RESET began as an idea for my university thesis: a branded-entertainment web series built around several brands rather than a single one. This article explains how it started, what I remember clearly and what remains my interpretation. Not everything that follows can be independently documented; whenever something is a personal memory, I say so.
The memory: a proposal made in conversation
Around 2018, I proposed developing a multi-brand branded-entertainment web series as my thesis to Luciano Massa. I made the proposal in conversation at university, without a formal document behind it: I had an idea, a format in mind and the conviction that it was worth trying. This is my personal recollection, not a publicly documented episode.
I remember his reply as a short sentence: “All right, let's do it. Let's try.” This too is my memory, not a quotation that can be verified through public sources. I include it because it marks the moment when the idea moved from a hypothesis to something that had to be built.
The idea: ten brands inside one story
The format involved roughly ten non-competing brands from different but compatible categories. Each brand was associated with one episode, while all the episodes formed a single connected story. They were not ten standalone pieces placed in sequence: it was one narrative, with every instalment moving the plot forward while coherently featuring a different partner.
The non-compete condition was not a contractual detail; it was the structure of the project itself. Brands from different categories could share the same story without overlapping, making it possible to imagine a piece of content that none of them could have supported alone.
Pre-production
The project entered pre-production: the point at which an idea stops being described and starts being organised. I will not add details about this stage that I cannot reconstruct accurately. I would rather stop here than fill the gaps with approximate memories.
The documented context
For the verifiable part of the context, see Luciano Massa's official profile on the IULM website, which documents his academic and professional background. Everything concerning our conversation remains my recollection: institutional sources describe a person and a field of work, not a private exchange.
How I interpret it today
Looking back, RESET taught me something I still use: a format that depends on several people saying yes at the same time is a coordination project before it is a creative project. This is not a universal lesson; it is explicitly my reading of the experience. But it is why, when faced with a new idea, my first question is not whether it is interesting, but who needs to say yes for it to exist.
The other thing I retain is the value of a proposal made aloud and accepted without guarantees. A project that begins with “let's try” is not a project yet, but it is already permission: someone has decided to spend time on an unproven hypothesis.
