This story originally ran in our zine for Press Publish LA: The Hollywood Creator Summit. You can learn more about the event through our recap here, and stay tuned for details on our next summit, coming soon.
On a Wednesday night in April at the Directors Guild of America Theater in LA, Michelle Khare premiered her latest YouTube series, Challenge Accepted: I Ran Seven Marathons in Seven Days on Seven Continents. The series, which follows Khare as the 86th woman to complete The Great World Race marathon challenge, is content ready-made to win on YouTube. The rollout, however, has been Hollywood through and through.
There was a red carpet, a step-and-repeat, a life-sized poster, and food from every continent she ran on. The crowd: creators, industry professionals, and Emmy voters. Two days later, the series premiered on YouTube.
Michelle Khare (center right) and her partner Garrett Kennell (center left) join the live audience at their video premiere at the Directors Guild of America Theater off Sunset Boulevard in LA / Photography by Koury Angelo
It was part of Khare's second Primetime Emmy run—last year, she became one of the first creator to successfully petition and submit a series for Emmy consideration in partnership with YouTube.
“We’ve done a few premieres in the past that were really lovely and satisfying. But the Primetime Emmy For Your Consideration event in April was just a whole new level of personal joy and excitement from our team. We collaborated with YouTube on that event,” Khare told us. “And I think it sets the tone for the work that we're doing.”
The strategic play: Michelle Khare is putting a creator’s spin on the Hollywood marketing playbook. If all goes to plan, neither viewers on YouTube nor Emmy voters will know there was ever any difference between creator content and Hollywood content.
We spoke to Khare to understand how she’s charting a new path for content promotion.
Michelle Khare (left) holds the medals she earned from completing seven marathons across seven continents (right) / Photography by Koury Angelo
Setting the Stakes Through Live
Hollywood has gotten good at BTS. First-look photos, set videos, actors posting "candidly" from production—it's now a standard part of any major release campaign. When Marvel actors drop a behind-the-scenes photo, it feels personal and unguarded. In reality, it was approved in advance, filtered through a publicist, and timed to the minute. Every major studio production has a dedicated team managing what gets out, when, and how.
Khare's real-time content during The Great World Race had none of that infrastructure, by design. She traveled with a five-person crew, including herself and posted short videos on Instagram and TikTok in real-time during each run. She then edited the content in Premiere Mobile on planes between continents. Her fear was content cannibalization—giving away the ending before the full video drop—but instead, she got audience investment.
Khare shares real-time updates of her running each marathon, from Day 1 on November 17 (left) and in Antarctica on November 19 (right) / Michelle Khare
"Every single day, people were on the edge of their seats. 'It's 3pm, Michelle hasn't posted—did she make it through Australia?'" Khare said.
Those real-time assets generated over 25 million views. Five months later, when the long-form dropped, she syndicated the videos to YouTube Shorts to drive traffic back up the funnel—turning live uncertainty into a discovery asset.
“When we tell people about this project—we ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days—people say ‘What do you mean? How is that even possible?” And I always want our projects to surprise and upend people in that way,” Khare said.
Khare prepares to take on Tom Cruise's iconic plane stunts / Photography by Ryan Forsythe
Using Strategic Reveals to Generate Buzz
When the film Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation came out in 2015, Paramount spent months showcasing Tom Cruise's stunt flying on the side of a plane. The studio made the stunt itself the centerpiece of every trailer, poster, and press tour stop.
What’s the creator version? Know when to hold back. When Khare recreated the scene in 2025 flying on the side of a plane for Challenge Accepted: I Recreated Tom Cruise’s Deadliest Stunt, she made all the promo assets centered on the preparation of the stunt. She held every frame of airborne footage for social promotion until days after the full video went live.
"I wanted to make sure that not a single frame of me on the side of the plane in the air was ever posted anywhere until a few days after the full video came out. We were super intentional about the teasing—we'd show clips all the way up until takeoff,” Khare told us.
Paramount knew the stunt was the reason to see the movie. Khare knew her audience needed a reason to click to the long-form. So she gave them everything up to the moment of truth and made the video itself the only place to see the payoff.
Michelle Khare attends the finale premiere for her video series that spanned filming across seven continents / Photography by Koury Angelo
Making the Ask
Hollywood has partnered with brands to underwrite production, from YSL producing Emilia Pérez to Mercedes-Benz producing Steph Curry’s GOAT. Not many brands help with the promotion of films. Khare is leveraging her creator chops to recruit brands to help with both.
In the last two years, Khare has collaborated with YouTube to make a Primetime Emmy run. The partnership came about after Khare approached YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and shared her vision for the impact a Primetime Emmy win could have on the YouTube creator economy.
Another ask? In 2024 Khare collaborated with Red Bull after working together on a Formula 1 project. The following year, when Khare had a vision of recreating Tom Cruise’s deadliest stunt, Red Bull signed her as a Red Bull Creator, supported the project, and collaborated with Khare and her team on the social roll out.
"A lot of the cool things we've gotten to do have just been from me asking. Going to Red Bull and saying, ‘would you be interested in collaborating on a Reel that hits a wider audience?’” Khare said. “If you're collaborating with a brand and they have a huge social following, think of ways outside the contracted hashtag-sponsored post that you can come together."
Khare appears on First We Feast's Heat Eaters / First We Feast
Creating the Digital Wilshire Boulevard
Every awards season, the stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Beverly Hills and Mid-City in LA fills up with FYC billboards designed to target Emmy voters where they live, work, and commute. Netflix, HBO, and Apple TV are targeting the right people in specific zip codes, on specific guild websites, in specific industry podcasts like The Town with Matthew Belloni.
Khare ran the same targeting logic for The Great World Race, online. Khare appeared on First We Feast’s Heat Eaters to target young, adventure-driven viewers. She made a behind-the-scenes editing video with Adobe to get in front of the production community. She made a video about her training routine to target those interested in fitness. She partnered with YouTube to host the Director’s Guild premiere to be in the same physical room as the voters she needs to convert.
“We want to be hitting not just the widest part of the funnel on YouTube, but also people in our community,” Khare said. “We’re thinking through the different avatars of the people who are interested in the work we’re doing and serving each of them in the best way we can.”
The social media equivalent of the FYC billboard isn't a boosted post—it's a deliberate appearance in a space where exactly the right people are already gathered. Khare has spent years mapping those spaces for two audiences at once: YouTube viewers and Emmy voters.
Short-form content was a vital part of Michelle Khare's strategy for promoting her Challenge Accepted marathon challenge / Photography by Koury Angelo
The Result?
It's working. At the Director’s Guild premiere, Emmy voters who arrived skeptical left converted.
"Hundreds of voters approached me and said, 'I came expecting what I perceived as a YouTube video, and what you presented blew us away.' Watching their perceived stereotype of what a YouTuber is change, in real time, was absolutely mind-blowing," Khare said.
In many ways, Khare has already won. Every billboard, every premiere, every room she walks into as a peer of Hollywood rather than a guest builds something that compounds. A nomination is one outcome—but the FYC run that doesn't end in a trophy can still end in the right conversation: a new advertiser, a show deal, a collaboration that wouldn't have been possible before someone in that theater changed their mind. That's the real campaign. And Khare will keep running it.
“It’s been a really special journey to say a big goal out loud and then boldly just kind of go for it. As a part of that process, I’ve said it's out of my control to win an Emmy nomination or award, but what is within my control is to make Challenge Accepted the best show we can with the resources available to us. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do year over year.”
