.”

System Failure, Not Personal Failure: This isn’t laziness, but a system failure that requires individual skill adaptations.

The degradation of the creative brief mirrors what’s happened to pitch processes across the industry. When one part of the strategic infrastructure breaks down, the damage cascades. Thin briefs lead to misaligned pitches, which lead to revision cycles, which lead to client dissatisfaction, which lead to more churn.

How to Thrive When the Brief Is Thin

If you’re waiting for clients to fix their briefing process before you can do great work, you may be waiting a long time. Here’s what senior creatives do instead.

Ask the Five Questions the Brief Didn’t Answer

Any creative needs five pieces of information before starting work, whether the brief provided them or not:

What does success look like? Not the deliverable, the outcome. Are we driving traffic, changing perception, generating leads, supporting a sales conversation?
Who decides if this worked? Your contact might not be the final decision-maker. Find out before round three of revisions.
What’s off-limits? Competitors we can’t name? Topics we avoid? Visual styles that failed before?
What’s the real deadline? The stated deadline is often padded or linked to something else. Knowing whether you have two weeks or two days makes all the difference.
What happened last time? If this is a recurring campaign or content type, the history tells you what worked and what to avoid.

Consider a freelance designer who receives a one-paragraph brief for a product launch: “Create social assets for our new app feature. Launch is March 15. Keep it on-brand.”

Asking these five questions reveals that success means driving beta sign-ups (not awareness), the product VP has final approval (not marketing), a previous launch flopped because visuals looked too corporate, assets need to be final by March 10 for localization, and the last campaign’s animated approach crushed static posts on engagement.

Now you can actually start.

Write the Brief-Back (Even If Nobody Asked for One)

The brief-back, where the creative team rewrites the brief for client sign-off before starting work, has long been best practice. It’s also the first step cut when timelines compress.

Do it anyway.

Take whatever fragments you received and write a half-page document: “Here’s what I’m hearing. Business objective: X. Audience: Y. Key message: Z. Success looks like: A. I’m planning to approach it this way: B. Am I understanding this correctly?”

Send it. Wait for confirmation before starting.

This surfaces misalignment early (when it’s cheap to fix), builds trust with stakeholders, and protects you when scope inevitably changes.

Say a content strategist receives a vague brief: “We need thought leadership content for Q2. Make us look innovative.” Her brief-back reveals that two executives have different definitions of “innovative,” one wanting to talk about AI tools, the other wanting to highlight company culture. Without the brief-back, she would have produced something that satisfied neither. With it, she facilitates a 15-minute alignment conversation before writing a word.

Revelant takes a similar approach. “One way I’ve overcome thin creative briefs is to include a kick-off meeting so I can talk through the project with my clients and ensure we are aligned,” she says. Revelant notes that even when briefs are complete, freelancers are often “tasked with creating something out of nothing and filling in the gaps.”

She points out that ideas for thought leadership bylines often emerge organically during interviews with executives, not from a brief. Working with the same clients over time helps, too: familiarity builds the context that briefs should provide.

Build a Personal Brief Template You Use Every Time

Stop waiting for clients to provide structure. Build your own.

Create a lean one-page template you fill in from whatever fragments you receive. Keep it in Notion, Google Docs, a text file, wherever you’ll actually use it. Make it a required first step before starting any project, even small ones.

Field	What It Captures
Business Objective	The outcome this is meant to achieve, not the deliverable
Audience	Who needs to see this and what do they believe?
Single Key Message	If they remember one thing, what should it be?
Mandatories	Non-negotiable requirements (brand guidelines, legal copy, format specs)
Success Metric	How will we know this worked?

When briefing information is scattered across Slack, email, a kickoff call, and a Figma file, your template becomes the single source of truth. The skill of translating ambiguity into structured clarity is what technical writers do every day. Creatives need the same muscle.

Pro Tip: Keep this template to one page. A five-page self-brief for a social campaign is its own pathology. Match your effort to the project’s actual stakes.

Use Ambiguity as a Strategic Advantage

Here’s the reframe most creatives miss: vague briefs give you more room, not less.

When a brief specifies everything down to the hex codes and headline length, you’re executing someone else’s vision. When a brief says “make it feel premium” and nothing else, you have space to define what premium means for this audience, to propose an approach the client hasn’t considered, to demonstrate the thinking that gets you hired for bigger projects.

Creative directors building teams look for people who can operate in ambiguity, because that’s how most organizations function. Senior creatives who can self-direct from thin briefs are more valuable, and more hireable, than those who need exhaustive direction.

This doesn’t mean accepting bad briefing as inevitable. It means recognizing that extracting strategy from fragments, asking the right clarifying questions, and building your own scaffolding when none is provided are core competencies, not workarounds.

When the London agency Something Familiar worked on a rebrand for a blind CEO, the accessibility requirements forced the team to rethink their entire creative process, and the work was stronger for it. Vague briefs are a different kind of constraint. They force you to do the strategic work yourself.

Three Mistakes That Make Thin Briefs Worse

Mistake 1: Starting Work Without Clarifying Assumptions

It feels faster to just start designing or writing. It’s not. Every assumption you don’t verify up front becomes a revision round later.

Mistake 2: Treating the Brief-Back as Confrontational

You’re not telling the client “you gave me a bad brief.” You’re saying “here’s what I’m hearing, am I on track?” Frame it as collaboration, not correction. Most clients are relieved when someone takes the lead on clarifying scope.

Mistake 3: Over-Scoping Your Own Brief

When you fill in the gaps yourself, keep it tight. A two-week social campaign doesn’t need a 10-page strategy deck. A half-page working document is often enough. Matching your strategic effort to the project’s actual business impact is its own skill.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if asking clarifying questions makes me look inexperienced?

The opposite is true. Junior creatives start work immediately and hope they guessed right. Senior creatives clarify scope before committing. Asking strategic questions signals that you understand how creative work connects to business objectives.

How do I handle a client who says “just show me something and we’ll iterate”?

That’s code for “I don’t know what I want yet.” Create a brief-back anyway, send it as “here’s my understanding of direction for version one,” and get at least a thumbs-up before starting. This protects you when “iterate” turns into “this isn’t what I wanted.”

What if I’m working in-house and the brief comes from my own team?

Same principles apply. In-house creatives often receive even thinner briefs than agency teams because stakeholders assume proximity means shared context. It doesn’t. Use the brief-back to surface internal misalignment before it becomes your problem.

Should I charge more for projects with inadequate briefs?

If you’re freelance: yes. Build “strategic consultation” or “creative direction” into your proposal as a separate line item. You’re doing work the client should have done before engaging you. That work has value.

Not every freelancer agrees that’s realistic, however. “I don’t charge separately, but I’ve thought about it,” says Revelant. “I’m not sure clients would see the value in paying extra for this service. Regardless of how complete the brief may be, they want to see you hit the ground running.” That gap between knowing the work has value and getting clients to pay for it explicitly is one of the unresolved tensions in freelance creative work.

Do AI tools change any of this?

Some creative leaders have noticed that generative AI shifted stakeholder expectations: if a tool can generate 50 variations from a short prompt, why write a detailed brief? This is backwards. AI tools are execution engines; they don’t replace strategy. Good briefing arguably matters more now, because you need to know which of those 50 variations is actually right for the business objective.

Where can I learn more about writing effective briefs?

The 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies) has published creative brief templates and best practices. The Drum, Filestage’s creative operations blog, and The One Club for Creativity all address creative craft and process. WARC (World Advertising Research Center) researches creative effectiveness, though their reports typically focus on campaign outcomes rather than briefing practices specifically.

The Skill That Gets You Hired

When you can take a Slack message and turn it into a strategic framework, when you can ask the five questions that surface hidden assumptions, when you can write a brief-back that aligns stakeholders who didn’t know they disagreed, that’s the skill that separates senior creatives from order-takers.

The brief may be broken. Your ability to build one from scratch is what makes you indispensable. If you’re ready to put that skill to work, companies are hiring people who can think strategically in ambiguous environments.

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Advice From the Pros

How overstretched HR teams can improve the recruiting process

By Paulina Gallelli for Emerge Talent

9 min read • Published March 26, 2026

By Paulina Gallelli for Emerge Talent

9 min read • Published March 26, 2026

DC Studio // Shutterstock

How overstretched HR teams can improve the recruiting process

Internal HR professionals are under pressure to complete a range of tasks to support a business. From helping existing employees in their roles to maintaining compliance, HR schedules can quickly become strained.

Overseeing the hiring process of new staff members is another considerable responsibility. Fitting in enough time to sift through resumes, schedule interviews and facilitate new-hire paperwork is a consistent struggle.

Other responsibilities, such as maintaining employee retention and engagement, can feel like a second thought amid the effort to hire new talent. This guide from Emerge Talent explores the benefits of outsourcing recruiting support to speed up time-to-fill and help you with busy workloads.

The Hidden Costs of an Overwhelmed HR Department

Beyond the impact of a never-ending to-do list and a full inbox, overworked HR teams are at risk of hiring unsuitable talent due to being stretched too thin. Inexperienced new hires can significantly affect company culture and, over time, take a toll on a company’s financial health.

The hidden costs of an overburdened HR team can emerge in the following areas:

Admin Efficiency

Typically, HR professionals can spend approximately 57% of the workday on new recruit administrative tasks. These tasks include screening job applications, setting up interviews and collating candidate feedback for successful and unsuccessful candidates.

Understandably, vetting potential new hires is an integral part of the role. However, it takes up a large portion of your time, leaving little for other responsibilities, including supporting existing staff in their roles.

The demands of recruitment can leave you feeling burned out while juggling your other responsibilities.

Cost of Filling Vacancies

The longer a vacancy is left open, the more productivity and revenue a company loses. It takes around 44 days to fill a role, which translates to approximately six weeks of lost revenue for a company. HR teams face pressure to fill vacancies as quickly as possible.

Hiring costs are a further consideration. For example, the average cost of a new hire is $4,700, including time, advertising and onboarding expenses. Some industries, such as engineering and cybersecurity, may incur larger new-hire costs due to staffing shortages. Unsuitable hires may cost your company approximately 30% of the hire’s first-year salary.

Hiring for Specialized Roles

Alongside your other duties, hiring for roles in specialized industries, including financial technology (fintech), requires you to uphold industry knowledge. The intricacies of these sectors can be challenging, especially when learning about candidate requirements and average industry salaries.

Recruiting for these roles without industry knowledge can lead you to put forward unsuitable candidates. Recruiters with industry-specific knowledge have the experience to hire for specialized roles.

3 Signs Your Business Needs Dedicated Recruiting Support

Emerge Talent

Recruitment surges are an exciting time for any company. However, the overload of recruiting tasks to fill your schedule may feel like a mountain to climb. The strain can easily take its toll on your team. Below are three indicators your team needs recruiting support to get you on the other side of the mountain:

1. The Rise of Ghosting

Interestingly, a survey showed that 70% of job seekers in the U.S. felt it was fair to ghost recruiters and potential employers during the recruitment process. A probable reason is that another job offer has come through. However, other overlooked factors could be poor communication and an inadequate interview procedure.

A heavy workload dedicated to supporting existing employees in day-to-day operations, such as payroll and compliance, may leave little time for recruitment. By the time you get around to responding to candidates, they may lose interest and decide to accept employment elsewhere.

2. Rapid Growth Measures

A recruitment drive is a promising sign of stable company growth. However, rapid growth also indicates ambitious hiring targets. There may be goals to reach, such as securing between five and 10 specialized hires in a 60-day time frame, which adds considerable pressure alongside your general responsibilities.

Introducing a subscription-based recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or a flat-fee partner for support during recruitment surges is a valuable resource. The partner can deliver a personalized solution that aligns with your goals and helps you meet recruitment targets.

3. Low-Quality Hires

With high recruitment drives comes the possibility of rising staff turnover. A high volume of open positions can increase pressure to fill them without the attention to detail needed to vet candidates. When an employee leaves your company after a short time, the hiring process to fill the vacancy must start from the beginning.

Outsourcing recruitment support enables you to rely on experienced recruiters with the tools and time to vet candidates and find suitable fits.

Different Types of Recruiting Support for Overstretched HR Teams

Deciding to outsource recruiting support is the first step toward securing suitable candidates. The support you require depends on various factors, including the number of vacant positions and the time frame to fill them.

Transactional Staffing

If you need to fill a particular position under a tight deadline, working with a transactional staffing agency is a viable option. Transactional staffing is beneficial when urgency is the key driver to filling a position. However, urgency and a speedy recruitment process leave you vulnerable to unsuitable talent.

The outsourced recruiter is responsible for filling your vacancy as soon as possible. Urgency may lead to a less thorough evaluation of candidates against your company culture and their skill sets, such as skipping vital skill-based questions. Additionally, using a transactional staffing solution multiple times due to unsuitable candidates increases your costs.

Embedded Recruitment Partners

To build an ongoing relationship with experienced recruiters, seeking an embedded recruitment partner offers reassurance in finding the right candidates. When you integrate the recruitment partner into your email and applicant tracking system (ATS), the partner can help maintain brand consistency when interacting with potential candidates.

An embedded recruitment partner typically operates as a monthly subscription or flat-fee service based on open positions. The recruitment process focuses on vetting quality candidates rather than filling vacancies by a deadline.

Consultancy and Strategy

If you’re in a position where guidance on finding candidates is a more valuable tool, expert advice can steer you in the right direction. A consultant provides support on methods for finding talent and improving your internal recruitment process. These improvements may include changing the advertising channels or refining job descriptions.

Consultancy allows you to implement the improvement points without outsourcing the work. A consultant can advise on how to speed up recruitment without compromising quality and stretching workloads.

Improve the Recruiting Process With Embedded Support

Outsourcing your recruitment, especially during peak hiring periods, is priceless for securing competent candidates for your roles. All parties involved, from your HR team to the company and the candidates themselves, benefit from a seamless experience. Below are the reasons why embedded recruitment support makes a difference:

Boosts speed: When you have a recruitment partner handle the time-consuming tasks of screening and scheduling candidates for interviews, your schedule becomes less daunting. Your recruitment partner has the time and tools to ensure you’re filling vacancies efficiently while maintaining quality.
Flexible scalability: Adopting a flat-fee or monthly-subscription partner offers scalable pricing based on the number of vacancies. When your company experiences high recruitment demand, the recruitment support increases to meet this demand. During slower periods, the level of support can decrease to align with your goals.
Access to premium talent: Enlisting a recruitment partner is an opportunity to tap in to a highly skilled network. Recruiters with specific industry knowledge have passive professional contacts that exceed the reach of posting a job advertisement on generic job boards. These partners have years of experience in particular industries, reducing the risk of low-quality hires.
Better vetting techniques: Particularly for specialized roles, a recruitment partner can seek advice from industry professionals on required skills and qualifications. Reaching out to their contacts for guidance is a valuable tool to ensure you’re targeting the proper criteria and offers confidence when onboarding talent.
Consistency for candidates: Frequent communication with potential candidates is a consistent issue for internal HR teams due to increasing workloads. Integrating with your ATS and email domain allows recruitment partners to maintain timely communication about application updates, interviews and offers.

How to Move From Hiring to Talent Acquisition

The goal for any HR team is to prioritize talent acquisition during the recruitment process. Instead, the pressure of securing candidates within a time frame to hit targets takes over. Talent acquisition is achievable through a strategy of focusing on the long-term benefits.

Focus on Retention

Outsourcing recruitment efforts to a partner with experience and knowledge of your industry leaves you free to work on retention of existing talent. Changing the course of the day-to-day by improving the employee experience allows existing workers to feel valued and keeps your workforce motivated.

Finding ways to keep existing employees engaged positively impacts productivity and shapes a proactive workplace culture.

Build a Long-Term Partnership

Fostering a mutually beneficial relationship with an embedded recruitment partner allows them to build on their growing knowledge of your company. Communication with candidates becomes a streamlined process to offer a consistent experience, such as adopting your company’s tone of voice.

Secure Your Financial Health

Time-to-fill costs can rise and accumulate when you’re working with a recruitment agency that charges unpredictable percentages. Seeking a partnership with a flat-fee or monthly-subscription outsourcing partner provides quality and a cost-effective solution to finding new talent.

Levels of support may vary depending on demand. However, subscription and flat-fee models provide financial predictability and are well-suited to HR budgeting.

7 Tips to Choose a Recruitment Partner

Emerge Talent

Recruitment partnerships are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Before reaching out to the first recruitment partner you find, it’s essential to conduct due diligence and find the right partnership for your HR team. The following seven tips will help you in your search:

Investigate industry experience: Knowledge about your industry makes a difference to recruitment efforts. Primarily, if you’re recruiting for specialized roles, a recruiter must uphold a working knowledge of the industry to understand what you’re looking for in candidates. Vetting candidates is a more straightforward process with a knowledgeable recruiter.
Ensure recruitment alignment: The optimal starting point for conversations is outlining what you need from a recruitment partner. For example, relay your business goals and clearly explain what you hope to achieve from the partnership, including scalability and quality. A reputable partner tailors their approach to meet your expectations.
Discuss recruiter responsibilities: Multiple recruiters working on your account confuses the recruiters and your team. Clarify how the setup works with the partnership and whether it’s possible to assign particular individuals. Having the same people handle your recruitment delivers consistency and a better candidate experience.
Learn the vetting process: An experienced recruitment partner has a tried and tested screening method to find suitable candidates. Discuss the evaluation of a candidate’s experience and how the screening aligns with your company’s culture.
Set communication targets: Candidates expect timely communication throughout the recruitment process. Without consistent updates, candidates are likely to look elsewhere for employment opportunities. Assess a recruitment partner’s typical response times and communication templates for updates to candidates and hiring managers.
Analyze costs: Evaluate the costs carefully to determine what a subscription or flat fee includes. Consider the level of ongoing support in a partnership and the value it brings, rather than expensive percentage models.
Confirm brand representation: The recruitment partner is responsible for liaising with candidates and contacts on your behalf. Discuss how the partner establishes your tone of voice and values across all correspondence.

Scale Your Team Without the Stress

The time and effort required to screen candidates, facilitate interviews and organize onboarding put significant strain on an HR team’s calendar. Recruitment is an integral part of HR, but the administrative effort needed to secure the right talent can take its toll.

The repercussions of an overworked HR team can lead to growing concerns across multiple areas. For example, poor-quality hires and reduced support for existing employees affect retention rates. The option of transactional staffing leaves your HR team in a pattern of repeating the same mistakes with reactive hiring.

Building a firm relationship with an embedded recruitment partner provides the support you require to fill vacancies confidently. Flexible support and predictable costs allow you to scale your team, meet long-term objectives and maintain financial stability.

Experienced recruiters have the knowledge to oversee time-to-fill and help you onboard the right candidates.

This story was produced by Emerge Talent and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

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New to The Street's Esteemed Client Roadzen Wins "InsurTech Solution of the Year" at 2026 FinTech Breakthrough Awards

By Media News

3 min read • Published March 26, 2026

By Media News

3 min read • Published March 26, 2026

NASDAQ:RDZN Honored Alongside Mastercard, Capital One, and Moody’s as New to The Street Expands National Media Coverage

NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 26, 2026 / New to The Street, the premier financial media platform broadcasting as sponsored programming on Fox Business Network and Bloomberg Television, proudly announces that its esteemed client, Roadzen Inc. (Nasdaq:RDZN), has been named "InsurTech Solution of the Year" at the 2026 FinTech Breakthrough Awards, one of the most competitive and globally recognized programs in financial technology.

Selected from over 4,500 nominations across more than 20 countries, Roadzen’s AI-powered claims platform was recognized by an independent panel of industry experts for its innovation, performance, ease of use, and advanced functionality. This distinction places Roadzen among an elite group of 2026 award winners, including Mastercard, Capital One, Intuit, Moody’s, NerdWallet, FIS, and Webull.

The FinTech Breakthrough Awards, part of the globally recognized Tech Breakthrough program, honor excellence across digital banking, payments, personal finance, wealth management, fraud protection, RegTech, and InsurTech-highlighting the most innovative companies shaping the future of financial services.

Roadzen continues to lead at the intersection of artificial intelligence, insurance, and mobility, delivering transformative solutions that enable insurers, automakers, and fleet operators to better predict risk, automate claims, and create seamless, embedded insurance experiences. With thousands of clients across North America, Europe, and Asia, the company is rapidly scaling its platform across global markets.

As part of its ongoing strategic partnership, New to The Street will amplify Roadzen’s achievement through its powerful, integrated media ecosystem, including:

National television broadcasts on Fox Business and Bloomberg
Long-form executive interviews filmed at the Nasdaq MarketSite and NYSE
High-frequency TV commercial distribution
Dominant outdoor billboard placements across Times Square and the NYC Financial District
Digital amplification to a combined audience of over 5 million subscribers across YouTube and social platforms
Earned media placements across ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates nationwide

"Roadzen’s recognition at the FinTech Breakthrough Awards is a clear validation of its leadership in AI-driven insurance technology," said Vince Caruso CEO and CO-Founder NTTS. "We are proud to work alongside companies like Roadzen that are not only innovating at a high level but executing globally and delivering real, measurable impact across the financial ecosystem."

With this latest award, Roadzen further strengthens its position as a category-defining insurtech platform, continuing to attract attention from institutional investors, strategic partners, and global markets.

About Roadzen Inc.

Roadzen Inc. is a global leader in AI at the convergence of insurance and mobility. The company develops advanced technologies that help insurers, automakers, and fleets predict and prevent risk, automate claims, and deliver seamless insurance experiences. Roadzen’s work in telematics, generative AI, and computer vision has earned recognition from leading publications including Forbes and Fortune. Headquartered in Burlingame, California, Roadzen operates across the U.S., U.K., and India.

About New to The Street

New to The Street is one of the most powerful financial media platforms in the industry, combining national television broadcasts on Fox Business and Bloomberg with one of the largest business-focused YouTube channels and a dominant outdoor advertising footprint in Times Square and the NYC Financial District. The platform delivers unmatched visibility through long-form TV, digital distribution, earned media, and iconic billboard placements.

Media Contact:

Monica Brennan
New to The Street
Monica@NewtoTheStreet.com

SOURCE: New to The Street

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

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He Was Showrunner on ‘Impractical Jokers.’ Now He Runs Corporate Campaigns for Fortune 500 Companies

Simmy Kustanowitz spent two decades in TV development and production. Now he's applying showrunner skills to the corporate world, and he's not done with entertainment either.

@milesworks

9 min read • Originally published March 17, 2026 / Updated March 25, 2026

@milesworks

9 min read • Originally published March 17, 2026 / Updated March 25, 2026

Simmy Kustanowitz has a résumé that reads like a guided tour of mid-2000s to mid-2020s television. Writer on Total Request Live. Development executive across truTV, TBS, and TNT, where he oversaw shows like At Home with Amy Sedaris, Adam Ruins Everything, and The Carbonaro Effect. Showrunner and executive producer on Impractical Jokers for several seasons. VP of Development at a time when the unscripted boom was rewriting the economics of cable.

Then, in 2023, he decided to build something new alongside it all.

His company, Clock Tower Innovation, takes the skills he built running TV productions and applies them inside corporations. The client list is eclectic: tech, banking, private equity firms, and a veterinary emergency group. He calls himself a “corporate showrunner,” and while the title might raise eyebrows in a writers’ room, the framework is serious. He runs workshops, builds narrative strategies, and helps marketing and communications teams at large organizations figure out how to actually land a message.

In 2025, he won the Vistage New Speaker of the Year award. He’s also currently executive producing Foul Play with Anthony Davis. The man is busy.

We talked to Kustanowitz about what TV production teaches you about corporate leadership, why so many companies struggle with clarity, and what media professionals should be thinking about as they consider their next move.

Vital Stats
Name: Simmy Kustanowitz
Company: Clock Tower Innovation LLC
Title: Founder
Location: New York, NY
Previous: VP of Development, truTV/TBS/TNT; Showrunner/EP, Impractical Jokers
Contact: simmy@clocktowerinnovation.com | @clocktowerinnovation on Instagram

You call yourself a “corporate showrunner.” For people who’ve worked in TV production, what does that role actually look like inside a large enterprise?

I realize this might sound crazy to people in the entertainment world, but running a show and overseeing a corporate campaign can feel remarkably similar. The environment is completely different, of course, but you’re using a lot of the same muscles. That’s what I mean by corporate showrunner. Whether it’s overseeing an internal comms campaign or helping a marketing team craft the most effective brand narrative, I’m essentially applying my TV showrunner skills to the business world.

Running a TV show requires creativity, efficiency, and leadership. You need to be able to think creatively, compartmentalize challenges and tackle them quickly, and build trust among your crew as a leader they feel inspired to work for. These same traits have helped me successfully lead campaigns in the corporate world. I’ve partnered with several large corporations that know the story they want to tell, or the product they need to sell, but they don’t know how to land the plane. A showrunner knows how to bring an entire production together, and a corporate showrunner does the same for a company that’s looking to connect with its intended audience.

You spent 20-plus years in television, starting as a writer on Total Request Live and working your way up to VP of Development. At what point did you realize the skills you’d built in TV had a market outside of entertainment?

A few years ago, a friend who works in finance introduced me to his Chief Marketing Officer, because she was looking for creative ways to motivate her team. This CMO explained to me that she wanted her colleagues to think outside the box and asked if I could lead a workshop with that in mind.

I put together a simple presentation, included clips from some of my shows, and focused on how the methodologies I developed in the entertainment industry could be applied to their work. In other words: what show business can show business. I called the workshop “Rethink the Way You Think,” and the reaction to that session was overwhelmingly positive. That’s the moment I knew my skills could translate, and help people in any industry.

You’ve said that complex organizations don’t lack ambition, they struggle with clarity, consistency, and cadence. Can you give us a concrete example?

So many corporate decisions are driven by fear. Comms and marketing teams really do want to move the needle, but they’re worried about going out on a limb and trying something bold. So they settle for the path that’s safe, or boring, and often produce content that’s so watered down by corporate jargon that it lacks the clarity it needs to resonate.

The companies that hire Clock Tower do so because they’re ready to try something new. So we take the same approach we would in television: find smart, clever and “sticky” ways to engage with your customers, or audience. That simple approach can be just as effective in business as it is in TV.

You were showrunner and EP on Impractical Jokers for several years. That’s a show where the talent are also the creators. What did managing that dynamic teach you about leadership?

On a show like Jokers, you need to respect the fact that the show is their baby. You can’t have an ego about it. You need to understand and appreciate that your voice simply doesn’t count as much as theirs does. At the same time, you’re the showrunner, and at the end of the day they want you to push back when you have something on your mind. So it’s a real balance.

Successfully achieving that balance has helped me in the corporate world as well. If I pitch an idea the marketing team loves but the CEO isn’t buying, you can’t have an ego about it. You need to respect the chain of command, be forceful when appropriate and also know when to drop it and pivot.

Thinking about your own pivot? Browse open roles on Mediabistro across content strategy, brand marketing, creative direction, and more.

Your client list ranges from big tech to a veterinary emergency group to private equity firms. Is there a common problem you keep encountering regardless of the sector?

These companies might seem on the surface like they’re from different planets, but what I’ve learned through Clock Tower is that everyone ultimately speaks the same language. The challenges you see at one company, you see at all companies.

Meetings go on too long. Work-from-home policies are causing trickle-down problems. AI adoption is creating confusion. I could go on. It’s really remarkable how many issues keep repeating. So when companies’ problems are that universal, it’s really not so hard to find solutions that are just as universal.

You made the leap to entrepreneurship in 2023 after two decades in TV. What did you underestimate about starting Clock Tower Innovation, and what turned out to be easier than expected?

I don’t think I quite appreciated the amount of hustling you need to do when you’re starting your own thing. It is a nonstop, never-ending hustle. You need to be willing to ask everyone in your life for favors and introductions, and then have the self-awareness to know when to be persistent and when to drop it. It’s a lot!

I’m not sure anything has been easier than I expected, honestly. But when I land one of those big engagements, and when I get rehired because we nailed what they hired us to do, it’s more rewarding than anything I ever experienced before setting out on my own.

You’re simultaneously running Clock Tower while executive producing Foul Play with Anthony Davis. How do you structure your time across those roles?

I’ve always been a good juggler. In my days as a network exec, there were times when I was overseeing six series at once. For me, it has always come down to structured efficiency. I’ll break down my day into compartments: two hours for this project, 30 minutes for this other one, an hour for that one, and tick them off one by one. I make lots of lists. When I was young, my mother used to tell me and my siblings to “always make a list, and make the first item on your list ‘make a list’ so you can cross something off right away and feel a sense of accomplishment.” That’s always stuck with me.

You developed and oversaw shows like At Home with Amy Sedaris, Adam Ruins Everything, and The Carbonaro Effect during your time at truTV. What’s your read on the state of unscripted and alternative programming right now?

It’s a very confusing, scary time for all of programming, really. Other than sports, I’m not sure any area is particularly safe. The entertainment industry is in the midst of a massive transition with no clear path ahead, but the world will always need entertainment. I won’t pretend to have a magic wand here. I have no clue where it’s all going. But smart creators with unique POVs will find a way to find their audience.

You’ve talked about “narrative frameworks” and “internal media systems.” For a content strategist or producer reading this, what do those deliverables actually look like?

The deliverables differ from company to company, but they can range from a simple Google doc with a brand manifesto to an elaborate presentation filled with dynamic slides or a piece of content intended for company-wide distribution. It can really be anything that particular business is trying to communicate to its intended audience.

You won the 2025 Vistage New Speaker of the Year award. What resonates most when you’re on stage talking to business leaders?

Many business leaders relate to my “Simplify and Gamify” framework. When I lead workshops, I always start off by simplifying the process in the most basic way: everyone in the room numbers a piece of paper 1-10 and spends 10 minutes brainstorming something related to their current priorities. Then, I lead the participants through some sort of gamified brainstorm exercise, geared towards whatever their area of focus is on that day. I find gamification helps trojan-horse education through entertainment. When people are having fun, they’re much more open to learning and growth.

As for surprises: I often get feedback that these leaders never expected to be able to apply so many lessons from TV production in the business world. They’re shocked by how much shared DNA can be found between their work and my experience in comedy and entertainment. Seeing that revelation in my sessions is always so rewarding.

Looking at the media industry right now, what skill or capability do you think is most undervalued by professionals in our space?

Diversification. Someone once told me to think of my career not as a ladder, but as a portfolio, and a good portfolio is diversified. I can proudly say that the work I do through Clock Tower has helped financial institutions, law firms, real estate companies, medical facilities, tech startups, and nonprofits. And I’ve been able to secure such a diverse group of clients because the work I do isn’t siloed.

Be open to working with teams or companies outside your comfort zone, and learn skills you never had time to learn before. If you’re able to do that, you will find opportunities in the unlikeliest of places.

You can follow Kustanowitz’s quick-hit video series “Innovation in Under :60” on Instagram at @clocktowerinnovation, subscribe to his Substack, or reach him directly at simmy@clocktowerinnovation.com.

For employers hiring in media and creative: If you’re looking for content strategists, producers, brand marketers, or creative directors who can bring a storyteller’s perspective to your organization, post your role on Mediabistro and reach the industry’s most dedicated talent community.

Topics:

Dolphin Entertainment Reports Record Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Results

By Media News

10 min read • Published March 25, 2026

By Media News

10 min read • Published March 25, 2026

2025 Revenue Rises 10% to $56.7M; Q4’25 Revenue Up 27% YoY to $15.6M
2025 Net Loss Decreases by $9.5M and 2025 Adjusted EBITDA More than Triples to $2.9M compared to 2024
Q4’25 Net Income of $1.0M vs. Net Loss of $2.0M in Q4 24
Q4’25 Adjusted EBITDA Swings to $1.7M Profit vs. $(0.5)M Year-Ago Loss
Expects Continued Revenue Growth and Adjusted EBITDA Margin Expansion in 2026

MIAMI, FL / ACCESS Newswire / March 25, 2026 / Dolphin (NASDAQ:DLPN), a leading entertainment marketing and premium content production company, today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025.

Bill O’Dowd, CEO of Dolphin, stated:

"2025 marked a turning point for Dolphin. After several years of strategic acquisitions and growth investments, we are now reaping the benefits. Full-year revenue grew approximately 10% to $56.7 million, with fourth quarter revenue up 27% year-over-year to $15.6 million. Full-year Adjusted EBITDA reached $2.9 million, up 209% from $0.9 million. Q4 was particularly strong, with Adjusted EBITDA of $1.7 million compared to Adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.5 million in Q4 2024, a $2.2 million swing that underscores the operating leverage in our model.

Our recently announced strategic partnership with DealMaker, our AI capabilities through Dolphin Intelligence, and our disciplined venture investments represent additional growth catalysts requiring little to no upfront capital. We expect continued top-line growth in 2026 and, just as in 2025, we expect Adjusted EBITDA to expand significantly faster than revenue. We have built the infrastructure and team to support a meaningfully larger revenue base, in which incremental revenue is able to flow disproportionately to the bottom line and we expect continued Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in 2026.

We are excited about 2026, 2027 and beyond. Our bank debt matures within roughly two and a half years, which will save us almost $2.2 million in principal and interest payments on an annual basis. Furthermore, we expect approximately $1 million in annualized lease savings to be achieved after our large leases in New York City and Los Angeles terminate by the end of 2026 and 2027, respectively. These lease savings will enhance our operational leverage, and just as with our expectations of continued organic growth and margin expansion, nearly all these savings will flow directly to our free cash flow given our NOL federal and state carryforwards of $127 million.

2025 and Recent Highlights

Total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025, was $56.7 million, an increase of 10% from $51.7 million last year.

Operating loss was $0.04 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to an operating loss of $10.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2024.

Operating expenses for full year 2025 were $56.7 million, including non‑cash expenses of $2.4 million related to depreciation and amortization. This compares to operating expenses of $62.2 million in 2024, including depreciation and amortization of $2.4 million, and non‑recurring or non‑cash expenses of $8.0 million, consisting primarily of a $6.7 million goodwill impairment and a $1.3 million write‑off of notes receivable.

Net loss for full year 2025 was $3.1 million, including non‑cash expenses of approximately $2.4 million related to depreciation and amortization and non-recurring net expenses of $0.5 million related to acquisition costs, debt extinguishment costs and a gain on the sale of a subsidiary. This compares to a net loss of $12.6 million for 2024, including depreciation and amortization of $2.4 million and non‑recurring and non‑cash expenses of approximately $8.0 million, primarily consisting of a $6.7 million goodwill impairment and a $1.3 million write‑off of notes receivable.

Basic and diluted loss per share for full year 2025 was $(0.27) based on 11,558,485 weighted average shares outstanding compared to basic and diluted loss per share in 2024 of $(1.22) based on 10,306,904 weighted average shares outstanding.

Adjusted EBITDA for full year 2025 was $2.9 million, compared to $0.9 million in 2024;

Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 2025 was $1.7 million, compared to $(0.5) million in Q4 2024.

Dolphin

Partnered with DealMaker to Unlock Community Capital for Celebrity and Influencer Brands
Dolphin’s Powerhouse Subsidiaries Lead Major Brand Activations During Super Bowl LX
CEO Featured on Variety’s "Strictly Business" Podcast, Discusses the Creator Economy’s Transformation of Marketing and Consumer Product Launches
Expanded Miami Footprint to Support Continued Growth Across Subsidiaries
Unveiled New ‘Dolphin Intelligence’ Division to Power AI-Driven Marketing and Communications Strategy and Execution for Partners
Named One of Crain’s Best Places to Work in NYC 2025
CEO Bill O’Dowd Named to PRNEWS 2025 People of the Year List; Company Recognized on Agency Elite 120

42West

Celebrated Oscar Win as "Mr. Nobody Against Putin" Takes Best Documentary Feature at the 98th Academy Awards
At Super Bowl LX, generated national media buzz for Funko’s limited-edition Seattle Seahawks Pop! release and led widespread coverage of Puppy Bowl XXII, amplifying multi-network visibility and pet adoption awareness during the Big Game weekend.
Landed Six Nominations for Clients at the 98th Academy Awards
Brought Exciting and Diverse Projects to the 2026 Sundance Film Festival
Garnered Four Nominations for Clients at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards

Shore Fire Media

Clients Named 2 of the 10 Best Podcasts in 2025, Including the No. 1 Pick
Shore Fire Media and 42West’s Clients Presented, Performed and Took Home Honors at the 2026 GRAMMY Awards
Shore Fire Media and 42West Clients Earn 35 Nominations for the 2026 GRAMMY Awards

The Door

DISRPT Agency, a Division of The Door, Powered "Art of Glam" During Oscars Week, Driving Cultural Momentum Into Camille Rose’s Upcoming Beauté Noir
DISRPT delivered a headline-making moment at the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show by orchestrating the debut of Bad Bunny’s first adidas Originals signature shoe
The Door Provided Strategic Communications Leadership for Hooters as the Iconic Brand Enters a New Era of Ownership and Cultural Relevance

Elle Communications

At Super Bowl LX in the Bay Area, drove national visibility for City Year and its NFL partnership by spotlighting the opening of East Palo Alto’s first regulation-sized football field and related community activation
Client Harbor Fund Announced Sundance Mountain Resort as New Long-Term Home of Harbor Film Forum
Named Agency of Record for FDA-Cleared Neurostimulation Device
Launched "The Shift," a Quarterly Report, Weekly Newsletter, and Live Workshop Series on the Future of Communications
Led Press For "A Day of Unreasonable Conversation" Summit At The Getty Center

The Digital Dept.

The Digital Dept. Signed Reality TV Show Stars, Top Beauty Creators
Ahead of Super Bowl LX, built social buzz for T-Mobile’s Big Game commercial by activating creator Becca Tilley for exclusive behind-the-scenes content and talent interviews.

Special Projects

Had Another Successful Year of Talent Relations for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Fifth Annual Gala Honoring Penélope Cruz, Walter Salles, Bruce Springsteen, And Bowen Yang

Youngblood

As Hockey Has a Hollywood Moment, Dolphin’s Adaptation of Cult Classic Youngblood Premiered in Los Angeles
Dolphin Partnered with Vaneast Pictures To Bring Sports Drama Youngblood to Berlin for International Sales
Official Trailer and Key Art Released for Hubert Davis’ Adaptation of Hockey Classic "Youngblood"
Partnered with Well Go USA for U.S. Distribution of YOUNGBLOOD
Los Angeles Kings Joined Feature Film Youngblood

Conference Call Information

To participate in this event, dial in approximately 5 to 10 minutes before the beginning of the call.

Date: March 25, 2026
Time: 4:30pm ET
Toll Free: 888-506-0062 International: 973-528-0011 Participant Access Code: 255728
Webcast: https://www.webcaster5.com/Webcast/Page/2225/53793

Replay

Toll Free: 877-481-4010 International: 919-882-2331 Replay Passcode: 53793
Webcast Replay: https://www.webcaster5.com/Webcast/Page/2225/53793

This press release contains ‘forward-looking statements’ within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements may address, among other things, Dolphin Entertainment Inc.’s offering of common stock as well as expected financial and operational results and the related assumptions underlying its expected results. These forward-looking statements are distinguished by the use of words such as "will," "would," "anticipate," "expect," "believe," "designed," "plan," or "intend," the negative of these terms, and similar references to future periods. These views involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict and, accordingly, Dolphin Entertainment’s actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in its forward-looking statements. Dolphin Entertainment’s forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this press release. Factors or events Dolphin Entertainment cannot predict, including those described in the risk factors contained in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, may cause its actual results to differ from those expressed in forward-looking statements. Although Dolphin Entertainment believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved, and Dolphin Entertainment undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

CONTACT:

James Carbonara
HAYDEN IR
(646)-755-7412
james@haydenir.com

ABOUT DOLPHIN:

Dolphin (NASDAQ:DLPN) is where cultural creation meets marketing execution. Founded in 1996 by Bill O’Dowd, Dolphin operates as both a venture studio-developing and investing in breakthrough content, products, and experiences-and a marketing consortium, featuring leading agencies across every communications discipline.

At its core, the venture studio creates, produces, finances, markets, and promotes new businesses and cultural ideas – ranging from acclaimed film, television, and digital content to consumer goods, live events and partnerships that define entertainment and lifestyle. Surrounding this entrepreneurial engine, Dolphin’s marketing prowess brings together best-in-class firms including 42West, The Door, Shore Fire Media, Elle Communications, Special Projects and The Digital Dept. Together, this collective delivers unmatched cross-marketing expertise and relationships across every vertical of pop culture – from film, television, music, influencers, sports, hospitality, and fashion to consumer brands and purpose-driven initiatives. Dolphin marketing has been the recipient of many accolades, including #1 Agency of the Year on the Observer PR Power List in 2025, The PR Net 100, and the PR News Elite 120.

DOLPHIN ENTERTAINMENT, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Consolidated Balance Sheets
As of December 31, 2025 and 2024

	2025		2024
ASSETS
Current
Cash and cash equivalents	$	8,756,585	$	8,203,842
Restricted cash		925,004		925,004
Accounts receivable:
Trade, net of allowance of $445,523 and $1,327,808, respectively		7,848,970		5,113,157
Other receivables		5,243,931		5,451,697
Other current assets		1,179,498		373,399
Total current assets		23,953,988		20,067,099

Capitalized production costs, net		520,338		594,763
Employee receivable		1,196,085		1,007,418
Right-of-use assets		3,012,941		4,738,997
Goodwill		21,507,944		21,507,944
Intangible assets, net		7,898,607		10,189,026
Property, equipment and leasehold improvements, net		50,961		114,011
Other long-term assets		189,296		218,021
Total Assets	$	58,330,160	$	58,437,279

(Continued)

DOLPHIN ENTERTAINMENT, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Consolidated Balance Sheets (Continued)
As of December 31, 2025 and 2024

	2025			2024
LIABILITIES
Current
Accounts payable	$	3,096,715		$	2,344,272
Term loans, current portion		1,813,760			1,686,018
Revolving line of credit		400,000			400,000
Notes payable, current portion		3,500,000			3,750,000
Convertible notes payable, current portion		1,250,000			–
Contingent consideration		–			486,000
Accrued interest – related party		2,043,087			1,857,986
Accrued compensation – related party		2,625,000			2,625,000
Lease liabilities, current portion		1,912,482			1,919,672
Deferred revenue		794,177			341,153
Other current liabilities		11,096,820			11,104,036
Total current liabilities		28,532,041			26,514,137

Noncurrent
Term loans, noncurrent portion		2,976,930			4,782,271
Notes payable, noncurrent portion		4,580,000			3,130,000
Convertible notes payable		6,460,000			5,100,000
Convertible notes payable- related party		2,904,357			–
Convertible notes payable at fair value		270,000			320,000
Loans from related party		983,112			3,225,985
Lease liabilities		1,469,386			3,306,033
Deferred tax liability		463,909			394,547
Other noncurrent liabilities		–			18,915
Total Liabilities		48,639,735			46,791,888
Commitments and contingencies (Note 25)

STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
Preferred Stock, Series C, $0.001 par value, 50,000 shares authorized, 50,000 shares issued and outstanding at December 31, 2025 and 2024		1,000			1,000
Common stock, $0.015 par value, 200,000,000 shares authorized, 12,221,432 and 11,162,026 shares issued and outstanding at December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively		183,321			166,688
Additional paid in capital		158,809,301			157,692,132
Accumulated deficit		(149,303,197	)		(146,214,429	)
Total Stockholders’ Equity		9,690,425			11,645,391
Total Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity	$	58,330,160		$	58,437,279

DOLPHIN ENTERTAINMENT, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Consolidated Statements of Operations
For the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024

	2025			2024
Revenues	$	56,699,389		$	51,684,984

Expenses:
Direct costs		2,269,874			3,266,461
Payroll and benefits		41,916,885			38,123,040
Selling, general and administrative		7,813,177			7,795,610
Acquisition costs		416,171			164,044
Impairment of goodwill		–			6,671,557
Write-off of notes receivables		–			1,270,000
Change in fair value of contingent consideration		–			50,000
Gain on sale of Always Alpha Sports Management LLC		(756,574	)		–
Depreciation and amortization		2,354,585			2,382,361
Legal and professional		2,724,329			2,447,083
Total expenses		56,738,447			62,170,156

Loss from operations		(39,058	)		(10,485,172	)

Other (expenses) income:
Change in fair value of convertible note		50,000			35,000
Change in fair value of warrant		–			5,000
Loss on extinguishment of debt		(835,324	)		–
Interest expense, net		(2,195,024	)		(2,070,199	)
Total other (expense) income, net		(2,980,348	)		(2,030,199	)

Loss before income taxes	$	(3,019,406	)	$	(12,515,371	)

Income tax expense		(69,362	)		(87,854	)

Net loss		(3,088,768	)		(12,603,225	)

Loss per share:
Basic	$	(0.27	)	$	(1.22	)
Diluted	$	(0.27	)	$	(1.22	)

Weighted average number of shares used in per share calculation
Basic		11,558,485			10,306,904
Diluted		11,558,485			10,306,904

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In order to provide greater transparency regarding our operating performance, the financial results in this press release refer to a non-GAAP financial measure that involves adjustments to GAAP results. Non-GAAP financial measures exclude certain income and/or expense items that management deems are not directly attributable to the Company’s core operating results and/or certain items that are inconsistent in amounts and frequency, making it difficult to perform a meaningful evaluation of our current or past operating performance.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("Adjusted EBITDA") is defined by Dolphin as net (loss) or income adjusted for (i) interest, (ii) taxes, (iii) depreciation and amortization, (iv) write-off of assets, (v) impairment of goodwill or intangible assets, (vi) acquisition costs, (vii) equity based compensation, (viii) change in fair value of contingent consideration, convertible notes and warrants, (ix) allowance for credit losses, (x) loss on extinguishment of debt, (xi) gains or losses on sale of subsidiaries, (xii) litigation costs; and (xiii) impairment of capitalized production costs.

Management believes that the presentation of operating results using this non-GAAP financial measure provides useful supplemental information for investors by providing them with the non-GAAP financial measure used by management for financial and operational decision making, planning and forecasting and in managing the business. This non-GAAP financial measure does not replace the presentation of financial information in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These non-GAAP financial results should not be considered a measure of liquidity and is unlikely to be comparable to non-GAAP financial measures provided by other companies.

Reconciliation of GAAP net (loss) income to non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA

	Twelve Months Ended December 31,						Three Months Ended December 31,
	2025			2024			2025			2024

Net (loss) income (GAAP)	$	(3,088,768	)	$	(12,603,225	)	$	1,019,706		$	(1,959,611	)

Adjustments to GAAP measure:
Interest expense		2,195,024			2,070,199			467,203			520,914
Income tax expense		69,362			87,854			26,317			43,148
Depreciation and amortization		2,354,585			2,382,361			582,093			636,782
Write off of assets		–			1,270,000			–			–
Impairment of goodwill		–			6,671,557			–			–
Acquisition costs		416,171			164,044			–			–
Equity based compensation		12,399			364,650			456			3,933
Change in fair value of contingent consideration		–			50,000			–			50,000
Change in fair value of convertible note and warrant		(50,000	)		(40,000	)		(30,000	)		20,000
Allowance for credit losses		441,875			505,173			177,292			204,143
Loss on extinguishment of debt		835,324			–			–			–
Gain on sale of Always Alpha		(756,574	)		–			(756,574	)		–
Litigation costs		333,866			–			129,099			–
Impairment of capitalized production costs		88,127			–			88,127			–
Adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP)	$	2,851,391		$	922,613		$	1,703,719		$	(480,691	)

SOURCE: Dolphin Entertainment

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

Topics:

What employees actually want from flexible scheduling, and what's holding it back

By Eric Czerwonka for Buddy Punch

7 min read • Published March 25, 2026

By Eric Czerwonka for Buddy Punch

7 min read • Published March 25, 2026

Andrey_Popov // Shutterstock

What employees actually want from flexible scheduling, and what’s holding it back

For years, workplace flexibility has been framed as a binary: rigid schedules versus complete autonomy. But as seen in Buddy Punch’s previous analysis, The Invisible Tradeoff Behind “Flexible” Work, most organizations still operate within fairly traditional time structures, with flexibility layered on top rather than fundamentally reshaping the workweek.

This raises a practical question.

If flexibility is often bounded by structure, what are employees actually asking for? And when organizations respond, how does that flexibility function in practice?

To explore those questions, Buddy Punch surveyed U.S.-based business owners and HR leaders about the scheduling options employees most frequently request. The survey also examined how often those requests are approved, what influences approval decisions, and how scheduling ultimately affects morale and management strain.

The results reveal something more nuanced than a simple “yes” or “no” to flexibility. Employees aren’t asking for unlimited freedom. Organizations aren’t reflexively denying requests. Instead, flexibility operates inside operational guardrails, which are shaped by coverage needs, fairness concerns, and productivity realities.

What emerges is a portrait of flexibility that is structured, conditional, and negotiated.

Key Findings

Employees are asking for structured flexibility, not unlimited freedom, with flexible start and end times emerging as the most requested option. At the same time, predictability is ranking nearly as high as autonomy.
Schedule change requests are frequently approved, but flexibility remains conditional. Instead, it is shaped primarily by coverage needs, manager discretion, and operational feasibility rather than employee preference alone.
Overall satisfaction with scheduling is high, with the vast majority of organizations reporting positive morale impacts and minimal dissatisfaction.
Behind the scenes, scheduling is widely viewed as one of the most challenging aspects of management, with conflicts, fairness concerns, and coordination demands creating ongoing strain.
Staffing shortages and last-minute changes are the biggest barriers to meeting employee preferences, reinforcing that flexibility operates within real workforce constraints.

Buddy Punch

What Employees Are Really Asking For

When asked which scheduling options employees most frequently request, a clear pattern emerged. Workers want greater control over when and how they work but not necessarily a free-for-all.

The most requested option is flexible start and end times (44%). This suggests many employees want room to shift their day without abandoning shared hours altogether. In other words, employees appear to value flexibility within structure. They’re not asking to eliminate coordination; they’re asking for room to adapt around it.

These findings mirror broader national workforce research. Reporting from the Economic Policy Institute notes that surveys of U.S. workers consistently show strong demand for flexible scheduling, particularly flexible start and end times. Across multiple polls, majorities of employees say flexibility helps them better manage work and personal responsibilities.

The Buddy Punch survey also shows meaningful appetite for rethinking the workweek itself. More than one-third cite interest in fully flexible schedules (35%) or compressed workweeks (35%), such as four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour days. These options suggest employees are exploring alternatives to the traditional weekly cadence, not just adjustments at the margins.

At the same time, predictability ranks nearly as high as freedom. Nearly one-third want more consistent schedules (32%) or more advance notice (29%). Another 27% want more influence over shift preferences, and 26% want reduced evening or weekend work.

Taken together, these findings challenge the assumption that flexibility equals spontaneity. Employees aren’t simply asking to work less or whenever they choose. They’re asking for greater agency — more say over when they work, more predictability in how schedules are set, and better alignment between work time and real-life responsibilities.

Approval Is Common But Conditional

While many employees are asking for more control and predictability, most schedule change requests are, in fact, approved.

Two-thirds (66%) report that requests are approved almost always or most of the time. Expand that to include “about half the time,” and approval rises to 87%. Only 1% say requests are almost never approved.

On the surface, this suggests organizations are responsive.

But the data also reinforces a theme seen before: Flexibility is available, yet not automatic. Approval is common, but it operates within guardrails.

That distinction matters. High approval rates don’t necessarily equal full autonomy. Instead, they suggest that organizations are willing to accommodate requests when those requests align with operational realities.

Operational Guardrails Shape Flexibility

When looking at what most influences approval decisions, the hierarchy becomes clear.

Coverage needs lead by a wide margin (61%). If the team can’t maintain adequate staffing, flexibility becomes difficult to grant. This underscores a central tension in scheduling: The individual’s desired shift must coexist with collective requirements.

Manager discretion follows at 40%, highlighting how much flexibility can depend on leadership style and judgment. This introduces variability across teams, even within the same organization.

Performance and operational continuity also weigh heavily. Impact on deadlines or workload (39%) and operational or customer demands (33%) are also key considerations. Equity and fairness concerns (33%), employee seniority or role (32%), and company policy guidelines (30%) further shape decisions.

Taken together, approvals appear to be driven less by preference and more by feasibility. Flexibility succeeds when it doesn’t disrupt coverage, productivity, or fairness.

Buddy Punch

Scheduling Satisfaction Is High

Despite these constraints, employee satisfaction remains strong.

More than 8 in 10 (86%) believe employees are very or somewhat satisfied with their scheduling options. Strong dissatisfaction is rare, with just 3% reporting they are “somewhat dissatisfied” and no respondents selecting “very dissatisfied.”

Morale data follows a similar pattern. Nearly three-quarters (74%) say scheduling has affected morale somewhat or very positively over the past year. Only 6% report a negative impact.

These findings suggest that structured flexibility is largely working. Which is important because schedule quality matters for well-being.

However, high satisfaction doesn’t eliminate complexity. It simply indicates that, for many organizations, the balance between structure and flexibility is functioning adequately.

Buddy Punch

Scheduling: A Hidden Management Challenge

If scheduling works reasonably well from the employee perspective, it tells a different story for managers.

Nearly 2 in 3 (64%) managers agree that scheduling is one of the most challenging parts of managing people. More than half (55%) say conflicts often occur when employees want different schedules. And 63% believe managers need more tools or support to manage scheduling effectively.

This reveals an important nuance.

Flexibility doesn’t remove managerial strain. It redistributes it.

Rather than enforcing a fixed schedule, managers must now continuously evaluate competing preferences, coverage constraints, fairness concerns, and performance expectations. Scheduling becomes less about policy enforcement and more about negotiation.

In that sense, flexibility shifts the coordination burden upward. The system may feel more adaptable for employees, but it often becomes more administratively complex for leaders.

The Real Barriers to Meeting Scheduling Preferences

The most cited challenge in meeting scheduling preferences is staffing or coverage shortages (47%). Short-notice or last-minute schedule change requests follow closely at 40%. Together, these pressures point to a central tension: even when organizations want to offer flexibility, limited staffing and unpredictable changes can narrow what’s realistically possible. That tension is echoed in research from Harvard’s Shift Project, which has found that schedule instability (including last-minute changes) is associated with negative outcomes for workers and their families, from disrupted planning to increased turnover.

Fairness and preference conflicts also create tension. One-third (33%) cite maintaining consistency across teams, while about one-quarter (24%) point to conflicting employee preferences. Flexibility may be valued, but distributing it evenly remains difficult.

Operational realities continue to shape outcomes. Nearly one-quarter (24%) struggle to balance flexibility with productivity expectations, and 21% cite customer or operational requirements.

Taken together, these findings reinforce a broader pattern across the data: Organizations aren’t resisting flexibility in principle. They’re navigating complexity in practice. Most want to accommodate employee preferences, but flexibility must coexist with staffing models, customer demand, performance expectations, and fairness standards.

The Takeaway: Flexibility Is Negotiated, Not Absolute

Across the data, one clear pattern stands out.

Employees aren’t demanding unlimited autonomy. Organizations aren’t reflexively denying flexibility. Instead, flexibility functions as a negotiated space between individual agency and operational feasibility.

Requests are common. Approvals are frequent. Satisfaction is high.

But flexibility remains conditional — shaped by coverage needs, fairness concerns, productivity expectations, and leadership judgment. Modern scheduling is less about removing structure and more about adjusting it in measured ways. Employees want more say and more predictability. And organizations are willing to provide it, so long as performance and continuity remain intact.

That framing aligns with recent analysis of return-to-office trends, which suggests many leaders may be focused on location when the deeper issue is how work is structured and managed. Research from McKinsey notes that flexibility has become embedded in employee expectations and that organizations that respond thoughtfully to those expectations are better positioned to retain talent and sustain engagement.

In that context, the opportunity is not to expand flexibility without limits. It’s to build the operational foundations (e.g., staffing models, communication systems, clear policies, and manager support) that allow flexibility to function consistently, transparently, and at scale.

Methodology

This survey was conducted with 527 U.S.-based adults aged 18 or older who are currently employed full-time or part-time and work in business owner, HR, or HR-adjacent roles with responsibility for managing or influencing employee time, schedules, or workplace policies. All respondents actively participate in scheduling or managing employee work hours, time off, flexibility policies, or workforce planning, and have been in their current role for at least three months. Respondents worked at organizations with five or more employees across a range of organization sizes, industries, and workforce compositions, including hourly, salaried, and mixed workforces. The survey was fielded online from Dec. 4 to Dec. 10, 2025. Results reflect descriptive statistics with no weighting applied.

This story was produced by Buddy Punch and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

Topics:

The GIST Doubles Revenue Amid Rising Demand for Equal Sports Coverage

By Media News

4 min read • Published March 25, 2026

By Media News

4 min read • Published March 25, 2026

Women-Owned Sports Media Company Sees Integrated Women’s and Men’s Sports Campaigns Surge 270%

NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 25, 2026 / The GIST, an inclusive sports media brand dedicated to leveling the playing field by providing equitable coverage to both women’s and men’s sports, today reports 100% year-over-year growth in revenue and expanded partnerships with leading global brands, including Toyota and Adobe. A broader industry shift toward equal sports coverage is driving this momentum, as brands move beyond one-off women’s sports campaigns to integrated strategies that mirror how modern fans actually consume sports.

"Female fans are real, engaged, and influential – and they don’t experience sports in silos," said Jacie deHoop, co-founder at The GIST. "They’re obsessed with Coco Gauff and Trinity Rodman, and with Josh Allen and Steph Curry. They want one destination that covers it all, and so do the brands trying to reach them. That’s exactly what we’ve built, and it’s why brand partners including Nike, Toyota, Adobe and Chase work with us. We help them show up credibly across the entire sports landscape, not just in pockets of it."

The company’s numbers tell the story. Women’s sports-driven revenue grew 118% year-over-year while campaigns integrating women’s and men’s sports – the kind that reflect how fans actually watch and engage – surged 270% and now represent 46% of The GIST’s total revenue mix.

For Super Bowl LX, The GIST scored its first official NFL deal and teamed up with brand partners to diversify how they were connecting with fans and bring more awareness to women in sports during one of the biggest sports moments of the year.

That demand from sponsors to authentically connect with female fans showed up clearly across Super Bowl weekend. Toyota teamed up with The GIST and the NFL at the NFL Media Center to champion the growth of girls’ flag football while Adobe tapped The GIST to put creative tools in the hands of female sports content creators using AI and NFL templates to turn fans into storytellers. Together, the activations showcase how leagues and brands are partnering with The GIST to reach women fans in ways that go far beyond traditional media buys.

"Around the Super Bowl, we sought partners to elevate our investment in the future of girls flag football, including the Toyota Glow Up Classic – a glow-in-the-dark game that marks a moment-defining step for the sport," said Dedra Delilli, VP of Marketing Communications at Toyota. "The GIST’s deep connection to the women’s sports community made them a natural collaborator to bring visibility to the event and the broader conversation. They have a unique way of engaging that community, and they certainly delivered."

"Working with The GIST allows us to reach fans across women’s and men’s sports authentically," said Meredith Batcheller, Head of Global Sports Marketing at Adobe. "They know sports fans better than anyone else in the space right now. Through our mission, empowering everyone to create, Adobe equips fans with creativity tools powered by AI to express their passion for their sport. The way Gist creators are able to shape storytelling across leagues and genders makes our campaigns resonate with diverse audiences. Partnerships like this help us integrate into main stages like the Super Bowl in a way that actually adds value to the fan experience and connect with fans in unique ways that other traditional media can’t."

"Doubling revenue is a milestone, but it’s by no means the finish line," said deHoop. "We’re proving that building for underserved fans is the future of sports media. The brands and leagues that get that early are the ones winning right now, and we’re just getting started."

2025 Highlights:

Record Revenue Growth & Profitability:

100% growth in revenue year-over-year
140% growth in average deal size year-over-year
Profitable

Partnership Expansion & Equal Coverage Leadership:

Women’s sports revenue grew 118% year-over-year
Integrated women’s and men’s sports campaigns grew 270% year-over-year
Partnerships with leading global brands, including Toyota and Adobe

What’s Next for 2026 and Beyond

The GIST entered 2026 with a bang securing brand partnerships around the Super Bowl and increasing coverage around the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games, and the team plans on continuing momentum into the second half of the year as well.

To keep the celebrations roaring and recognize the incredible female athletes who competed at the Olympic Winter Games, The GIST is partnering with rapper and long-time GISTer Flavor Flav to co-host the She Got Game weekend in Las Vegas this July. The event will go beyond just awareness – The GIST will coordinate with brands to provide resources such as corporate job opportunities and networking, and lock in sponsorship deals for the athletes.

About The GIST:

Founded in 2018, The GIST is a women-led sports media company built for the fans the traditional sports world overlooks. Through witty newsletters, podcasts, and social content, The GIST delivers equitable coverage of women’s and men’s sports to an inclusive and growing community of fans. For more information, visit thegistsports.com or follow The GIST on TikTok (@thegistsports), Instagram (@thegistusa, @thegistca), and X/Twitter (@thegistusa, @thegistca).

Media Contact:
Martina Corona
Martina@notablypr.com
781-346-3349

SOURCE: The GIST

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

Topics:

42WEST's 2026 SXSW Festival Slate Delivered Marquee Talent and a Standout Film Slate Featuring a Company-Record 16 World Premiere Titles and Three Audience Award-Winners

By Media News

11 min read • Published March 25, 2026

By Media News

11 min read • Published March 25, 2026

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESS Newswire / March 25, 2026 / Dolphin (NASDAQ:DLPN), a leading entertainment marketing and content production company, today announced the prominence of its subsidiary 42West at the recent 2026 SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. 42West has been a leader in film festival PR campaigns throughout its 21-year history, representing countless films at international and domestic festivals including Annecy, Berlin, Cannes, New York, Sundance, Telluride, Toronto, Tribeca, and Venice.

42West delivered marquee talent and a company record-breaking slate of 16 world premiere titles to Austin this year with two films from the line-up earning much-coveted SXSW Audience Awards: THE ASCENT, which won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature Competition, and CAMPEÓN GABACHO, which won the Audience Award for Narrative Spotlight. Also, Over Your Dead Body, directed by client Jorma Taccone (The Lonely Island, MacGruber) won the Headliner Audience Award.

This year, several 42West filmmaker clients were showcased at the event. Taccone’s Over Your Dead Body, from IFC Films and starring Jason Segel and Samara Weaving, was produced by corporate client 87North, the world renowned production company founded by blockbuster filmmakers David Leitch and Kelly McCormick (The Fall Guy, Bullet Train). 87North also had Prime Video’s Pretty Lethal, starring Uma Thurman and Maddie Ziegler, at the festival, with both films debuting as world premieres in Narrative Competition in advance of their spring release dates.

Producers Marc Platt and Katie McNicol of Marc Platt Productions unveiled their latest film, BASIC, starring Ashley Park and Leighton Meester, as part of the 42West film slate, with McNicol also a featured speaker in the SXSW panel, "Youth in Front and Behind the Cameras." Documentarian Dan Farah returned to Austin, TX to participate in the official festival panel, "The Historic Impact of ‘The Age of Disclosure,’" one year after his film made its world premiere.

In addition to filmmakers, 42West represents talent across multiple disciplines. Popular content creator and renowned financial educator, Vivian Tu (aka Your Rich BFF), hosted a live recording of her top-charting podcast Networth and Chill with California Governor Gavin Newsom from the SXSW Featured stage. She also appeared as a panelist at the Create & Cultivate Future Summit on the "Influence Meets Equity" panel, alongside industry voices including Tezza Barton, Evange Petrakis and Raven Elyse. Meanwhile, music client Braison Cyrus performed an incredible showcase at the festival’s venue, the Marlow, highlighting his recently released album, From Now On.

From the official SXSW 2026 lineup, 42West set a company record representing 16 world premiere titles, marking its largest, most popular and diverse slate to date. The films were:

THE ASCENT (Documentary Feature Competition)

* 2026 SXSW Audience Award Winner for Documentary Feature Competition

Directed by Edward Drake, Scott Veltri, Francis Cronin and starring Mandy Horvath, Julius John White aka ‘Whitey’, Carel Verhoef, Sally Grierson.

Synopsis: THE ASCENT tells the extraordinary true story of climber Mandy Horvath, a bilateral amputee attempting to crawl to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro on her hands and follows an investigation surrounding the night she tragically lost her legs. Years earlier, a night out with friends escalated into tensions at a local bar, and soon after Mandy’s world went black. Her next memory: waking in an ambulance surrounded by paramedics, both legs gone. What happened between the bar and the hospital remains a mystery – shattering her trust in the world around her. As Mandy pushes her body to its limits on Africa’s tallest mountain, she must reckon with her past and learn to trust again if she is to succeed.

BASIC (Narrative Spotlight)

Directed and written by Chelsea Devantez and starring Ashley Park, Leighton Meester, Taylor John Smith, Nelson Franklin, Kandy Muse, Ashley Nicole Black, Kenzie Elizabeth, Amber Ruffin, Jon Gabrus, and Georgia Mishak

Synopsis: After Gloria and Nick break up, Gloria takes us through Nick’s dating history, untangling his web of ex-girlfriends through details she can find online. But when she discovers Kaylinn, the hottest most basic ex-girlfriend to ever exist, Gloria not only loses herself, she loses control of the story she’s been telling. Basic is a comedy that blends the magical-realism of jealous paranoia with the magic of falling in love.

BRIAN (Narrative Feature Competition

Directed by Will Ropp, written by Mike Scollins and starring Ben Wang, William H. Macy, Edi Patterson, Randall Park, Natalie Morales, Joshua Colley, Sophia Macy, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Thomas Barbusca, and Jacob Moskovitz

Synopsis: It sucks to be Brian. He’s smart, funny, and capable, but his mental health issues make it hard for anyone to see it – especially when compared to his effortlessly cool older brother. At school, Brian harbors an unrequited crush on Brooke: she’s smart, kind, pretty… and very much his teacher. A disastrous drama club audition leads to yet another one of Brian’s trademark public meltdowns. Thus begins Brian’s search for his new "thing". On paper he’s chosen the worst possible fit: running for class president. With help from his therapist and the new kid, Justin, Brian launches his high-stakes campaign and sparks a messy, exquisitely awkward journey toward self-acceptance.

CAMPEÓN GABACHO (Narrative Spotlight)

* 2026 SXSW Audience Award Winner for Narrative Spotlight

Directed by Jonás Cuarón, written by Jonás Cuarón, Aura Xilonen and starring Juan Daniel García Treviño, Leslie Grace, Rubén Blades, Eddie Marsan, Rosario Dawson, Cheech Marin, Marvin Jones III, Carlos Carrasco, and Dolores Heredia

Synopsis: Campeón Gabacho tells the story of Liborio, an endearing and mischievous young migrant whose only talent is taking punches. He crosses the Rio Grande to escape a harsh reality in Mexico, looking for a better life in the United States, and settles in a Latino barrio in New York City. Through his fists, his love, and his words, he faces cultural walls and prejudices that threaten his hopes, and becomes a hero in an unknown land.

CAPTURING BIGFOOT (Documentary Spotlight)

Directed by Marq Evans and starring Clint Patterson, Bob Gimlin, Bob Heironimus, Larry Lund, Greg Long, Vaile Thompson, Sandy Collier, Bill Munns, Teresa Brooks, and Jeff Meldrum

Synopsis: On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 60 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods-footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. Fifty-seven years later, a reel of 16mm film discovered in a safe changes everything.

CRASH LAND (Narrative Spotlight)

Directed and written by Dempsey Bryk and starring Gabriel LaBelle, Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk, Noah Parker, Abby Quinn.

Synopsis: Lance, Clay, and Darby have spent their childhoods drinking, wreaking havoc, and filming crude stunts in their small town. Everyone hates them. Wanting to finally prove their lives have meaning, the boys set out to make a "real movie" and in the process are forced to confront emotions and experiences they’ve never considered: love, loss, and ultimately, what it means to grow up.

GRIND (Narrative Feature Competition)

Directed by Brea Grant, Ed Dougherty, Chelsea Stardust and written by Brea Grant and Ed Dougherty and starring Rob Huebel, Barbara Crampton, Vinny Thomas, Jessika Van, Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette, James Urbaniak, Courtney Pauroso, James Paxton, Ify Nwadiwe, Aubrey Shea

Synopsis: This horror anthology tackles the modern work landscape through four timely perspectives – the hustle culture of an MLM, the endless repetitiveness of a food delivery driver, the online horrors of a content moderator, and the unionization of a familiar-feeling coffee shop. "Grind" shows what it means to be a worker in a world defined by wealth inequality and ruled by endlessly greedy oligarchs, one not so far removed from our own. This is a film for anyone who’s ever hated their job, had a bad boss, or felt taken advantage of at work. In other words, it’s a film for all of us.

I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY’S (Documentary Spotlight)

Directed by Amy Bandlien Storkel, Bryan Storkel and starring Igor Grbesic, Ethan Riley, Ian S. Peterson, Michael Solarez, Jennylyn Caterina, Marianne Wiedeman, William Swartzbaugh

Synopsis: In 1980, an ingenious boobie-trapped ticking time bomb – filled with 1,000 pounds of dynamite – was wheeled in the front doors of Harvey’s Wagon Wheel Casino in Lake Tahoe. Along with the bomb was a note demanding $3 million within 24 hours. While the bomb squad attempts to disarm the explosive, the FBI races the clock to deliver the ransom and simultaneously catch the extortionists. Nothing goes as planned, and each step uncovers darker secrets and suspicions of a deeper motive.

MY NDA (Documentary Feature Competition)

Directed by Juliane Dressner, Miriam Shor and starring Miriam Shor

Synopsis: Three people bound by non-disclosure agreements face extreme personal risk to expose how a simple intellectual property contract is weaponized to silence, manipulate and control.

PERFECT (Visions)

Directed by Millicent Hailes and written by Millicent Hailes and Kendra Miller and starring Julia Fox, Ashley Moore, Lío Mehiel, Micaela Wittman, Ryder McLaughlin, Kate Moennig, Creed Bratton

Synopsis: In a world devastated by a contaminated water supply, Kai, a lost soul, finds herself living out of her car after a bad breakup. Each day is a struggle until fate intervenes and leads her to a hidden utopian lake, where the water is pure and life flourishes. At this secret haven, Kai encounters a band of eccentric misfits each with their own stories of loss and hope. Among them is Mallory, an enigmatic and wealthy pregnant woman living out an escapist fantasy. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, Kai and Mallory are drawn to each other, and a sudden, passionate romance ignites. As their bond deepens, Kai begins to uncover the layers of Mallory’s life and the secrets she harbors.

PHOENIX JONES: THE RISE AND FALL OF A REAL LIFE SUPERHERO (Documentary Feature Competition)

Directed by Bayan Joonam and starring Phoenix Jones, Rainn Wilson, Jon Ronson, Midnight Jack, Freedom Fodor, Caros Fodor, Ryan McNamee, Ghost, Lance Coulter, El Caballero

Synopsis: In 2010, reports began surfacing of a masked vigilante in a black-and-gold supersuit stopping crime on the streets of Seattle. His name is Phoenix Jones. Armed with pepper spray, a taser, and a team of costumed crime fighters, he quickly becomes an international media sensation. But when his true identity is exposed by the Seattle Police, the heroic image begins to unravel and his team abandons him. Ten years later, as protesters seize six blocks of Seattle and declare a no cop zone, Phoenix reemerges amid legal trouble and public skepticism. Is he a hero, or a con-artist hiding behind a mask?

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT (Narrative Spotlight)

Directed by Lauren Noll and written by Dalia Rooni and starring Medalion Rahimi, Logan Miller, Layla Mohammadi, Dalia Rooni, Richie Moriarty, Michael Baszler, Danielle Pinnock, Lauren Noll, Nicholas Coombe, with Kevin Nealon, and Joey Lauren Adams

Synopsis: When Rana’s visa application is denied, she faces the reality of returning home to Iran. That is, until Adam – her wealthy boss’s son and her summer fling – proposes a green card wedding. Wrestling with the implications of his offer, Rana enlists help from a questionable shaman, Adam’s pure-hearted mom, and most importantly her two Iranian best friends Nadia and Setareh, who arrive on Cape Cod for a wedding weekend full of opinions, chaos, and drama with their own American boyfriends. Just as total disaster approaches, the three women come together in a transformative moment of acceptance, growth, and coming of age – evolving this weekend into one that will change them all forever.

SEAHORSE (Narrative Feature Competition)

Directed and written by Aisha Evelyna and starring Aisha Evelyna, Ruth Goodwin, Brett Donahue, Joseph Marcell, Alden Adair

Synopsis: Nola, a sous chef searching for stability, is barely holding her life together. After a brutal Friday night shift, she crashes her bike and wakes to find her estranged father, Cyrus, now unhoused, standing over her. Taking him in forces long-buried wounds to the surface. As past and present collide, Nola is pulled into a reckoning with grief, forgiveness, and the fragile possibility of repair.

SEEKERS OF INFINITE LOVE (Narrative Spotlight)

Directed and written by Victoria Strouse and starring Hannah Einbinder, Justin Theroux, John Paul Reynolds, Griffin Gluck, Justine Lupe, Greg Kinnear

Synopsis: Kayla Bachman, an author who struggles with emotional connection, Zach Bachman, a lawyer who dreams of being a folk singer and Wes Bachman, a graphic novelist / gambling & pill addict, meet to discuss their younger sister Scarlett who joined a cult in Kentucky. Zach and his dysfunctional and absent parents have hired cult deprogrammer Rick Delacroix to help them rescue Scarlett. They embark on a roadtrip to save their sister, and bring their family together.

THE SUN NEVER SETS (Narrative Spotlight)

Directed and written by Joe Swanberg and starring Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith, Debby Ryan, Anna Konkle, Lamorne Morris, Karley Sciortino

Synopsis: Wendy’s life is thrown into chaos when her boyfriend, Jack, who is older and divorced with children, insists they take space to evaluate the relationship. During their break, Wendy unexpectedly runs into her ex, Chuck, forcing the three of them into a confusing and volatile triangle. The film was shot on 35mm on location in Alaska.

THEIR TOWN (Narrative Spotlight)

Directed by Katie Aselton and written by Mark Duplass and starring Ora Duplass, Chosen Jacobs, Will Parker, Kim Shaw, Jeffery Self, Daveed Diggs, Leonardo Nam, Annie Henk, Brad LaBree

Synopsis: When Abby’s boyfriend drops out of the high school play, she finds herself helping a school outlier step into the role opposite her. They spend a long night wandering around their town, examining their futures and unearthing surprises from their past.

ABOUT DOLPHIN:
Dolphin (NASDAQ:DLPN) is where cultural creation meets marketing execution. Founded in 1996 by Bill O’Dowd, Dolphin operates as both a venture studio-developing and investing in breakthrough content, products, and experiences-and a marketing consortium, featuring leading agencies across every communications discipline.

ABOUT 42WEST:
42West, a subsidiary of Dolphin Entertainment, is one of the entertainment industry’s leading full-service public-relations firms. With offices in New York and Los Angeles, 42West features four divisions: Talent, Strategic Communications, Entertainment Marketing, and Fandoms & Franchises, the award-winning firm’s gaming, consumer products and publishing practice. The agency has developed and executed impactful marketing and publicity strategies for hundreds of film and television series, as well as a diverse roster of actors, filmmakers, recording artists, content creators, personalities, and authors. In addition, 42West provides strategic counsel to a wide variety of high-profile individuals and corporate clients-ranging from movie and pop stars to major studios and streamers, charitable organizations, and media conglomerates looking to raise, reposition, or rehabilitate their public profiles.

# # #

CONTACT:
James Carbonara
HAYDEN IR
(646)-755-7412
james@haydenir.com

SOURCE: Dolphin Entertainment

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

Topics:

So What Do You Do, Joe Zee, Creative Director of Elle?

The fashion industry's most affable style maven on reality TV, celebrity culture, and pushing a Gristede's shopping cart up Broadway.

By Diane Clehane

Diane Clehane is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist who has covered the British Royal Family for over two decades, with bylines in Vanity Fair, People, Forbes, and Newsweek. She is a regular commentator on CNN and NBC News about the royals.

14 min read • Originally published February 7, 2024 / Updated March 25, 2026

By Diane Clehane

14 min read • Originally published February 7, 2024 / Updated March 25, 2026

Editor’s note: This interview was originally published in 2008, when Joe Zee was creative director of Elle. He went on to hold that role for seven years, then served as editor-in-chief of Yahoo Style, co-hosted ABC’s FABLife, hosted All on the Line on Sundance Channel, and published That’s What Fashion Is in 2015. His advice on work ethic, earning your place, and loving what you do holds up remarkably well.

Joe Zee is having a moment. Having worked his way up from Seventh Avenue schlepper to front-row fixture over the course of his 20-year career, Zee’s star has never burned brighter. Last year, he was tapped as Elle‘s creative director to revitalize the look of its pages and bring back “the glory of what used to be.” Almost immediately, the rumor mill started churning over what his arrival meant for the rest of the staff. The haute gossip, which could have doubled as a storyline on Ugly Betty, culminated in fashion director-turned-Project Runway “star” Nina Garcia’s highly publicized departure earlier this year, yet Zee remained above the fray.

Now Zee, who by many accounts is one of the most collegial fashionistas around, will moonlight on a new reality show, Stylista (premiering October 29 on the CW), which pits a crew of competing hopefuls against one another for a job at Elle. Zee’s one fashion maven who has no designs on a television career, though. “I understand the place of reality TV, so I would never pretend to be a television personality,” he says. “It’s much more interesting, if it works, to have it supplement what I already do.”

For Canadian-born Zee, who memorized fashion magazine mastheads between classes in high school, becoming one of fashion’s most respected and influential style mavens is a dream come true. While the self-described “pop culture junkie” has a fast-talking, fun-loving personality that seems tailor-made for the small screen, he says his head won’t be turned by stardom. “My first priority will always be the magazine.” Zee spoke with us about his purportedly glamorous (“but it really isn’t”) career.

Name: Joe Zee

Position: Creative director, Elle

Resume: Joined Elle in January 2007; editor-in-chief of Fairchild’s short-lived Vitals (2003-2005); fashion director at W; contributing fashion editor at Details and House & Garden; got his start at Allure. Has styled advertising campaigns for DKNY, Banana Republic, Estee Lauder, and the recent “(PRODUCT) RED” campaign for Gap, as well as the company’s Madonna-Missy Elliott ads in 2003.

Birthdate: November 23, 1968

Hometown: Toronto, Canada

Education: University of Toronto, Fashion Institute of Technology

Marital status: Single

First section of the Sunday Times: The Magazine

Favorite television show: Top Chef and American Idol

Guilty pleasure: Television

Last book read: The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud. “It’s about a bunch of kids growing up in New York City. It’s a cross-section of culture and life.”

Did you always know you wanted to be in fashion?

I always knew I wanted to work in magazines. When I was in high school, I would sit between my free periods and read fashion magazines cover to cover. People use that term loosely, but I would literally devour every page, even the ads. I was really attracted to the branding, the designers. I would read mastheads to see who left, who moved up. As a kid in Toronto, none of these people had any resonance for me, but I started to learn doing that. I was attracted to all the fashion photography. This sounds so corny now, but I would look at a fashion story in Vogue and test myself and say, “Is this Louis Dell’Olio for Anne Klein? Is that Claude Montana?” Then I’d look at the credits and go, “Yes! That is it!” I think when I was younger, I translated that as loving fashion, and I do, but it was only when I got older that I started to see that I actually loved magazines. Now that I’m even older, I realize I love media. I’m a huge pop culture junkie, so I watch tons of television. I see every movie. I know every Billboard Top 10 song. I read bestsellers. I’m there.

“I looked at things from different angles. I loved Charlie’s Angels, but where the average kid would say, ‘They’re so beautiful and glamorous,’ I also remember thinking, ‘Boy, that Aaron Spelling has really got it together.'”

Fern Mallis told me she was voted “best dressed” in high school. Did you have any early indication that you’d be dressing some of the most famous women in the world?

When I was 16, Club Monaco had just opened in Toronto. There was only one store; it was downtown. It was a cool, hip place patterned after Charivari on 57th Street, and Fiorucci. It was the cool hybrid of those two stores. I walked in and I said, “I want to work here.” They hired me, and I worked part-time. I’d literally finish school and run downtown and hang out with all the fashion guys that worked there. I was 16 and they were like 25. I was really attracted to that cutting-edge fashion scene.

You mentioned you grew up obsessed with television. Was there someone on the pop culture landscape at the time that had a huge influence on you?

I looked at things from different angles. I loved Charlie’s Angels, but where the average kid would say, “They’re so beautiful and glamorous,” I also remember thinking, “Boy, that Aaron Spelling has really got it together.” I don’t think I was trying to be that way. I was just an old soul. I watched Dynasty and The Colbys, which I loved, but I thought, “Boy, they are really nailing the TV market.”

You have this fabulous-sounding job now, but entry-level jobs in fashion are notoriously tough. What was your least glamorous gig starting out?

People do think my life is so glamorous, but even now, there are so many moments where it really isn’t. I interned at this small trade magazine, Sportswear International. They had no budget at all. I had to return the clothes to the design houses. They had an office in the Garment District, and I literally had to return all the garment bags pushing a Gristede’s shopping cart like a homeless person up and down Broadway. I look back now and I think, “I can’t believe I did that.” At the time I was like, “I can’t believe I get to go to these showrooms!” I was so excited by the experience. Now, with the interns or even assistants, it’s like, “No one is doing that!”

“I think a lot of fashion people don’t like celebrity culture. I love an actress, a musician, an athlete because they have a personality and a dimension they bring to something that I can’t get from an 18-year-old model.”

Of course not, they want to run the magazine…

That whole entitlement thing is baffling. When I was doing the shopping cart thing, I was so happy to meet that person at the showroom, and the person was the receptionist. Nowadays, if interns don’t go on a photo shoot they are really upset. I think you’ve got to earn that. I was at W, and I had an intern. On her first day, she hadn’t done anything yet, and she walked up to me and said, “I just want to ask: if you have a photo shoot with Gwyneth Paltrow, I’d like to come.” Half of me was like, “I kind of like that tenacity,” and the other half of me was like, “Why don’t you do what we need to do here first? I love that you’re putting in your order for which actress you’d like to meet. I can’t believe you’re doing this on day one!”

You worked with Tom Ford when he guest-edited Vanity Fair‘s Hollywood issue in 2006 and styled several of Gap’s ad campaigns. Did you find it difficult to work with a lot of celebrities on those big jobs?

I was embracing celebrity culture early on, and still do, because I actually respect and appreciate it. I think a lot of fashion people don’t like celebrity culture. I think for a lot of them, it’s been an infringement on their world a little. I love an actress, a musician, an athlete because they have a personality and a dimension they bring to something that I can’t get from an 18-year-old model. Celebrities bring something else to fashion, to pictures.

Many fashion designers have told me over the years that they feel somewhat forced to be part of the celebrity game, especially when it comes to dressing stars for award shows. How would you characterize the overall feeling of fashion towards celebrities today?

There is a segment of fashion that really embraces it, and there’s a segment that really feels they have to embrace it, and there’s a segment that says, “You know what? I can do without them.” I respect all of them because if we were all homogenous, it wouldn’t really work. Are we all chasing celebs? I think we all are a little bit. Is it oversaturated? It is sometimes, but I don’t see it letting up any time soon.

Like it or not, it’s part of the culture we live in. Celebrities account for a big part of the fashion business. Something worn by “X” celebrity can translate into huge sales. Award shows have become red carpets. The Oscar pre-show is more interesting than the awards. People care more about what someone looks like than they do about who won Best Actress. I don’t know if someone could remember that Tilda Swinton won Best Supporting Actress, but they can certainly tell you about the dress she was wearing. That part is fascinating.

So the trend of celebrities supplanting models on magazine covers will continue for the foreseeable future?

Everything is cyclical but for now, they’re not going anywhere. People ask, “When will the models be back?” I think if it’s the right model, they will be back.

Has the celebrity quotient in Elle increased since you’ve come on board?

Maybe a little bit. We definitely still have our models, whom I love, but there are some celebrities who are Elle girls. That’s one of things I talked about doing when I came on board: redefining that colloquialism, “She’s so Elle” or “She’s an Elle girl,” having that definitive quality back.

Who is the “Elle girl?”

She’s young, she’s a rule-breaker, she’s slightly rebellious. For me, she’s all sorts of different people. She could be Chloe Sevigny or Chan Marshall. It could also be Kate Lanphear who is in our fashion department. She’s my style director. They don’t feel they need to interpret the runway head to toe. When I got here Robbie [Myers] was so particular about saying Elle is about celebrating personal style. I love that.

I loved the look of Vitals. You’ve been reunited with your design director Paul Ritter at Elle. What major changes have you instituted in the look of the magazine?

We did the major redesign last September. We’re constantly evolving for no other reason than we’re always bored with ourselves and we always want to be better than last time. We want to be more unpredictable and exciting. Robbie, Paul and I always want things to be moving forward. We’ve done the huge drastic change; now it’s the constant evolution of what that is.

At Elle, how do the responsibilities of a creative director differ from a fashion director? You are senior to the fashion directors, right?

Yes, they report to me. I’m responsible for all the visuals in the magazine, cover to cover. I have a lot of input into which celebrity we put on the cover. The big thing I did when I got here was change the roster of photographers and stylists we use, and really sort of take it to the next level, bring the glory back of what used to be. People keep referencing the old ’80s Elle to me. They loved it. I find a lot of inspiration in that, but I didn’t want to do a magazine that was completely referential or retro. We do those touches now and then, but we really have to do what the next look is.

Speaking of fashion directors, were you surprised at the amount of coverage of Nina Garcia’s departure?

I don’t know if surprised is the word. It was at a time when it was all about Project Runway. It has a really strong following. There was so much business press about the switch from Bravo to Lifetime, it was a topic that was top of mind. Her departure just added a footnote to all the stories and fuel to the fire. I’m not shocked about that aspect. I’m more shocked that I didn’t know we were so interesting.

When did the comings and goings of staff at a fashion magazine go beyond getting covered in WWD and move to Page Six?

It was in People! That’s what I was shocked by, because people come and go daily. I’ve been doing this 20 years, and it was never like this. I think it was the timing, and that it was an interesting footnote to all those stories about the networks and the future of the show. She’s part of the show, and it was no different than if Michael Kors was doing something. They would have covered that extensively, as well.

Have you spoken to her since she left?

I haven’t. I think she’s been on holiday. She’s editor-at-large here. She’s starting at Marie Claire in the fall.

So now you’re Elle‘s latest reality star. What was your first reaction when they approached you about doing Stylista?

The mechanics of the show were up and running prior to me coming to Elle. Robbie was like, “Come in and have a meeting with these guys.” When I did, it sounded like an interesting concept, and everything rolled really quickly. When they asked me to do the show, I said, “Sure.” Robbie has been really smart about this. She’s like, “We have to constantly reach out to new people” and that’s what television is about, allowing you to reach a whole new group of people. I’m happy to help out with the magazine in any way that I can. It’s been fascinating for me, as a television junkie, to break down the fourth wall and see how it all works.

“I meet many people who are not in my world, and they think all I’m doing is running to a fashion show, then a movie premiere, and then I’m having dinner with Julia Roberts. That almost never happens.”

Tell me about your role.

My participation in the show is minimal. I’m a judge. I only needed to come every third day. The shoot was four weeks. We usually did it after work, in the evening. It didn’t really affect my work day. It was easier for me because I don’t need to show up early for hair and makeup.

Anything about the experience take you by surprise?

At the beginning, it was a little trial and error. For the first two episodes, we were there until 4:30 in the morning. It was all new. By episodes three and four, they really nailed it. There were times when we were out by 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. and I got there at 3:30 p.m. They were on it. The only shocking part was how everything happened so quickly. You’re watching these shows and you think it’s a longer period of time, but everything just really happens fast.

Shows like these have done a lot to democratize fashion. The average person knows, or at least thinks he or she knows, a great deal about the industry. What’s the most common misconception you’ve dealt with?

People think my life is really glamorous. I meet many people who are not in my world, and they think all I’m doing is running to a fashion show, then a movie premiere, and then I’m having dinner with Julia Roberts. That almost never happens. It’s a very small part of my job.

These shows make it look glamorous, but not for one second do I think that’s how doctors act when I watch Grey’s Anatomy. I don’t think every cop looks like Mariska Hargitay. You have to understand it’s a certain level of entertainment. As long as people are aware of the industry, that’s great.

What did you learn in the earliest stages of your career that’s still relevant to what you do today?

My eye and my taste level. My first job was working for Polly Mellen, and she really taught me how to see and appreciate fashion. She had the strongest work ethic. For me, that’s very important. The other part is, I’ve worked for Linda Wells, Patrick McCarthy and now I work for Robbie Myers. These are three bosses I want in my life if I had to re-pick them all over again. They understood the value of the person they hired. They never micromanaged and they let you do your thing.

I’ve learned never to micromanage my staff and let them do their best.

What do you consider your greatest accomplishment to date?

I’m proud of a lot of things I’ve accomplished in my career. Definitely working with all these incredible, world-renowned photographers that I admired all growing up (Bruce Weber, Annie Leibovitz) was a highlight, and that also includes doing one of my first-ever styling jobs with Richard Avedon. Definitely conceiving and launching Vitals. And of course, watching Elle evolve now is great to see.

Biggest disappointment?

My biggest disappointment is probably that Vitals didn’t get a chance to really take off. I’m so proud of the staff that worked there, though. We were a small but dedicated group committed to the project and nothing else. They’ve all gone on to have amazing jobs right now. But I think the idea of Vitals just came around at the right time where that idea of unapologetic service married with luxury and design really resonated with some people. Occasionally I see influences of it still in other magazines. But I’m also not nostalgic about the end of Vitals, either. It was a good notch on the timeline.

How would you say you’ve gotten to where you are?

No sleep. Dedication. Passion. Loving what I do every single day. Being serious, but not taking it seriously at all.

Do you have a motto?

I don’t take no for an answer. Polly Mellen taught me that.

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