The New (Oldish) Media Plan - Brands Make Their Own Creator Networks (BCNs)

Also Brandtech on AI disruption

Among the things you often hear when talking to advertisers and media buyers about the creator universe - and YouTube particularly - is that:

• They know they need to do more in this space

• Holy crap, there are so many creators and sorting them out is painful

• There are only so many Mr. Beasts, and they are really expensive

Thus, you’ll often see an emphasis on micro-influencers, who are typified by strong engagement and specific subject matter. You just have to take the time out to find them. “It’s so hard, but so worth it,” said GroupM COO JiYoung Kim.

Still, that sounds like a ton of effort for something that may not be easily repeatable or give you the scale you need. That’s why one of the more interesting things I’ve heard a lot about lately is brands are building their own stables of creators - not unlike their versions of MCNs (multichannel networks).

To be sure, most brands aren’t looking own these creators’ content outright, or to ‘rep them,’ - but they seeking deeper, ongoing partnerships that blend creative and media.

“They are sort of doubling down on taking certain people that function as brand ambassadors for them and have their own audiences,” said Shannon Pruitt, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Stagwell Brand Performance Network. “They're staying with those people because they represent their brand values they know the types of content they'll create.”

Pruitt mentioned a few good examples:

• Claire’s, which earlier this year launched The Collab, which according to Marketing Dive, is aimed Gen Z and Gen Alpha, featuring creators ranging from “7 to 17 years old and come from backgrounds spanning the worlds of music, sports, fashion and more. “

• Levis, which has it’s own affiliate program for influencers

• Zara, which is currently taking applications for ‘ambassadors.”

Yes, several of these are very focused on shopping, But these kinds of BCNs (brand content networks) also provide ways of reaching these brands’ audiences - or target audiences - on a regular basis.

“They're including [brands] in the content and letting them help be part of the process,” Pruitt said. “People are looking for those folks to make decisions on products, but it's not this notion of like ‘let's do this deal with this one person who's like maybe a flash in the pan’ - because that is still hard to scale.”

It makes sense for brands to try to build a stable of friendly creators. And I can understand the need to put together a list of creators who are vetted and have reliable, predicable audience. My question is, are these kinds of initiatives going to evolve as sort of long term about influencer campaigns? Are they mostly for selling stuff? Or are they a means of recreating reliable reach vehicles?

I asked Pruitt this morning: “These brands are not just competing with the other companies in their category, they are competing with every other brand that has a voice. So these partnerships allow for them to create muscle memory, where they build an association with a creator over time. They get their creativity, and media value too.”

Jason Horowitz, SVP US Marketing, Global Head of Media & Digital at Mattel, hinted at this duality during a panel at a Medialink event a few weeks ago, noting that the company’s collection of brands puts out thousands of pieces of content per year on YouTube with creator, including “thousands of brand partnerships last year for Barbie.”

The toymaker even has its own unique initiative, Mattel Creations, via which they partner with talent in the art world on new products and content.

At the same time, Mattel is taking a totally different tact toward owning its own media plan (and even selling ads). The company recently rolled out multiple FAST (free ad-supported streaming) channels on Samsung TV, featuring a mix of long form TV library series and repacked YouTube content. including ones centered on Barbie and Hot Wheels.

That echoed a similar move by Hasbro, which just launched a FAST focused on Dungeons and Dragons

Horowitz described Mattel’s FASTs as a both “Reach vehicle…which may drive some ad revenue.”

“Kids are first movers, and it’s important to move quickly,” he said. In the FAST space, “There is a little bit of a land grab. With things being so fragmented…this will help strengthen the brands over time.”

This of course isn’t the first time that brands have looked to act as publishers and or programmers. About a decade ago, Honda tried to go big in its own YouTube content, before ultimately pulling back.

Yet this new wave feels strategically different.

I wonder if we’ll see more marketers attempt to curate YouTube and other big platforms, and whether they’ll be able to keep working with these folks on a consistent basis without burning them or their audiences out.

Welcoming - and not ducking - AI disruption

Over the past year and a half, hundreds of ad industry bylines and panels have touted the idea that AI is set to change everything, but that it would surely, mostly just help everyone do their work better, and not lead to job losses and mass disruption.

And if you were looking for confirmation on that ‘we’ll all be fine’ point of view, well, the New York Times came through - talking to an expert from MIT last week who predicted that at best, AI is going to impact 5% of workflow tasks.

So we can relax , right? Well, I spoke recently to Rebecca Skykes, partner at the Brandtech group, who believes that AI tech is about to seriously reshape the practice of marketing - and if anything’s holding it back, it’s overly conservative marketers.

“For a very long time we'‘ve been believing in in the power of AI to be transformative, and I think what's become so evident recently is just how big that transformation is going to be,” Sykes said (watch the full interview above).

Painful, messy change may be in the offing.

“We're talking to a lot of large client organizations who are really grappling with ‘if we disrupt the linear nature of the way we make content what what does this mean for our business and how we work, and our workflow structure.’

Right now, many brands are actually wary of going too far too fast, said Sykes. “I am delighted by how many brands really think hard about responsible AI, to the point maybe where we're even too conservative…There is a competitive advantage [to moving fast] but it’s very hard to undo if we don’t get it right early.”

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