The next big thing in loyalty might be soap operas
Mark Sage - 11 min read - 29/10/2026
More than 800 million people in China now watch micro-dramas—approximately 57% of the country’s population and the domestic market exceeded RMB100 billion (approximately US$15 billion) in 2025.
This isn't simply a Chinese phenomenon. According to Sensor Tower, short-drama apps generated approximately US$750 million in global in-app revenue in the first quarter of 2026, up 20% year-on-year. Downloads exceeded 850 million during the same period, while average daily viewing time reached 25 minutes by April.
These are not traditional television programmes squeezed onto smaller screens. They are mobile-first dramas, often running for just a minute or two per episode, built around emotional storylines, recurring characters and cliffhangers.
Romance, betrayal, revenge, family conflict: the familiar ingredients of soap opera, repackaged for the smartphone.
Brands are starting to recognise the opportunity. But the most interesting possibility is not simply that they can produce shorter, more engaging advertisements.
It is that episodic entertainment could give customers a reason to return when there is nothing to buy.
From advertisement to entertainment
In October, Ogilvy India launched Don’t Go Na, a seven-part romantic micro-drama for Coca-Cola’s Maaza brand.
Set around a Diwali celebration, the story follows a young couple whose relationship begins through a chance encounter at a party. Maaza acts as the catalyst for their connection rather than becoming the subject of a conventional advertisement.
Distributed through Maaza's Instagram and YouTube channels, the series uses recurring characters and a continuing storyline to give audiences a reason to watch the next instalment.
Branded entertainment is nothing new. Brands have long sponsored programmes, placed products within stories and created advertising built around familiar characters.
What makes micro-dramas interesting is their episodic nature. Rather than asking audiences to watch another advertisement, brands can create stories that people actively want to follow.
But there is an important distinction between attracting an audience and building a customer relationship.
Maaza demonstrates how a brand can become part of the entertainment. Yet the continuing viewing experience remains on third-party social platforms.
The bigger opportunity is to turn that anticipation into a reason for customers to engage directly with the brand.
The emergence of content led loyalty
In May, we introduced the concept of video-based CRM in the white paper, When Marketing Loses Permission to Interrupt.
The argument wasn't simply that consumers were becoming less responsive to marketing. It was that agentic AI could fundamentally change whether consumers encounter marketing communications at all.
As personal AI agents become increasingly capable of managing the operational aspects of everyday life, consumers will spend less time doing many of the things that currently expose them to marketing.
Browsing emails. Managing notifications. Searching for products. Comparing options. Organising routine purchases.
Solutions such as Muse and Dots point towards a future in which more of these activities are delegated to AI. The consumer increasingly sees the outcome rather than the process.
And that creates a fundamental challenge for CRM.
Traditional CRM is built around reaching the customer. Emails, notifications, offers and campaigns are delivered in the expectation that someone will see them, consider them and respond. Loyalty programmes largely follow the same model, using rewards and personalised offers to encourage the next transaction.
But what happens when the customer is no longer there to receive the message?
It doesn't matter how beautifully designed the email is or how personalised the offer becomes. If an AI agent is managing the inbox, the customer may never see it.
Marketing can no longer rely on pushing communications towards customers. It needs to create reasons for customers to come back of their own accord.
This is where content-led loyalty begins to emerge.
In our original paper, we focused on video as one possible response. But the opportunity is broader than any single format. It could be a podcast, a livestream, a weekly book chapter or a micro-drama.
The defining characteristic is its episodic nature.
Unlike conventional content marketing, which often focuses on attracting audiences or supporting individual campaigns, content-led loyalty uses recurring content to create anticipation and establish an ongoing customer relationship.
Four elements become particularly important:
Episodic content, with continuity rather than isolated campaigns;
A reason to return, created through characters, storylines, recurring themes or release rhythms;
A direct customer relationship, connecting engagement to the brand's own customer ecosystem;
Measurement across engagement and commercial outcomes, recognising that not every interaction needs to result in an immediate purchase.
Micro-dramas illustrate the proposition particularly well. A good episode leaves viewers wanting to know what happens next, with familiar characters that build attachment, and continuing storylines create anticipation.
The customer returns not because another coupon has arrived, but because they want to see the next episode.
Traditional loyalty rewards the next transaction. Content-led loyalty creates anticipation for the next interaction.
And in a world where AI increasingly manages the things consumers need to do, brands have to become part of the things consumers want to do.
McDonalds: From selling burgers to selling attention
McDonald's serves more than 70 million customers daily and reported nearly 220 million 90-day active loyalty members across 70 markets in September 2026.
Yet its core proposition remains remarkably simple: burgers, fries, milkshakes and a relatively limited range of accompanying products. There is only so much engagement to be generated from browsing the menu.
Which makes its latest ambition particularly interesting.
In September, McDonald's announced a pilot of its new Media Network across approximately 450 company-owned US restaurants, with ambitions to develop a billion-dollar media business.
The proposition is straightforward. McDonald's has an enormous audience moving through its restaurants, ordering kiosks, digital screens and loyalty app. Its media network creates opportunities for other brands to advertise to those customers.
In effect, McDonald's is turning its existing customer reach into a new commercial asset, one that can generate revenue beyond selling food.
But there is an interesting distinction here.
A customer waiting for an order might see an advertisement on a screen, much like someone standing in a lift or sitting in a doctor's waiting room.
McDonald's is effectively monetising the wait, and every minute a customer spends in the restaurant becomes another opportunity to generate advertising revenue. But the customer hasn't chosen to engage with that advertising. They're simply there, waiting for their food.
What if McDonald's could create attention rather than simply monetise it?
Imagine a customer waiting for their order being introduced to a 90-second drama on a restaurant screen. Just as the story reaches a critical moment, the episode ends.
The next instalment is available in the McDonald's app.
Suddenly, the app has a purpose beyond ordering food and collecting rewards. Customers have a reason to return because they want to know what happens next. It also creates opportunities for sponsors and commercial partners to become part of the content, rather than simply buying advertising space around it.
And that's the distinction worth exploring as McDonald's builds its media business.
One monetises the wait. The other creates a reason to return.
The second economic engine of loyalty
The distinction between monetising existing attention and creating new reasons for customers to engage has potentially significant implications for loyalty economics.
Traditional loyalty programmes are primarily designed to influence transactions. They encourage customers to visit more frequently, spend more, switch less or purchase across additional categories.
Engagement is valuable largely because of its expected effect on purchasing behaviour:
Engagement → Purchase → Margin
Content-led loyalty introduces the possibility of a second economic engine.
Episodic content creates recurring engagement, and that engagement can generate value through two complementary routes.
Commerce: More visits, stronger brand preference, increased purchase frequency and deeper customer relationships.
Media: Sponsorship, product placement, advertising and commercial partnerships built around an audience that actively chooses to engage.
The distinction matters because the economics are no longer entirely dependent on generating another transaction.
A customer might return to a loyalty app to watch the next episode without purchasing anything. Under a conventional loyalty model, that interaction might have limited immediate commercial value. But if the series attracts sponsorship or product placement revenue, the engagement itself can contribute to the commercial return.
And this creates an interesting possibility: the media business helps fund the engagement that supports the commerce business.
Rather than treating content purely as a marketing expense justified by incremental sales, brands could develop entertainment propositions with their own commercial economics.
Product placement becomes particularly interesting in this context. Characters naturally wear clothes, use technology, eat, drink and visit places. Commercial partners can become part of those stories, provided the integrations are transparent and creatively credible.
And because the content is connected to an owned customer platform, brands could measure more than viewing figures. Repeat engagement, subsequent product exploration and changes in purchasing behaviour could all contribute to understanding its commercial value.
Of course, not every view is valuable, and not every loyalty programme has the audience or creative capability to make this model work. Production costs, audience retention, sponsorship demand and advertising yield all matter.
The commercial test becomes:
Can the incremental value generated through commerce and media exceed the cost of creating and sustaining the audience?
For businesses with large established customer bases, this potentially changes the economics of engagement.
Instead of continually paying to stimulate the next transaction, they can create experiences customers actively seek out, with commercial partners helping to fund them.
The first economic engine rewards customers for coming back to buy. The second creates value from giving them reasons to come back at all.
The Oxo family: When advertising became a story
None of this is entirely new.
British readers of a certain age will remember the Oxo family. Between 1983 and 1999, Lynda Bellingham and her fictional family appeared in 42 television commercials. Audiences watched the children grow up, relationships evolve and everyday family life unfold around the dinner table.
The advertisements were effectively miniature episodes of a continuing family drama, with Oxo woven naturally into the story.
People weren't simply watching advertisements for stock cubes. They were following a family they had come to know, building familiarity and affection for the characters and, by association, the brand.
The Evening Standard described the family as one of British television’s most successful soap operas, with the difference that “their dramas were acted out in the commercial breaks”.
And there was a commercial impact.
The Guardian reported that Oxo sales rose 10% following the family's introduction in 1983. Subsequent advertising effectiveness research credited the campaign with helping protect the brand's market position and maintain its relevance as British cooking habits changed.
The family became so familiar that, when the campaign ended in 1999, viewers reportedly complained about its disappearance.
But achieving that level of recognition required substantial investment.
Forty-two professionally produced commercials, featuring actors, agencies and production crews, followed by years of paid television exposure. The brand had to fund both the storytelling and the distribution needed to reach its audience.
Today, those economics have changed dramatically.
Generative AI and increasingly accessible creative tools allow small teams to produce sophisticated episodic content at a fraction of historical production costs. Characters, settings and storylines can be developed and sustained without the infrastructure once required for broadcast television.
Distribution has changed too. Brands can reach existing customers through owned apps, websites and membership platforms, while social media provides opportunities for organic discovery and sharing. Neither production nor audience development is free, but the marginal cost of creating and distributing another episode has fallen considerably.
What once required years of broadcast advertising investment can increasingly become a continuous content proposition, produced by a relatively small team and distributed through channels the brand already operates.
The Oxo family proved the commercial potential of recurring storytelling. What has changed is the cost of creating and distributing it.
From renting audiences to building them
But owning a channel is not the same as having an audience.
A customer may have downloaded an app to collect points or order a burger. That doesn't mean they have any interest in watching a romantic drama.
This is why social platforms remain essential.
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube provide access to established audiences and powerful recommendation engines that help compelling content reach people well beyond a brand's existing customer base.
A scene might attract attention. A character might become popular. A storyline might generate discussion, sharing and organic discovery.
In this sense, social media isn't simply another advertising channel. It can become an audience development engine.
But there is a limitation.
When content lives entirely on third-party platforms, those platforms control much of the discovery, distribution and ongoing viewer relationship. The brand may own the story without establishing a direct relationship with the people following it.
Content-led loyalty offers an opportunity to connect the two.
Social platforms can introduce viewers to the characters and storylines. The brand's own ecosystem can offer the continuing experience, whether through exclusive episodes, additional content, interactive features or other reasons to participate.
A short clip creates curiosity. Curiosity leads to the next episode. Continuing stories create anticipation, familiarity and reasons to return.
The objective isn't to remove content from social media or force every viewer into a loyalty app. That would undermine the reach and discovery that make social platforms valuable in the first place.
Instead, owned and earned media can play complementary roles: social platforms help audiences discover the story; owned channels give the brand an opportunity to develop the relationship.
And loyalty provides something particularly valuable within that relationship: identity and continuity.
Customers can move between physical locations, social platforms, entertainment and transactions while maintaining a consistent connection with the brand. With appropriate consent, their participation can inform more relevant experiences and help the business understand whether content engagement translates into broader customer value.
The economics are fundamentally different from buying another advertising impression.
Rather than continually paying to reach an audience, brands have the opportunity to build one that voluntarily returns. And rather than treating every episode as a campaign expense, they can develop a continuing content proposition whose value grows with the relationship.
The brand doesn't need to own every viewing occasion. It needs to earn a relationship that survives beyond it.
That relationship becomes the asset.
Loyalty needs a reason to return
None of this means every retailer needs to become Netflix, or every restaurant needs to produce a soap opera.
Producing content is not the same as creating an audience. Entertainment companies spend enormous sums developing stories people actually want to follow, and brands will face the same challenge. Many customer platforms will lack the scale, cultural relevance or creative capability to make the model work.
The sensible starting point is experimentation. A short series, a clearly defined audience and measurement that goes beyond viewing figures to understand repeat engagement, incremental purchasing and potential media revenue.
But the building blocks are increasingly in place. Consumers are embracing micro-dramas at scale. Brands are experimenting with episodic storytelling. Retailers and restaurant groups are investing in owned customer platforms and media networks.
The opportunity is to connect them.
And the timing matters.
As AI agents increasingly take responsibility for the routine tasks of everyday life, brands may find it harder to reach customers through the communications they have traditionally relied upon.
The answer cannot simply be more messages, better targeting or another personalised offer.
It must also involve creating experiences customers actively choose to engage with.
For years, loyalty programmes have concentrated on rewarding the next transaction. Points, offers, challenges, status and rewards will remain important. But they are largely designed around encouraging customers to buy something.
Content-led loyalty introduces a different proposition: creating anticipation for the next interaction, whether or not it involves a purchase.
And when that engagement can generate value through both commerce and media, the economics become more interesting still.
Perhaps the next big innovation in loyalty won't be another reward mechanic, a more sophisticated algorithm or an AI-generated offer.
Perhaps it will be something considerably older.
A good story that keeps you coming back for more.
This article builds on ideas introduced in our May 2026 white paper, When Marketing Loses Permission to Interrupt, which explores how loyalty, CRM and customer platforms need to evolve as traditional marketing loses its ability to command attention.
At Kesetian, we explore the changes in consumer behaviour, technology and business models that are reshaping customer relationships—and the strategies businesses need to develop in response.
Because the future of loyalty isn’t simply about making existing programmes work harder. It’s about understanding what customers will choose to engage with next.