Good news for people who spend too much time on TikTok—creative agencies (probably) want to hire you.

As agencies continue finding ways to attract and retain employees, some roles and skill sets are in higher demand than others. At creative shops, specifically, TikTok creators are climbing that list.

• “TikTok’s changed everything,” Toby Barlow, creative chief at Detroit agency Lafayette American, told us. As clients show more interest in the platform, which is expected to bring in as much as $12 billion in ad revenue this year, Barlow said he needs to hire accordingly.
• TikTok isn’t in the dark about that, either; it recently rolled out a program that it claims will help creative agencies succeed on the platform.

But that’s not all: Creative agencies are looking to hire standout talent in a few different areas, including copywriting. “We’re actually being pushed harder on the creative side than I’ve seen happening in years, frankly,” Barlow said.

TikTok on the clock

Kelly Gordon, senior marketing agent at recruitment firm Creative People, told us that creative agencies are on the hunt for lo-fi video creators.

“Right now, I’m actually speaking with a few agencies that are solely going after content creators,” meaning people who are comfortable picking up their phone and shooting video content, while also understanding TikTok and Instagram’s creative tools.

Zoom in: Gordon said she’s seen agencies such as 360i and Super Digital specifically looking to hire content creators dedicated to TikTok. “They’ll be working on different brand accounts. They’ll be working with a social media manager, a social media strategist, a producer, too, but they’re the ones that are actually in their homes filming,” she explained.

• Hope-Elizabeth Sonam, head of talent experience for flexible-talent agency We Are Rosie, also told us that TikTok chops are “huge” for creative agencies at the moment.

The rest is still unwritten: Copywriters, especially multilingual ones, are also needed at agencies right now. “I’ve seen a lot of demand for people who are going to be working on social, but come from copy backgrounds,” Gordon told us.

Read the full story here.—PB

One of the best parts of going to a movie in the theater is sitting down with a torso-sized bowl of popcorn in time to catch the previews before the main attraction. Some streamers want you to replicate that experience while you watch at home.

None for me, thanks: HBO Max’s ad-supported tier, which debuted in June 2021, is rolling out one such ad format, in which studio and entertainment brands can opt to run full-length trailers ahead of films that will otherwise play uninterrupted.

: The Preview ad—an extension of the streamer’s “brand block” ad option that lets advertisers sponsor mostly ad-free viewing over the course of an episode or movie—is designed specifically for studio and entertainment brands, explained Julian Franco, Warner Bros. Discovery’s SVP of product management.

“We know that a lot of our customers are enthusiasts and aficionados of content,” Franco told Marketing Brew. “The Previews offering is a way for a distributor or a storyteller to be able to tell a little bit of a longer story about something [viewers] might be interested in, in a way that delivers a much lighter ad load for a customer.”

That’s not all: HBO Max has also rolled out its own version of pause ads, which have in recent years become commonplace on other ad-supported streaming services, including Hulu and Peacock, as well as an ad format that allows advertisers to tell their message to audiences in sequential order over the span of multiple ad breaks across a single viewing session.

Don’t interrupt me: The new ad formats on HBO Max represent ways the streaming service is looking to monetize its content without actually interrupting the viewing experience itself. Keeping ads minimally invasive and interruptive is essential for streamers that are fighting for audience attention in an ultra-competitive streaming landscape, said Ryan Gould, Warner Bros. Discovery’s head of digital ad sales.

“One of the challenges that every marketer faces is that consumption habits are fragmented, and attention is the most precious commodity that we trade off of,” Gould told Marketing Brew.

Continue reading here.—KS

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

Beauty and the beast: Digital beauty-enhancement tools are put under the microscope in this new report.

Current events: The social media manager’s guide to responding to current events lives here.

The ’gram: Check out this pretty extensive guide to the current state of Instagram hashtags.

Meetup in the metaverse. Even in the French Riviera, talk still turned to the digital world. Learn how Cannes attendees feel about entering the metaverse in our latest article, sponsored by LinkedIn Ads.

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Let’s be honest — you were born to be the boss. Check out these leadership positions on the Marketing Brew Job Board!

Today’s featured openings:

• Content Marketing Director at Insider
• Senior Manager, Marketing at Connexity
• VP of Content Marketing at The Brand Guild

See more jobs or post your job opportunities here.

• Nurx, Stix, and other emergency-contraception providers are shifting their marketing strategies to highlight their morning-after pill products.
• P&G—which is headquartered in Ohio, a state with a six-week abortion ban—said it would cover travel expenses for employees seeking abortions.
• Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the city’s economic development arm are inviting CEOs to move their businesses to the Windy City, where abortion remains legal.
• California is debating letting state attorneys sue social media platforms for making children addicted to them.
• Snapchat has a Snapchat+ paid subscription option now, available for $3.99 a month.
• Esports brand partnerships are on the up and up, even as a recession looms.

Snap poll: With a potential recession coming, is your organization making marketing-related budget cuts?

• Yes
• No
• Not sure

Stat: Women’s lifestyle publication Bustle saw a decrease of about 23% in traffic year over year from May 2021 to May 2022, dropping from 21.3 million to 17.3 million unique visitors, according to Comscore, per Digiday.

Quote: “If James Bond were shown drinking only milk, or getting in a Ford Fiesta and not an Aston Martin, viewers would feel that crossed some kind of line.”—June Deery, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor of media studies, talking to the New York Times about product placement

Read: “Everything that’s wrong with relying on employers for abortion access” (Quartz)

::drumroll:: Introducing The Brief: A Summit Presented by Marketing Brew

Marketing Brew has partnered with some of the world’s most recognized brands and influential marketers to bring you a premiere one-day marketing event in the heart of New York City.

You’ll hear from a powerhouse panel of speakers that will spotlight innovations, highlight strategies, and provide solutions to the modern marketer’s biggest challenges. Sounds good, right? Dust off your work pants and join us.

Early-bird pricing ends soon, so don’t wait. Save yourself a seat (and some green) now!

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

• Should brands keep advertising through a recession?
• Host-read podcast ads mean the host, not the brand, is in control
• ‘We all need things to work harder for us’: Marketers at Cannes are braced for a recession