From Strategist to Storyteller: Building Brand Worlds with Gen AI
For most of my career, I’ve been the person behind the strategy — helping brands find their voice, shape their narrative, and define how they show up in culture. But with the rise of generative AI, I’ve started to ask a different question:
What happens when strategists stop pitching ideas — and start making them?
Today, tools like Runway, Pika, and Google Veo allow anyone — strategist, designer, or filmmaker — to prototype brand storytelling at the speed of culture. For me, this unlocks a new kind of practice: making high-concept, visually arresting speculative content that’s not only strategically sound, but emotionally and aesthetically resonant.
Becoming a creative practitioner using Gen AI tools is hard. I’ve been taking classes from creators like Benjamin Benichou. I’ve dedicated time every day to crafting prompts, studying AI behavior, troubleshooting hallucinations, and learning how to get the output to reflect the feeling I started with. It’s a craft. One I’m still learning. But every day, I’m getting closer to being able to see what I imagined and share what I believe.
Soon I’ll begin publishing the work on Instagram and TikTok. Not just as a portfolio, but as a public learning lab. A way to signal what I value, and to find others doing the same. Each short film is a proof-of-concept. A conversation starter. A chance to build relationships and explore new territory; creatively, professionally and strategically.
And that brings us to Rivian. Rivian is one of those brands I keep coming back to — not just because of the design, or the tech, or the mission. But because I believe they’re going to need a completely new kind of content and storytelling system to reach the scale they’re aiming for.
Their vehicles are beautiful. Their engineering is sound. Their vision — to “Keep the world adventurous forever” — is one of the few taglines in the automotive space that actually feels inspired. But the competitive landscape is crowded. If Rivian wants to break through — and build not just awareness, but belief — it needs stories that feel different. And it needs them at a pace and cultural tempo that legacy production models can’t match. That’s where this work comes in.
What I’m Making
I’m building cinematic social content using Gen AI tools that place Rivian vehicles inside stylized, story-rich worlds — not as background props, but as characters in emotionally charged narratives. These aren’t ads in the traditional sense. They’re speculative scenes designed to connect Rivian to the cultural moments and fictional worlds that its future customers already rally around.
Because if you want to earn attention today, you don’t just buy media — you show up where identity lives.
Rivian’s audience isn’t just outdoorsy — they’re curious, culturally engaged, and drawn to narratives that reflect who they are and what they value. They obsess over cinematic worlds, genre aesthetics and the idea of belonging — to a tribe, to a journey, to something bigger.
So I started asking: What if Rivian didn’t just sponsor adventure? What if it became a part of the stories fans already love?
For example:
In one video, a gothic woman drives an R1S out of a candlelit chapel into a fog-filled forest — a tribute to the moody, offbeat elegance of Wednesday Addams as season 2 approaches.
In another, a zombie sprints through a Costco parking lot at dusk, only to be intercepted by a screeching Rivian. It’s tense, cinematic — a nod to the survivalist world of 28 Years Later, connected to the timing of its trilogy revival.
These social videos act as cultural connectors — they meet fans in the worlds they already care about, using the aesthetics, emotion, and tone that define their favorite franchises. And they do it in a way that extends Rivian’s brand into those identities — aligning the vehicle with narratives of community, survival, mystery, and movement.
It’s not just storytelling. It’s identity signaling. And it’s not just future-facing. It’s fandom-facing. It’s a way to of place Rivian inside culture, not just beside it.
This kind of work allows for creative speed, visual experimentation, and audience engagement on native platforms. Without the production burden or long lead times of traditional campaigns. It’s speculative. But it’s strategic at its core.
What This Is Really About
Yes, this project features Rivian. But more than that, it’s about how the role of the strategist is evolving — and what’s now possible.
Strategy isn’t just upstream thinking — it’s downstream doing. With Gen AI tools and cultural fluency, strategists shouldn’t just hand over briefs anymore. We can sit side by side with creatives to build things together — faster, smarter, and with more relevance to the platforms where brands need to show up most.
This shift makes the work better:
It’s more insight-driven
It’s built with culture, not just around it
And it ships faster — at the speed brands now need
And when working directly with brand clients, this new model scales beautifully. As a strategist-creator, I can assemble small teams — writers, art director, editors, motion designers, voiceover artists — to elevate the final output at a fraction of traditional production costs. With just a few collaborators and a sharp POV, and we can turn an idea into content that feels real, cinematic, and strategically on-point.
The strategist is no longer just an advisor.
The strategist is now a creator.
And this Rivian series is just wave one. Every month, my goal is to create a new set of speculative, story-first content for a different brand — pushing the edges of genre, identity, and cultural storytelling. My craft will sharpen. The stories will get stronger. And the network around the work — collaborators, brands, agencies — will grow.
This is a new kind of practice. One grounded in strategic clarity, but expressed through creative output. One that attracts ambitious collaborators and forward-looking teams who believe that the best ideas aren’t just sold — they’re made with purpose, speed, and cultural heat.