It’s no secret that from childhood, men in America are socialized to cut themselves off

from vulnerability and sharing emotions. They’re taught to view women as sexual

objects, property and less than. In some cases they're taught to demonize anyone from

the LGBTQ community. This “Man Box” programming starts in childhood and is

supported over a lifetime by film and television programming, familial pressure and

policing from friends. This sad state of affairs is directly responsible for the oppression,

marginalization and abuse of women. The primary objective of Man Enough was to

facilitate a sincere conversation around these issues without coming off as forced or

manipulative. We hoped men would watch the show and have similar conversations

with their friends and family. Thankfully, the sponsor gave us carte blanche to share

these stories as we saw fit and didn’t force us to integrate their products into the

narrative.

The idea was to bring together a group of influential men to talk about issues

traditionally considered taboo. In the wake of the #metoo movement, women have come together to support one another, but men have largely been left out of the conversation. While we think it’s important for women to have a free space to share, men MUST also be apart of the conversation, otherwise rape, and other abuses of which men are the

source will never stop. The show’s roundtable conversations were amplified by

segments featuring experts who provide insights into the topic of each show. The goal

was to amplify the influencers’ personal experiences with historical context to help

viewers start conversations of their own with a male friend or family member they trust.

Ultimately, we set out to make self awareness, vulnerability and the empowerment of

both sexes “cool” for the next generation of men.

Our strategy was to partner with a brand that believed in the cause and would give us

the resources to shoot the first season. We weren’t interested in a partner that would

force us to excessively feature their logo or integrate their products in the series in a

manipulative manner. We ultimately chose a brand that gave us the creative freedom to

share the stories as we saw fit. This sponsor also gave us resources to create a

supplemental learning curriculum that would bridge the gap between entertainment and

education. We didn’t have a significant marketing budget in place and were instead able

to build an audience by leveraging the social media followings of our influential cast

members. We also used the splashy subject matter of the show to get placements

across many popular media outlets.

Casting for the show was crucial. Despite our limited budget, we were able to bring on

top influencers including Justin Baldoni, Matt McGorry, Scooter Braun, Prince Ea, Lewis

Howes, Derek Hough, Bassem Youssef, Anderson Silva and more. Each cast member

was passionate about the subject matter and eager to share the content via their social

media channels. Our partnerships with a range of non-profits ensured that the writers

had extensive knowledge of the relevant issues when crafting the narrative. Our goal

was to create content that was universally relatable and free of any political agenda or

manipulation, which would help us reach the widest audience of men as possible. We

produced the first season over the course of five shoot days and spent roughly three

months on post production. The episodes and supplemental learning curriculum were

distributed during Q1, Q2 and Q3 of 2018 across Facebook Watch and Snapchat.

The first season of Man Enough had a baked in social media following of 68.7M across

all cast members and received 15.8M organic views via Facebook and Snapchat. This

is an important case study because our episodes ranged from 30 minutes to an hour

and ten minutes in length and had an ad spend of less than $10,000.00. We had a total

engagement of 258K with 43K shares and built a following of 69,000 on Facebook

Watch from scratch. The #MeToo episode reached 5.9 million people in the first four

days and had an average retention rate of 14 minutes. To date, Man Enough has been

screened in high school and university classrooms across the country, and our learning

curriculum has been downloaded over 100,000 times. We also received press exposure

in top publications and outlets including The New Yorker, Esquire, The Hollywood

Reporter and People.