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Hey, good marketer!

 

We’re two weeks out from the big newsletter glow-up (name, branding, the whole nine), and I’m just VIBRATING with excitement like Ramona Singer spotting a camera crew at a party.

 

But before we enter our Sweet New Era™…

I took a detour.

A Bravo-flavored detour.

 

Consider this week’s deep dive your emotional support martini glass.

 

 

 

Before Bravo was the cultural juggernaut of memes, martinis, and women flipping tables in $2,000 heels, it launched in 1980 as an arts-focused cable network.

 

Think opera.

Foreign films.

Documentaries.

 

Basically the opposite of Teresa Giudice calling someone a “prostitution whore” on national TV.

 

Then came the early 2000s.

 

Bravo found gold in unscripted TV: first with Queer Eye, then Project Runway, and eventually The Real Housewives of Orange County in 2006, which LIT THE LITERAL FUSE for what would become the Bravo Cinematic Universe.

 

And at the center of it all: 

 

Andy Cohen, an executive at Bravo who morphed into the Bravo-verse’s unofficial mayor, ringmaster, unproblematic king (mostly), and glue holding the chaos together. He didn’t just cast the Housewives, NO NO, he built the ecosystem that gave them power, storylines, and cultural staying power.

 

He is, quite literally, the Kevin Feige (Marvel bro) of Reality TV.

 

Bravo stopped being “a TV network” and became a living, breathing fandom economy.

 

 

 

There are eras in Bravo history.

 

Cultural timestamps.

Core memories.

 

And for many of us, this is where we entered the chat.

 

For me?

 

My Housewives gateway drug was RHONY, courtesy of my actual housewife of a mother, wayyyyyy back when Bethenny Frankel was sprinting around Manhattan in low-rise jeans, unleashing Skinnygirl upon the world.

 

As a 15 year old, watching Bethenny build a brand on TV in real time was electric. I can track part of my entrepreneurial DNA back to:

 

2020 Lauren then binge-watched the first eleven seasons of RHONY again, and I STILL maintain those early seasons are peak Housewives anthropology.

 

 

And listen… RHONY shaped me:

 

And it’s not just me.

 

Bravo has created some of the most memorable reality personalities, scandals, villains (TOM SANDOVAL, I’M LOOKIN AT YOU), heroes, and entrepreneurs of our time.

 

Influencers before “influencer” was a profession.

 

Which brings us to…

 

 

By the late 2010s, Bravo wasn’t just a network. It was a fandom with rituals, in-jokes, lore, and active communities. People didn’t just watch Bravo, they lived in it.

Andy Cohen and NBCU saw the opportunity:

 

If Comic-Con celebrates superheroes, then BravoCon celebrates the real heroes—women who’ve spent a decade yelling across infinity pools while wearing designer caftans.

 

✨ Brilliant!

 

The first BravoCon launched in 2019 as a three-day fan convention, a place where the Bravo-verse could fully materialize IRL. It exploded immediately and has since become:

It is now pop culture’s biggest girls’ weekend (and ugh, I have fomo every time).

 

Panels.

Meet-and-greets.

Live filming.

Merch.

Drama (not Lindsay Hubbard breaking up a fight between Tom Sandovol + his GF this year!).

 

It’s serious business.

 

And it cemented Bravo as more than TV—it became a lifestyle category unto itself.

 

 

 

Bravo has pulled off something most brands dream of: They turned their talent into an economy.

 

The Housewives are WAY WAY more than “characters;” they’re entrepreneurs, product founders, podcasters, investors, authors, skincare lines, restaurants, dog accessory brands, tequila founders, candle makers, wig-line pioneers, and occasional federal defendants.

 

But still. Brands!

 

A few standout examples:

 

Skinnygirl. Books. Podcasts. Philanthropy. Media.

She understood the power of brand ownership long before it was cool.

 

30+ restaurants with Ken Todd, plus SUR, Pump, and TomTom as TV-famous brand extensions. Vanderpump Pets. Cocktails. Lifestyle.

 

Consult Beaute skincare line, bestselling health/diet empire, real estate mogul energy.

 

Kenya Moore Haircare—which became a fandom favorite and a genuinely successful consumer brand.

 

You can’t look at Bravo and ignore the business brilliance behind it.

 

Even Alli on my team ends her workday by saying she wants to “deep fry her brain” with reality TV, which is maybe Bravo’s purest brand promise: we’ll entertain you so hard it short-circuits the thinking part of your skull.

 

 

And the stars who became the most successful founders followed the same playbook.

 

Nobody watches the Housewives for clean optics. They watch because these women have strong identities, strong perspectives, and memorable storylines.

→ Brands need the same thing: a stance, a POV, a “thing” to say that only YOU could say.

 

Trailers. Teasers. Mid-season reveals. Bravo is an open-loop masterclass.

→ Most brands don’t have retention problems — they have story problems.

 

Every successful Housewife has multiple businesses.

→ Your brand can’t survive on a single offer. Build verticals, spin-offs, product lines, or new service tiers.

 

The Bethenny Clause exists for a reason.

→ Founders: own your IP. Own your brand names. Own your products. Don’t give away the upside.

 

Bravo’s fans are not passive—they engage, travel, buy, attend, identify.

→ Brands that build community outperform brands that build content.

 

People don’t buy from boring brands.

 

Give us a little SPARKLE. A little 💅personality. A little chaos energy if you’ve got it.

 

If Bravo can turn table flips, wigs, and marriage counseling into an empire… your brand can absolutely make your niche feel irresistible.

 

 

Leave it to Amazon to accidentally stumble into their funniest brand moment of the year… and leave it to Benedict Cumberbatch to deliver it like Shakespeare performing community theater. His dramatic reading of the boyfriend pillow review HAD ME HOWLING. (Fun fact: I owned one in college. Don’t ask. It proves that sometimes your customers are writing better copy than your copywriters.

 

Not a campaign, BUT choc full of cultural good times. A guy’s résumé ends up on the TikTok from a Jonas Brothers concert… it goes viral… said resume-owner ends up on Jimmy Fallon with the Jonas Brothers themselves.  It’s chaotic. It’s funny. It’s a classic example of what happens when the internet picks a random civilian to be famous for 72 hours.

 

Karrie Locher continues to be the queen of influencer merch. Every restock is perfectly on-brand, impeccably designed, and sells ALMOST AS FAST as a Swifties’ Ticketmaster queue. She knows her audience cold—new moms who want to feel cozy, competent, and lightly held together by caffeine. I’m currently side-eyeing the green crew neck (zoom in on the sleeve and try not to cry).

 

BinkyBands 👶 Interestingly, the founder popped up in my LinkedIn feed and that is how I discovered this product; I think it's WICKED cool, and would love to see it on Shark Tank IMO (it's a pacifier that gets strapped to a wrist - think, alternative to a binky strap that clips.

 

Gob Earplugs 🎧 the world's first plastic-free earplugs (material is grown, not manufactured). As an ear-plug wearing girly (I need silence when I sleep anywhere BUT home) I WILL be giving these a shot.