Brands Behaving Like Media: Why the Best Hospitality Brands Are Becoming Publishers
- James Hacon
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
The Collapse of Advertising Trust
The age of paid hospitality advertising is not dead but it is wounded and the wounds are self-inflicted. A generation of consumers who have grown up watching brands buy influence, sponsor content and flood their feeds with promotions has developed an exquisitely tuned radar for inauthenticity. They know when they are being sold to. And increasingly they resent it.
Advertising trust has been declining steadily across every category but hospitality is particularly exposed. A guest who books based on a sponsored post and has a mediocre experience does not just leave disappointed; they leave cynical. The gap between the promise and the reality, amplified by the scale of paid reach, creates a credibility deficit that is very hard to recover from.
Becoming the Media Rather Than Buying It
The brands cutting through are not spending more on advertising. They are becoming media companies in their own right. They are creating content that their audience actually wants to consume: editorial, documentary and storytelling that earns attention rather than purchasing it. They are building owned channels, email lists, podcasts and community spaces that connect them directly to guests without an algorithm sitting in between.
Gail's Bakery has taken this further than almost anyone in UK hospitality, launching a print magazine that sits proudly in the homes of their most loyal guests. It is not a promotional brochure. It is a beautifully produced publication about food, community, craft and culture that people actually read. It makes guests feel that being a Gail's customer says something good about who they are.
The River Cafe has built a podcast that functions entirely independently of its restaurant reputation. Guests listen who have never visited and may never visit, drawn in by conversations about creativity, food and life that reflect the values behind the brand rather than promoting the product. It is brand-building at its most honest and its most effective.
Pizza Pilgrims is perhaps the most instructive example of long-form content done right. Their documentary series and TV show, charting a pizza journey across Italy, did not begin as a marketing exercise. It was genuine curiosity made public and it built an audience for the brand before many of their sites had even opened. That origin story, told in their own words and on their own terms, is now inseparable from what Pizza Pilgrims means.
Editorial at Scale: Lessons from the USA
The American market has produced some of the most sophisticated examples of hospitality brands behaving like media at scale. Momofuku, founded by Chef David Chang, built a genuine media empire running in parallel with its restaurant group. The Ugly Delicious documentary series on Netflix, the Lucky Peach magazine and a podcast culture that positioned Chang as one of the most compelling voices in global food all contributed to a brand that expanded internationally on the back of cultural credibility rather than traditional marketing.
Chipotle Mexican Grill operates what is effectively an elite brand journalism platform. Through Cultivating a Better World, the brand publishes long-form content about the farmers behind its produce, the agricultural partners it works with and its sustainability commitments. It reads as genuine editorial rather than corporate communication and it reinforces the Food With Integrity positioning in ways that no campaign creative could achieve. When a brand's content makes you think better of the people who grew your burrito ingredients, that is storytelling doing real commercial work.
Owned Channels as Strategic Infrastructure
There is a strategic resilience argument here that goes beyond marketing. Brands that are overreliant on Meta, Google or third-party delivery platforms are in effect renting their customer relationships. Any change in algorithm, any fee increase or any policy shift and the connection breaks. Owned channels are assets that cannot be switched off by an external platform.
The editorial mindset is also a cultural shift for hospitality businesses. It means hiring people who think like journalists and storytellers. It means committing to consistency over virality and to depth over reach. The brands doing this well are building audiences, not just customers. Audiences, once earned, are extraordinarily durable and extraordinarily difficult for competitors to replicate. In a market where attention is the scarcest resource, the hospitality brands that have learned to earn it will always outperform those that simply try to buy it.
Brands Doing It Well
Gail's Bakery (UK) Launched a beautiful print magazine that turned a neighbourhood bakery into a cultural brand, earning shelf space in homes not just on high streets.
The River Cafe (UK) Their podcast brings the kitchen table to a global audience, with conversations on food, creativity and life that attract listeners who have never visited the restaurant.
Pizza Pilgrims (UK) Produced a long-form documentary series and a TV show charting their pizza journey across Italy, turning a two-person road trip into a brand origin story with genuine cultural reach.
Dishoom (UK) Produces newspaper-style zines and deeply immersive website content exploring the history of Bombay, the cultural origins of their dishes and original poetry. Their editorial output reads like a travel and culture journal, not a restaurant menu.
Momofuku (USA) Founded by Chef David Chang, Momofuku built a media empire alongside its restaurants: the Ugly Delicious documentary series on Netflix, the Lucky Peach magazine and a podcast culture that made Chang one of the most influential voices in global food.
Chipotle Mexican Grill (USA) Operates an elite brand journalism platform through Cultivating a Better World, diving deep into its supply chain, agricultural partners and sustainability commitments with editorial content that reads as genuine storytelling rather than corporate reporting.
This article is part of Hospitality Trends 2026 & Beyond, a series of opinion articles from Think Hospitality.
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