When brand content needs to earn its keep.

How we built an editorial ecosystem around an entertainment series — solving the attribution problem by connecting emotional storytelling to qualified leads.

Entertainment-led brand content is easy to love and hard to measure. Running a Restaurant Is No Joke was designed to be both — a genuinely funny, genuinely honest series that also delivered against pipeline goals.

Square partnered with comedian and food entrepreneur Eric Wareheim on a four-part series following him as he immerses himself in the behind-the-scenes reality of running a restaurant, guided by three celebrated Los Angeles chefs: Alisa Reynolds of My 2 Cents, Alvin Cailan of Amboy, and Keegan Fong of Woon Kitchen. Blending humor and candor, the series addressed the real pressures restaurant owners face — razor-thin margins, staffing, takeout logistics — with Square woven in as the connective tissue powering their businesses.

THE CHALLENGE: Eric Wareheim has broad appeal — which is exactly the problem. A gated series would generate leads easily, but not necessarily the right ones. Restaurant owners represent a specific, high-value segment; we needed a strategy that didn't just attract an audience, but qualified it.

The content challenge was to make a series that felt like entertainment, functioned like thought leadership, and converted like demand generation, all at once.

THE APPROACH: We built a layered content ecosystem around the series. The episodes drove top-of-funnel attention. Supporting editorial content, authored by the three chefs, explored the themes from each episode in depth — speaking directly to restaurant operators rather than to Wareheim's broader fanbase. An email nurture series connected those themes to Square's products, guiding qualified leads through consideration.

This approach was central to the Big In Restaurants campaign and directly contributed to its key goals. It also demonstrated a broader principle: that entertainment content can deliver on performance metrics when you build the right scaffolding around it.

The series launched shortly after the LA wildfires. Square backed a swift community response — WoonHeim, a one-night wildfire benefit hosted by Wareheim and Keegan Fong at Woon Pasadena — demonstrating that brand values aren't just content strategy. They're what you do when it matters.

THE RESULT: A content campaign that proved entertainment and performance aren't mutually exclusive — and that the right editorial ecosystem can turn broad appeal into targeted conversion.

PROJECT DETAILS

Brand: Square

Campaign: Big In Restaurants

Format: Four-part video series, editorial content, email nurture

Partners: Eric Wareheim, Alisa Reynolds, Alvin Cailan, Keegan Fong

Link: Running a Restaurant is No Joke