New year’s resolutions? Be more Blackstone

Credit: Youtube | [2:25] Blackstone’s 2024 Holiday Video: Blackstone Faces Reality | 19 Dec 2024 - Link

What was your TV highlight of the festive season? Was it that comedy all about family, love and joy? Or did you prefer the cracking caper about the dangers of relying too much on tech? Maybe reality TV was more your thing.

I’d argue that this year you didn’t need Gavin and Stacey, Wallace and Gromit or Strictly for such seasonal highlights - they were all there in Blackstone’s 2024 holiday video.

But “holiday video” doesn’t do this epic production justice. It may not have required painstaking clay-making setups (next year?), and the glitz and glamour of Barry had to give way to Wall Street. But it had everything else.

In all, 200 members of the Blackstone family - up to and including CEO Stephen Schwarzman – show us their assets. Many are reality TV contestants - bombshells enter the room on Blackstone Island, execs from the investor’s Japanese operations have to cope with more physical demands playing human Tetris.

“Somebody’s got to put the real in real estate,” deadpans global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate Kathleen McCarthy. “And that somebody is me.”

The near-eight-minute production has no shortage of singing and dancing, one-liners and pantomime villainy –against a backdrop of mock regret at last year’s Taylor Swift-themed “Alternatives Era” video. And if all this sounds like I’m yet to put down the Christmas sherry, take a look: all seven of the firm’s annual holiday videos can be found on YouTube.

It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but then neither is Strictly. I, however, loved it. And with better-than-respectable viewing numbers, I’m not alone either. To date eight million people have viewed Blackstone’s 2023 video. Wallace and Gromit drew nine million on Christmas day. Let those data points sink in for a moment.

Actress Reese Witherspoon has had a cameo in the past. This year an even bigger name features: Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, nails a (very funny) walk-on part. Now that is a mark of success.

Maybe he asked Jay Gillespie, Blackstone's head of video, for a role. Gillespie maintains his annual responsibility for the video has turned him into a hot commodity. "People are really into lobbying to be in it," he tells Business Insider.

Company videos fail more often than they succeed. But Blackstone brings enough levity, self-deprecation and confidence for this series to deliver benchmark-busting returns – going viral among their target audience

I hope their essence is infectious too. We need more cheer – in this sector, in business generally and in government certainly.

Perhaps not every project can wrap with a Beyoncé-inspired, Cowboy Carter take-off – we have COO Jon Gray to thank for that, it seems – but more should, in spirit at least.

Here’s hoping 2025 is less serious in approach if not purpose, more outward-looking than inward and, well, just a bit more fun.