It’s a Creator’s World…

Hi Everyone! I hope things are starting to wind down for most of you as we start to get closer to the end of the year - 2023 has been quite a ride. Today’s content was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend of mine who was asking about the creator economy and its intersection & influence with today’s GTM with consumer brands.

In short, the creator economy has been built on the back of the rapid expansion of the internet economy over the last 20 years. The internet democratized the creation, dissemination and acquisition of information and content. Creators give content a “reason to exist”, and perhaps soon they will give many businesses a “reason to exist”. As someone who vividly remembers dial-up internet and life before DoorDash, this is a mind-boggling realization. In fact, according to Goldman Sachs, the creator economy could be worth nearly $500B by 2027.

So Why does this matter? And what’s happening right now?

The rapid growth of the creator economy spawned a new crop of creator & celebrity - driven brands, primarily in 2 iterations:

1) Creator/Celebrity-Forward Brands: Brands that use a creator or celebrity as an ambassador but aren’t founded by that creator or celebrity. They might feature a specific creator in their online content prominently or have specific products that are named after that creator (e.g. The “Travis Scott Meal” from Mcdonald’s). Here’s a deep-dive on a creator-forward brand:

• Hexclad Cookware:

  • Primary Creator/Celebrity partner: Gordon Ramsay

  • What they sell: High-end Hybrid Cookware

  • Why they win: 

    • Differentiated Product & Creator Voice; “The Rolls-Royce of Pans”

    • Strong Portfolio of creators/influencers: “We have 4 or 5 I would say 100 or 200K follower people who just do incredible work and can be real brand ambassadors offline too..” - Jason Panzer (quoted from this episode from the "Chew on This” Podcast) H/t Ron & Ash for this interesting discussion.

2) Creator-Owned Brands: Brands that are owned/founded by a creator or celebrity. They typically are launched by well-known celebrities or social media creators with a large following, such as Mr. Beast (Feastables), Logan Paul (Prime), or Rihanna (Fenty Beauty).

• Feastables: 

  • Creator/Celebrity Founder: Mr. Beast

  • What they sell: Chocolate Bars

  • Why they win: 

    • Large & Engaged Warm Audience: Mr. Beast has a huge following with 218M followers on YouTube alone, This gives Feastables large enough organic reach that they can leverage this core audience to build economies of scale through leveraging Mr. Beast’s brand power.

    • Energizing calls to action: Mr. Beast is known for his giveaways/sweepstakes he offers his fans. When launching Feastables, he offered fans who purchased a Feastables Chocolate bar the opportunity to win $500K cash or a purpose-built chocolate factory (Chartr)

So, what does this mean for brands?

How Brands can leverage the power of Creators today:

• Building your Hero: Use the voice of a creator to brand certain items or promote certain SKUs.

  • Case Study: Fenty Beauty x Lil Nas X 

    • Back in 2020, Fenty teamed up with Lil Das X to launch a limited-edition makeup collection that featured bold colors & unique branded packaging.

• Empower & Inspire Community: Find unique ways to partner with creators to build a 1:1 connection with your customers.

  • UGC Campaigns:

    • Case Study: Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins”

      • What they did: They launched a campaign in 2014 promoting inclusivity, showing that their products were meant for everyone, which generated a much larger cultural moment & conversation (deep dive on that here)

      • Why it worked: CK reshaped their brand image through creating an opportunity for their own customers to share content showcasing their product with one another, celebrating the brand’s virtues. The profound personalization of this message is what made it resonate with so many on a broad scale.

  • Activate in Real Life with 1:Many Events

    • Case Study: Outdoor Voices’ Joggers Club 

      • What they did/are doing: OV has a distributed network of ambassadors host jogging meet-ups in New York and other cities. This started as a field-marketing exercise where Ty Haney’s team at OV would host different activities such as walks, jogs, or basketball games locally in NYC as a way of introducing the brand to potential customers.

      • Why it works: This gives potential customers a physical experience of the brand’s core purpose and builds affinity & connection from the very first touchpoint. It makes people “want to be a part” of your brand.

        • “People would come in first by learning about some crazy basketball game… and this designer scored 10 free throws..something sensationalized and kind of crazy..but the first touchpoint in all of these cases was this community activation and people wanted to be a part of it…” - Ty Haney on Limited Supply. H/t Nik & Moiz for asking great questions during this episode.

• BYOC: Be Your Own Creator: Build branded content that delights and entertains. Keep your customers engaged through generating shareable content that makes them laugh or smile.

  • Case Study: Birddogs

  • What they do: Birddogs creates funny, short clips that feature their product and sell it in a humor-forward fashion.

    • Shorts example, Pants Example 

  • Why it works: Seeing the product being demonstrated and sold in this way makes the brand’s messaging memorable and cuts through the noise of the generic marketing messaging some of their competitors might have.

Actioning this: What to consider when activating with a creator:

• Audience & Community Engagement: 

  • Who is their audience and how do they interact with them?

    • How does this compare to our audience and current customer base? Does their voice and the way they communicate align with the way we communicate with our customers?

    • How does their audience engage with them? How does this compare to how our customers engage with us?

      • Would any of the comments on their content make good social proof for our brand?

• Reputation & Track Record:

  • What do their partnerships with other brands look like? What was the outcome of those engagements? Does this align with how we want our brand represented and do we feel confident in the delivery of the results that other brands got from this?

• Resources & Deal Structure:

  • How much time/energy/$$ do we have for this partnership? Do we see that changing over time if this is successful?

    • should we look to outsource any headcount we devote to this project or should we hire someone full time?

  • Deal Structure: How do we incentivize this creator / these creators to generate content that converts for us?

    • Do we have the margins to give them a % of all net sales? How does the upfront fee (if there is one) affect our unit economics?

In short, whether we’re ready or not, creators are here, and it’s their world (we’re just living in it). Lots of brands have already leaned into the creator economy and many will continue to in the future. I’m personally excited to see more brands find creative ways to partner with creators in the future and perhaps, build out their own native content…

Until next week!

Cheers,

Zach