Why Razorfish Made Creators Part of its Staff

Plus, can Joe Rogan compete for TV dollars?

A common conundrum for brands and media agencies when looking to ramp up their work with creators is this:

• Finding the right creators isn’t always easy

• Executing brand integrations is not always a quick or smooth process

• Yet brands (and their CFOs) want to move fast and drive results - now

And while there have been many attempts at streamlining these processes - making creator media more ‘programmatic’ in nature, the jury is still out on many of these offerings.

So Razorfish NA has found a novel solution - just put a bunch of creators on the payroll.

Last year, the agency rolled out Creator CoLab. Instead of just assembling a roster of creators who are go-to collaborators- Razorfish literally took a group of them and made them Publicis employees.

I talked to Cristina Lawrence, EVP of Consumer & Content Experience at Razorfish NA, about this and more on the latest episode of Next in Creator Media this week.

“This is like a whole new model that we launched last year,” Lawrence said. “We said to ourselves, ‘you know, we have, we have these relationships with creators and influencers and we work through our favorite creator and influencer partners, right?’ But what we saw was the gap was the speed to market piece. There is still that ramp-up time.”

So the agency brought several of these creators into the fold, making it much easier to push out a campaign that goes beyond running a bunch of pre-rolls. “We also can tap them for rapid content creation for any one of the clients. We see this as a stable of creators that much like a studio model we could leverage across the country for various brands that need to be in market now.”

A good example is some work Razorfish put together on TikTok for Trojan condoms last year.

@trojanbrandcondomsIt’s #NationalBananaDay, so we’re celebrating the employee of the year. 🍌 #work #worklife #corporate

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It will be fascinating to see how this sort of model plays out. My guess is that you’re not likely to see any mega -star creators decide to give up their freedom to work for a holding company. And I’d wonder what happens to your audience relationship and credibility over time, if you are constantly hawking brands.

“We talk about this all the time,” said Lawrence. “We think about things like burnout. What if they keep seeing the same person? Right? They're going to want somebody new. Well, this is, these are the different things we have to balance. And so this is why we have to think about different ways we capture content.”

In the meantime, this could be nice work if you can get it for the right unicorn creator who is good at entertaining their audience, while also pushing out messages for brands and getting everything approved by the client.

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Is Podcasting Video Now?

One noteworthy aspect of my chat with Lawrence was our discussion about the increase in major creators - mostly YouTubers - producing longer-form programming, and consistent seasons, a la TV networks.

Lawrence threw out the usual names - Mr. Beast…and Joe Rogan?

It’s interesting. Historically, podcasts were thought of a niche medium, and they were generally seen as a radio alternative to be funded by audio ad budgets.

Obviously, YouTube has become a major podcasting outlet over the past few years, making video podcasts a much bigger deal overall. Then the recent election opened many people’s eyes to just how big the video podcasting sector is, with the likes of Rogan and other ‘manosphere’ stars.

So does that change the podcasting advertising equation? Are these kinds of shows going to be scene alongside other creators’s content? Are they going to be vying for video budgets, or maybe even TV dollars?

“I love podcasts and I love video podcasts,” said Lawrence. “And I think a lot of people that we're probably talking to do as well. When you hear your favorite, creator talking about some product that they're endorsing or using, and they normally, the good ones will really integrate it into the content of their show, [and you remember it].”

That’s very true. However, those types of brand integrations - while powerful - are also complicated and typically require a longer lead time. It will be worth watching to see if these kinds of deals become part of brands’ broader product placement strategies, or maybe even upfront deals.