DOAC's Anthony Smith on creating podcast trailers

Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur, Dragon’s Den investor, and the founder and face of the hit podcast Diary of a CEO (DOAC), is well-known for his mantra: "Sweating the small stuff."

He let TV show host Jimmy Fallon in on some of his secrets recently, including that he controls CO₂ levels in the studio to sharpen guests' 'cognitive processing' and plays their favourite music to evoke certain emotions.

And in a tour of his London office with Forbes, he showed a few more tricks up his sleeve. Like how the aesthetic and comfort of on-set furniture is pivotal to making guests feel either relaxed or on edge.

There's also a very intentional culture around test and learn, including a "experimentation and failure" team and a weekly "experimenter of the week" trophy.

One person who has had their hands on that trophy a few times is Anthony Smith, director of trailers at Flight Story - the media company behind DOAC and other shows like Begin Again with Devina McCall.

Smith was working on a trailer for a highly anticipated episode with podcaster and academic Brené Brown and he got stuck between two choices: a value-driven hook versus a mysterious teaser.

The result? The teaser won by a landslide: 15 per cent higher clickthrough rate, three times more viewers and a 250 per cent more referrals to the DOAC YouTube channel. You can see the winning trailer below.

"We wanted to find a way to promote podcasts that’s not really been done before," he told JournalismUK.

Cinematic podcasts

The answer they came up with was the podcast trailer. Watching it feels like you're at the cinema, popcorn in hand, Pepsi in the other, waiting for the film to start. The way the music drops in and dips out, the array of different camera angles and reactions, the different text fonts and colours that come into frame, the fact that in a minute-and-a-half there is a complete narrative arc.

There's rationale for it too, as DOAC this year hit the big screens to premiere the exclusive episode with Louis Tomlinson, the One Direction singer who opened up about his rise to fame via the X-factor and the untimely death of his bandmate Liam Payne. This clip reached 40m views and engagements across all platforms.

A ten-step process

How does Smith do it? His approach to trailers is a blend of manual rigour, narrative instinct, and data-driven decision-making. Here’s how he breaks down the process:

1. Early involvement and raw material
As soon as the raw recording is finished, he produces a full transcript of the episode ranging from anywhere between 80 to 140 pages.

2. Manual review and note-taking
He will read the entire document start to finish, sometimes in tandem with listening or watching if the guest is particularly animated or if there are multiple voices. He gives himself about four hours for this initial review. On one half of his screen is the transcript; on the other, a running document of quotes and notes, sorted by topic.

He distils the transcript down to 15–16 pages of the most compelling moments, grouped by themes (e.g. a guest’s career, family, specific topics like fitness or business frameworks). This allows him to quickly reference all the best material on a given subject without having to re-read the entire transcript.

3. Building the narrative
With his notes in hand, Smith begins to craft the trailer’s narrative arc. The script needs to read smoothly as a standalone piece. Only after this narrative is set does he move to the edit.

4. Data-driven topic selection
Research and AI tools helps to understand what are the most-searched topics related to them, their most-watched clips, and what’s trending on YouTube and other platforms.

5. Editing and experimentation
Once the narrative is locked, Smith begins the painstaking edit. He uses Adobe Premiere Pro, often relying on its search functions to quickly locate specific quotes or moments. He experiments with different hooks and elements.

6. Visual and emotional detail
Critical moments require painstaking attention to detail. For the trailer for nuclear war expert Annie Jacobson, he spent between 4 and 6 hours sourcing and colour-grading stock footage to match a close-up of Steven Bartlett’s eye, then composited the pupil into a nuclear cloud — all for a four-second sequence. Every shot, sound, and transition must serve the story and evoke emotion.

7. Final assembly and admin
After the main edit, half-day is spent on technical admin: creating different aspect ratios for various platforms, exporting, and quality control.

8. Feedback and justification
Before release, Smith and his team review the trailer against a 15-point checklist that sits on a whiteboard by his desk.

One golden rule helps with the inevitable challenge of what to cut: "If you can’t justify it — font, music, shot — you have to get rid of it."

9. Deadlines
While some episodes are banked weeks in advance, some time-sensitive trailers have needed to be turned around in 48 hours. But generally on average, he gives himself two to three days per trailer.

10. Continuous learning
Smith’s process is never static. He’s constantly iterating, learning from data, feedback, and even parody videos or academic dissertations on his work. The goal: to keep raising the bar for narrative, emotional impact, and audience engagement. One per cent better every day.

Lessons for publishers on a budget

I hear you say that you don't have DOAC's budgets or the luxury of having a dedicated trailer producer.

Smith is quick to point out that this level of craft isn’t reserved for big-budget teams. When he started, it was just him and the Adobe suite. The key, he says, is care and storytelling, not resources.

"You don’t need to be the most technically gifted, but if you have this skill stack — storytelling, psychology, care — that’s your unique gift."

For smaller publishers, he recommends focusing on narrative and emotion, not just technical polish. The mistake most social media clips make, he says, is that they stitch together unrelated moments or fail to build a compelling narrative, leaving audiences uninvested.

“A clip is just that one succinct moment. A trailer offers an emotional rollercoaster, teases multiple topics, and always leaves them wanting more."

This article was drafted by an AI assistant before it was edited by a human.