Strategy
Dhar Mann Studios Is Replacing One-Off Branded Videos With Multi-Touch Brand Campaigns
A brand partnership built around a single idea – confidence – generated more than 70 million views for Dhar Mann Studios and Invisalign. The campaign combined scripted video content, a live casting event at the studio’s Burbank facility, and a real-world giveback to a family who couldn’t afford orthodontic care. For Sean Atkins, the CEO of Dhar Mann Studios, that combination is now the model for how the studio structures its most notable brand relationships.
“We’ve evolved from selling individual branded videos to building much bigger partnerships,” Sean says. “Today, we’re thinking about how a brand can become part of our storytelling, IRL experiences, creator community, and real-world impact.”
Photo credit: Justine Knight Photography
Sean joined Dhar Mann Studios in 2024 and now serves as CEO, following roles as President of MTV, Chief Digital Officer at Discovery, and President of Jellysmack. The studio, founded in 2018 and based in Burbank, California, reaches more than 170 million followers worldwide with uplifting scripted and unscripted content that helps people feel seen and connected.
That audience is the commercial argument for the multi-touch approach. Three out of four Dhar Mann Studios followers take action as a result of the content, according to Sean, a behavioral engagement rate he says sets the studio’s partnerships apart from standard media placements. “When we can take that emotional connection beyond the screen and actually make a difference in someone’s life, that’s powerful for our audience and for our brand partners,” he says.
Confidence Was the Entire Creative Brief
The Invisalign partnership began the way most Dhar Mann Studios deals do, with a conversation between the studio and the brand’s leadership about what each side needed. Both arrived at confidence as the organizing idea, a theme with a clear connection to Invisalign’s product and to the emotional register the studio works in. “From there, we both sparked to a simple idea: confidence,” Sean says. “It’s a natural fit for both Invisalign and Dhar Mann.”
That idea expanded into three distinct formats. Scripted content established the narrative. A live casting event called “Next Dhar Star,” held at the Burbank facility, brought fans in to audition, with Invisalign integrated through a smile cam station where attendees could preview what their smile could look like with treatment. Carnival games, free food, and prizes were also part of the day.
The studio then surprised Gwen, a 10-year-old who had been bullied because of a gap in her teeth, with complimentary Invisalign treatment and $1,000 in immediate financial support for her family following recent job losses. “The campaign has generated over 70 million views,” Sean says, “but more importantly, we created experiences that people genuinely cared about.”
Dhar Mann Studios has pursued similar multi-touch partnerships with Adobe and Microsoft, Sean says, with each organized around a central theme rather than a set of individual deliverables.
Not Every Brand Partnership Needs a Live Event
The elements that make up a given partnership are determined by the brand’s objectives and where a natural connection to Dhar Mann Studios’s audience exists. “The goal isn’t to do everything,” Sean says. “It’s to do the things that will have the most impact for the brand’s goals.”
“We start with what the brand is trying to accomplish and find the natural connection to our audience,” Sean explains. “Then we build the right ideas around that.” A live event or giveback enters the equation only when the idea and the brand’s objectives call for it, and audience feedback from previous campaigns helps calibrate that judgment.
“The bigger challenge is making sure every element reinforces the same idea and doesn’t feel like a collection of unrelated marketing activations,” Sean says.
The Brand Defines the Brief. The Studio Tells the Story.
Creative freedom is a non-negotiable in Dhar Mann Studios’ brand deals. “Brands know their products, and we know our audience,” Sean says. “Our creative team needs the freedom to tell stories in the emotional and uplifting Dhar Mann style. That’s what audiences respond to, and ultimately what makes the partnership valuable to the brand.”
The studio’s other non-negotiables follow from the same logic. Dhar Mann Studios won’t bend its storytelling approach or the values its audience expects to accommodate a partner’s preferred messaging. “A brand partnership needs to enhance the experience for our audience, not interrupt it,” Sean says.
He says the brands Dhar Mann Studios pursues are those willing to engage as creative partners rather than as buyers of a predefined format, and to bring a genuine business challenge to the process.
Multi-Touch Deals Require a Budget Champion
A campaign spanning scripted content, a live experience, and a real-world giveback rarely fits inside a single marketing budget. “Sometimes, it’s brand marketing, sometimes media or experiential, and often it’s a combination,” Sean says.
The deals that get structured well, he argues, happen when a senior marketing leader sees the larger opportunity and consolidates multiple budget pools around one idea.
Pricing depends on the scope and scale of each component, covering production, talent, distribution, the live experience, and the size of the activation. “We have our own studio, production teams, creator agency, and distribution, so we can create a lot of value efficiently,” he says.
Views Are the Easy Number to Defend
When a multi-touch campaign wraps, Dhar Mann Studios builds its post-campaign reporting around engagement, watch time, audience sentiment, participation, and progress against the brand’s stated objectives, alongside the view count.
The view total is the simplest figure to present to a senior stakeholder, but it doesn’t capture whether the campaign changed audience behavior. “Seeing people share their own confidence stories in the comments told us the message was connecting,” Sean says of the Invisalign campaign.
The studio also distinguishes whether a given campaign drove awareness, consideration, or conversion for the brand. “Our audience gives us feedback every single day, and we pay attention,” Sean says. “That feedback helps us make better content and gives us real insights we can bring to the next brand partnership.”
Creators Are Building Real Media Companies
Sean’s view of where the creator industry is headed frames the multi-touch partnership model as a marker of a broader shift, not a format specific to Dhar Mann Studios. “I think we’re seeing a fundamental shift in the entertainment business,” he says. “Creators aren’t just influencers anymore. They’re building real media companies with their own production, distribution, intellectual property, and direct audience relationships.”
Dhar Mann Studios is investing in that direction through Creator City, a project the studio is developing to expand how brands, creators, and entertainment interact.
For brand marketers planning their creator budgets, his instruction is specific. “Stop treating creators as just interchangeable media inventory,” he says. “If all you’re buying is a post or a certain number of views, you’re missing the bigger opportunity.”
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