At Snap’s NewFronts presentation this month, the company announced a partnership with Cameo that’ll help advertisers create Snapchat video ads starring celeb talent.

It’s Snap’s latest attempt to tap into the creator economy:

• In February, Snap said it’s beta testing “mid-roll ads” that play in between a creator’s Stories. They mark Snap’s first ad-revenue sharing feature for creators, letting them directly share in the $$ Snap earns from their content. But the only creators with access to this money-making opportunity are “Snap Stars,” aka verified creators on the platform.
• And in late 2020, after introducing its TikTok competitor Spotlight, Snap said it would pay a total of $1 million per day to popular creators. It ended up paring that number back, ultimately doling out $250 million last year.

Big picture: Even as the platform continues to find ways to court and fund creators, some told Marketing Brew they’re struggling to break through on the app.

Ghosted

Alex Drachnik, a LA-based content creator known for portraying her alter-ego character “Sasha the Russian” on social media, has seen success on Snapchat firsthand: She once made $17,000 from a video featured on Spotlight. Drachnik told us that the experience made her want to “start pushing even more” on Snapchat.

But it hasn’t been easy for her after the fact; she hasn’t made any money on Snapchat since. “Snapchat is the hardest platform for me to understand and grow,” Drachnik said.

“I’ll post videos that got millions [of views] on TikTok, but then when I post it to Snapchat, it maybe gets a couple thousand. I’m just so confused,” she continued.

Some creators have found more luck: Martine Beerman, a face-painting artist turned influencer who has a show on Snapchat Discover, is more enthusiastic about the platform’s potential for creators.

• Beerman told us she thinks Snapchat has an inherently different value to creators than apps like TikTok and Instagram. “Each platform offers value in different ways,” she explained.

Snapchat’s story

Matt Zuvella, VP of marketing at influencer agency FamePick, told us that although he does a lot of influencer brand deals, he hasn’t done a single one on Snapchat.

“Spotlight would be the logical place to activate influencers now,” Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer for Mekanism, told us. But Snap doesn’t allow sponsored content on Spotlight.

Even so, Gahan said spon con on Spotlight would be “a seamless add-on for brands working with TikTok creators that have invested in Snap,” he explained, adding that influencers could “easily upsell Snap extensions to existing TikTok campaigns.”

Read the full story here.—PB

Networks have come to this year’s upfronts with new Marvel trailers, performances from stars like Miley Cyrus, and an upcoming Lizzo documentary in hand. But these days, a network’s success isn’t just about star power. More and more, advertisers are rewarding networks that are dedicated to diversity in their programming.

Zoom in: Two new reports—one from Nielsen and one from ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing—shed light on how the TV industry is doing when it comes to on-screen representation.

Streaming gains: Nielsen’s latest report analyzed the top 1,500 broadcast, cable, and streaming shows to measure Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander representation.

• Asian actors represented an 11% share of screen in streaming shows last year, almost doubling from 6.1% in 2020. Across all formats measured, Asian representation increased from 3.5% in 2020 to 4.6% in 2021.

Purchasing power: More than half of Asian respondents to Nielsen’s survey said they’re more likely to buy from brands that advertise during programs featuring Asians.

TV’s report card : The Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing’s Cultural Inclusion Accelerator Report Card assigned letter grades to broadcast networks and streaming platforms using a tool that “measures viewers’ cultural sentiment of content,” the organization said in a statement.

• Based on ~68,000 responses, the report claims the measurement tool “confirms that very little progress has been made by content creators.”
• All networks that received an A grade focus on underrepresented groups: Univision Deportes, Univision, Telemundo, Estrella, and BET. Traditional networks like CBS, ESPN, ABC, and NBC were graded B, and streamers like Paramount+, Netflix, and Hulu fell in the C range. Apple TV and Showtime received the lowest grades.

+1: Diversity was also a major focal point of last week’s IAB Podcast Upfront.—AM

Claw clips, curtain bangs, middle parts, baby braids…hairstyle trends move fast these days, so you might want to think twice before booking your next cut and color.

For brands, there’s more at stake than a haircut that makes you look like a (gasp!) millennial. With #hairstyle content racking up more than 56 billion views on TikTok, there’s lots of room for hair care brands to innovate and appeal to—yep—Gen Z. But they’re also having to strike a balance between keeping up with ephemeral trends while creating products that buyers want to keep coming back to, writes Retail Brew’s Erin Cabrey.

• “When we’re making a product, we’re trying to think more of the less extreme version and the slightly more everyday version,” Jordynn Wynn, co-founder of hair-extension brand Insert Name Here, told Erin. “We haven’t really seen too much drop-off too quickly with categories because there’s always another way to use it.”
• Kathryn Winokur, founder and CEO of Hally Hair, a color and hair-dye brand, said the company looks at trends “as a way that we can participate in the conversation.” But ultimately, she said brands need to focus on their core products and business, “which no matter what comes and goes on TikTok, will remain true.”

Read Erin’s full story here.—MS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Ad tiers: New research from Morning Consult found that almost three in five US adults would rather subscribe to an ad-supported streaming service than a more expensive, ad-free one.

Meta (not that one): Gartner ran a study on studies of corporate social justice initiatives, finding flaws in these kinds of reports.

Hurry: Here’s a list of the hottest memes of the month to adapt for your brand on social.

Message delivered: Ah, the SMS. It’s instantaneous, it’s timely, and it’s personal—which is why it can resonate with customers and elevate your cross-channel experience. Need personalization tips? Iterable’s got ya covered here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Are you one of the 83% of Marketing Brew readers planning to make a career change this year? Be sure to check out our Marketing Brew Job Board for 250+ new job openings!

Today’s featured openings:

• Marketing Operations Manager at Dashlane
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Forrester principal analyst Kelsey Chickering recently published a memo calling out major brands for funding “misinformation and disinformation”—including Russian propaganda and pandemic conspiracies—with their ad dollars. Her post is based on Forrester data.

The stats say: CMOs are increasingly focused on keeping their ads away from misleading online content, but in practice, there’s room for improvement.

• Roughly three-quarters (73%) of execs in a recent CMO survey said stopping their ads from appearing near this kind of content is a top priority, up from 60% in Q1. But half of CMOs at organizations with more than 500 employees said their brand has inadvertently advertised alongside misinformation.

The impact: “Marketers who fund the misinformation and disinformation industry with their ad dollars put consumer trust at risk,” Chickering wrote. More than half (57%) of US and UK adults said they don’t trust brands that spend ad dollars with media properties that spread misinformation, one Forrester survey found.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• For the next generation of DTC companies, community is key
• Why are agencies always ‘partnering’ with platforms?
• More ad spend is going toward Black-owned media, but will it last?