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- PacSun Taps Virtual Influencer for Back To School, Holiday Campaigns
- Amazon Launches Tool for Advertisers to Pay Influencers
- Reels Scheduling is Now Available to All Users in Meta’s Creator Studio App
- How Irish Spring's ‘gaming shower’ marketing activation cleaned up on Twitch
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Great Reads
Snapchat Plus: More Than 1 Million Paying Customers, Four New Features
It’s not going to make much of a dent to offset Snap’s stalling ad business, but the company is touting that it has signed up more than 1 million subscribers for Snapchat+, its service that provides exclusive access to pre-release and experimental features.
Snapchat+ hit the one-million mark a little over six weeks after launching the $3.99-per-month service at the end of June.
On Monday, Snap is introducing four new features for Snapchat+: priority Story replies, making your replies will be more visible to Snap Stars; post-view emoji, letting you select an emoji friends will see after they view your Snaps; new Bitmoji backgrounds, like gleaming gold or a beach paradise; and new app icons to replace the default Snapchat app icon on your homescreen.
Those are in addition to the seven features in Snapchat+: ghost trails on the map (to see where your friends who share their location with you have been in the last 24 hours); best friends forever (pin your No. 1 BFF); Story rewatch indicator; custom app icons/themes; a Snapchat+ badge; friend solar system (see a “Best Friends” badge on someone’s Friendship Profile, which means you’re one of each other’s eight closest friends, or a “Friends” badge which means you’re one of their eight closest friends, but they’re not one of yours); and the ability to access Snapchat messaging functions on the web.
What goes on at a summer camp for YouTube Gaming kidfluencers
Beginning the course bright and early on a Monday morning in August stirs memories from classrooms past, as the students — myself, plus a small group of animated pre-teen boys hailing from across the UK — go around and make our introductions: an interesting fact about ourselves, our favourite foods, two truths and a lie. A pandemic-proofed schedule means we are learning remotely, in my case prostrated on my parents’ sofa. Once logged on, we meet our course coach Nathan, an upbeat, relentlessly patient Scottish instructor with a homegrown YouTube channel of his own, on which he reviews electronic synthesisers and (he reveals privately to me) vlogs whisky-tasting.
Twenty minutes into our induction, I realise I am already out of my depth: I have accidentally landed in a class of aspiring YouTube gamers. Within the influencer landscape, gaming is a microcosm complete with its own language and lore, each new game franchise spawning an expansive universe of characters, weaponry, codes, and customs. Whilst the students are happily chatting multiplayer platform compatibility, I am stealthily googling acronyms.
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Campaign Insights
How Irish Spring's ‘gaming shower’ marketing activation cleaned up on Twitch
Irish Spring streamed its marketing activation on Twitch. It was the ideal channel to meet its audience of gamers. In Q1 2022, 6.13 billion hours of streaming footage were consumed on Twitch, dwarfing competitors such as YouTube Gaming Live and Facebook Gaming. Carreon discussed the benefits of using Twitch:
“We identified Twitch because we know we wanted to do this at scale. We could bring in FaZe Santana, his fans, and everyone else following along to the full experience first-hand. And this was important because they’re such an energized audience.”
“From my experience, I don’t see any other social media platform where as soon as you go live, there’s immediately 500 people chatting with you who are fully engaged and supportive of the host of the stream.”
However, whilst this was streaming on Twitch, Irish Spring also wanted to share the activation everywhere. Carreon continues:
“We also brought editors with us too, and we wanted to find ones that could build momentum for the campaign. We specifically targeted Fandom because of its huge following in the gaming space, as well as BuzzFeed, which helped drive reach with Zillenials.”
“This was an intricately planned activation, so we didn’t just want Fandom and BuzzFeed there for the unveiling. We also wanted them to see the preparations and trial-run. Ahead of the go live, they had a chance to walk through the experience, interview the crew, interview FaZe Santana, and sit in the gaming shower too. By giving them the full experience, they could share capture unique, first-hand content and share it with their platform as well. This behind-the-scenes content also helped us build authenticity and gain momentum with the wider Zillenial audience.”
TikTok Fashion: Stitching Influence
Take Khaby Lame, the Senegalese social media influencer, known for his silent reaction to “life hack” videos, is the most popular, with more than 145 million followers on TikTok. Hugo Boss may have been influenced by Lame, as it also tapped him to be part of the #BeYourOwnBOSS campaign this spring. In tandem, Boss announced a strategic partnership with Lame. A collaboration at a Milan Fashion Week event, where Boss cast Lame for his fashion runway debut, brought in 4 billion impressions in just four days. After that, an ambassadorship was formed to include two co-designed capsule collections. The latest collection consists of a small run of items: a varsity jacket, a hoodie, a T-shirt and a plush doll in Lame’s likeness.
TikTok’s second largest creator, sisters, Charli D’Amelio (more than 143 million followers to date) and Dixie (more than 57 million followers to date), have utilized their dancing videos in the fashion space. The social media personalities built upon their previous relationship with retailer, Hollister, to launch Social Tourist, an apparel brand available exclusively in stores and online. The launch of Social Tourist marked the beginning of an exclusive, multiyear apparel agreement between Abercrombie & Fitch (which owns Hollister) and the D’Amelios. Working with Hollister, the D’Amelios were involved in every aspect of Social Tourist, including product selection, design, branding, positioning and marketing.
PacSun Taps Virtual Influencer for Back To School, Holiday Campaigns
PacSun has teamed up with a new kind of spokesperson for its back-to-school and holiday 2022 marketing campaigns — virtual influencer Miquela.
Self-described on her Instagram account as a “19-year-old Robot living in LA,” Miquela (who was previously known as Lil Miquela but has since ditched the Lil) is one of the first known virtual influencers — a computer-generated human, essentially a digital character — that takes on all the tasks and tools of actual homo sapiens influencers.
The new partnership marks the “beginning of an exciting marketing strategy” for PacSun, which said it will be leaning more into the virtual influencer space and the metaverse throughout Q4. The brand is no stranger to these environs, having already engaged in a number of NFT and virtual fashion projects, including the development of the Pacworld interactive mall in Roblox earlier this year.
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Interesting People
YouTube Influencer Emma Chamberlain Founded Coffee Company Closes $7 Million Series A Funding
Chamberlain Coffee, the brainchild of YouTube phenomenon Emma Chamberlain, has onboarded multiple e-commerce and beverage experts to join the company’s latest $7 million series A funding round to develop new products and expand retail footprint.
Nik Sharma, who has invested and advised several fast growing consumer brands such as MrBeast’s Feastables Inc., and director of Hint, LifeAid Beverage and a board member of Vita Coco, Ken Sadowsky, are both part of the round.
The USDA Organic-certified Chamberlain Coffee currently offers a variety of coffee blends, instant coffee, single-served steeped bags, matcha powders, and accessories primarily through its website, and has recently expanded into Erewhon Market, national grocer Sprouts, and digital delivery market GoPuff along with partnerships with top brands such as Levi’s, Swoon, OffLimits Cereal and Nutpods.
“Coffee is very personal, so we offer different caffeine levels and roast profiles so people can get the coffee the way they want,” said Christopher Gallant, a former RedBull executive who was hired as the company’s CEO about a year ago. He stresses how Chamberlain Coffee can strategically resonate with the Gen Z consumer since they’re more digitally driven and inclined more towards sustainable products compared to millennials.
100 billion impressions and counting: Meet the 22-year-olds aiming to be bigger than backers LADbible
“We started on that quite early,” he explained. “We worked with TikTok at the very, very early stage to actually promote them,” added Chilvers. “We had our own TikTok, which was verified. We would post videos on TikTok and borrow them from our Instagram to tell people to download TikTok so we sort of helped.”
As well as establishing partnerships with global brands including dating app Hinge and fitness brand Gymshark, the duo have been working on building a new venture called No Brainer TV. “We had a bit of an idea and an epiphany in a way six months ago,” said Williams. “Because of the way that the platforms are going, we really want original content. We want stuff that hasn't been seen before elsewhere.”
The street interview channel has already grown to more than 10,000 followers on TikTok and 40,000 on Instagram, tapping into the demand from Gen Z users who are now consuming their news on social media.
They have seen success with movie-related content to questions about who should be the next Prime Minister following Boris Johnson’s resignation. “What we wanted with No Brainer is to have a whole unique audience without us putting anything behind it, so we didn't push it from any of our other pages. It's completely new and organic.”
Marla Catherine is moving her fashion empire to TikTok
Shopping for a management company proved to be one of the most difficult parts of the Henrys’ social media journey. “Companies wanted 50 percent of brand deals and 10 percent of AdSense on top of that,” Evelyn says. “That didn’t sit right with us, especially since we were creating all of the content on our own––we didn’t understand why they’d get that much of the brand deal, much less any of the ad revenue.”
Today, the sisters say you can find full rate sheets and breakdowns of finances for digital creators. Back then, they relied on the community. “We’d DM other creators and ask what percentages they got, just to get some kind of context,” Evelyn says. “And I’m so grateful people were responsive to us––they’re the reason we were able to navigate the great deal we have now.”
Now that they’re charging what they’re worth, Marla Catherine accounts are making more money than ever. “We earn around $3,000 per post for sponsored content,” Evelyn says. “We’ve made $8,000 from a sponsorship that was literally a selfie in specific clothing,” Marla added. “Deals can vary significantly––I missed an entire semester of high school just on brand trips.”
The sisters have one major stipulation for nearly every brand deal––creative control. “When we get premade content from brands, our engagement hits record lows,” Evelyn says. “I’ve never understood brands that say what you can and can’t do––if you want our audience to respond, you have to let us talk to them.”
TikTok’s Music Curators Are Helping Songs Go Viral. Labels Want In
Curator promotion “is a big part of most of our campaigns,” adds Jen Darmafall, associate director of influencer marketing at Warner Records. These accounts “play a big role in songs potentially going viral.”
The creators behind TikTok’s music recommendation accounts are able to facilitate discovery in part because their approach is “more personal” than reading about a song in a publication or finding it on a streaming service, according to Jarred Jermaine, a longtime producer who has mostly abandoned making songs to focus on TikTok. “That’s coming from a corporation; it’s too official,” he says. “This is like learning about music from a kid down the street.” Darmafall uses similar language: “There’s a sense of relatability that these curators have.
“TikTok is not just the dancing platform anymore,” adds Rebecca Versteegh, head of music partnerships for Creed Media, which has run digital marketing campaigns for nearly every major label. “Now you have every sort of community on the platform, and the music discovery community has come into its own.”
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Industry News
Shopify launches Collabs, a new way for creators to earn revenue on the platform
Shopify announced today that it’s launching a new “Shopify Collabs” offering to connect creators with merchants on its platform and give them a new way to make money. With this new product, Shopify says creators will be able to easily discover and partner with independent businesses.
Creators can get started by applying for a Shopify Collabs account, after which they will be able to browse for Shopify merchants that align with their audience. Once creators find brands they like, they can partner with them and curate a list of their products to share on social media using Linkpop, Shopify’s link in bio tool. When someone purchases a product using the link a creator has shared, the creator will receive a payment.
The company told TechCrunch the pay structure for Collabs can differ with each merchant and that creators can receive their funds directly through their PayPal account.
Shopify says Collabs makes it easier for creators to monetize while also giving independent businesses a new sales and marketing channel. Merchants can opt-in to the new Collabs offering and make their store and products discoverable, after which creators can apply to join that merchant’s community. Collabs can then be used to manage the relationship between creators and merchants to ensure that the creator has everything they need, such as unique links and discount codes. Since Collabs is built on Shopify, the process is managed from the merchant’s Shopify admin, which means that inventory, order and customer information are kept up to date.
Omnicom Group launches in-game advertising, influencer marketing unit
The Omnicom Advertising Collective is launching a dedicated gaming offering called LevelUp OAC. The new gaming unit will be led by The Marketing Arm and GSD&M. The offering will provide creative and media expertise to brands looking to enter the space, such as in-game media planning and buying, experiential marketing and influencer strategy.
The practice will be headed by Andrew Robinson Jr., group director, gaming at The Marketing Arm; Maria D'Amato, an executive creative director at GSD&M; and Dave Kersey, GSD&M’s chief media officer. The unit will consist of a team of 35-70 employees drawn from both agencies, but other holding company shops could also be brought into the mix depending on the project, said James Fenton, CEO of the Omnicom Collective.
Responsibilities will be divided between the two agencies according to strength, D'Amato said. The Marketing Arm has experience in gaming influencer engagement, experiential activation, and content creation, while GSD&M has experience building AR and VR experiences for brands as well as in-game advertising.
Morning Brew launches creator program
Morning Brew, the business media company that caters to millennials, has launched a creator program that allows independent personalities to work for the company full time while maintaining separate and distinct products and brands.
Why it matters: The program will help Morning Brew expand into niche areas, like personal finance, entrepreneurship and productivity, said Austin Rief, CEO of Morning Brew. It will also help the company continue to expand into business verticals outside of newsletters.
"We believe our audience cares about a lot of these niche topics, and we think the best way to cover those topics is to have a variety of different people, different points of view, who speak differently, all in the same ethos of Morning Brew, but maybe in their own tone and their own style," said Rief.
Details: The company currently works with seven creators, all of which are on Morning Brew's payroll full time.
Colin Cowherd Backtracks on Esports as The Volume Adds Madden YouTuber
Colin Cowherd has come around on esports. Seven years after saying gaming was “for booger-eaters” and threatening on-air to quit if his employer made him cover a competition, Cowherd has done a 180 on the topic.
His digital media network, The Volume, recently acquired a Madden-focused YouTube channel with over 100,000 subscribers and hired the talent behind it, Brady “Mayz” Mays, in a multi-year deal.
“I’ve had a total change of heart,” Cowherd said via email. “That business is so lucrative that parents these days might be telling their kids to STOP playing outside and go inside and play some video games.”
The Volume launched last year as a sports-focused podcast network in partnership with iHeartMedia and has since expanded to include video content as well, turning to stars such as Draymond Green and Richard Sherman to anchor its offerings in various traditional sports.
“At The Volume, we comb the internet for people who cut through within a specific genre,” Cowherd said. “We wanted to find a unique talent in esports, starting with Madden, and at every turn, someone on the internet was pointing to Mayz.”
TikTok Launches SoundOn To Help Music Artists Monetize Songs
Social media giant TikTok has turned little-known musicians into mainstream stars by boosting the popularity of their songs. Now, the Culver City-based company is giving artists a new way to monetize their music through the video-sharing app.
On Wednesday, TikTok unveiled SoundOn, a platform that lets artists directly upload their music to TikTok and earn royalties when their songs are used in videos. SoundOn also lets artists distribute their music on Resso—a streaming service owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance—as well as major streaming platforms such as Apple Music, Pandora and Spotify.
“We're incredibly excited about how this will surface and propel new talent and how SoundOn will contribute to an increasingly diverse and growing global music industry,” Ole Obermann, Tiktok’s global head of music, said in a statement.
SoundOn will pay 100% royalties to artists for music used on ByteDance-owned platforms for an “unlimited time,” according to its website. For music used on other platforms, artists will receive 100% royalties during the first year and 90% after that. SoundOn is currently not charging any distribution fees, it said.
Reels Scheduling is Now Available to All Users in Meta’s Creator Studio App
You can now schedule your Reels via Meta’s Creator Studio app, which will provide more capacity to post your short clips at the best times to maximize audience response.
Reels scheduling is now available to all users in Creator Studio, with various formatting tools and features to help customize your content, and schedule your posts, all from your desktop PC.
Meta’s been rolling out Reels scheduling in Creator Studio over the past few months, so you may have had access for some time, but it’s now available to all users.
Reels scheduling is now available to all users in Creator Studio, with various formatting tools and features to help customize your content, and schedule your posts, all from your desktop PC.
Meta’s been rolling out Reels scheduling in Creator Studio over the past few months, so you may have had access for some time, but it’s now available to all users.
TikTok Blocks Influencers From Creating Paid Political Content Ahead Of Midterms
TikTok on Wednesday unveiled a strategy for fighting misinformation ahead of the midterm elections, including a ban on paid political content from influencers, after Facebook and Twitter also outlined a series of steps to prepare for the November election after facing a barrage of criticisms for fueling the spread of false information during previous elections.
TikTok will launch an Elections Center this week to “connect people” with “authoritative information” about voting in more than 45 languages, which the company will link to through labels, TikTok’s Head of Safety Eric Han wrote in a blog post.
TikTok is reinforcing its 2019 ban on paid political advertising to include paid content from influencers as well, after challenges arose during the 2020 election educating influences on that rule, Han said.
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Registration Required
Great Paywalled Content
Amazon Launches Tool for Advertisers to Pay Influencers - Business Insider
Amazon is taking big steps to attract advertisers and creators to its influencer marketing program, according to multiple agency sources.
First, the company is letting advertisers test a new tool that helps brands find creators and pay them more than standard commission rates.
Amazon is also pitching advertisers to sponsor its influencer events, with some opportunities starting at $35,000.
An Amazon spokesperson acknowledged the company is testing new content initiatives for creators but didn't confirm these details.
These moves are coming as other companies like Shopify, TikTok, Instagram, and creator tech platforms like LTK are also developing tools to help creators and brands work with each other.
Amazon started beta testing a tool called Creator Connections last year, but many advertisers said they only got to try it out in early August. The tool matches advertisers with up to 50 creators, so a cosmetics company can easily find a beauty influencer for instance.
Creators get between 1% and 10% commission from Amazon, and bigger-ticket items like electronics get higher commission rates. Amazon is letting advertisers add even higher commission rates on top of that to incentivize creators for promoting their products. So if Amazon pays a 10% commission rate to an influencer, a brand can add another 10% commission, giving that influencer a 20% commission rate. In addition, advertisers also pay creators a fee for social media posts through Amazon's influencer program.
Kylie Cosmetics Tries to Evolve Beyond the ‘Instagram Makeup’ Era - Business of Fashion
“She can certainly sell the product one-off, but where we see doubt is if she can sustain the continued sales,” said Pravani Pillay, senior manager in the beauty practice of Kearney, a consultancy. “She is the brand — and that’s the value that [Coty] pays for.”
The brand needs to take some risks and surprise Jenner’s fans, Driscoll said. She cited the Kylie Cosmetics vending machines, which appeared at certain American airports in 2019, as one such experiment that worked. Pillay said another “Kylie Original” — like Jenner’s Lip Kits that “brought back lip liner” — could reel in new customers, re-engage existing ones, and most importantly, “rebuild some trust.”
Jenner is also contending with consumers’ expectations that celebrities appear more “authentic.” It’s an area where she has struggled: Forbes rescinded her self-made billionaire title, there was the video promoting her skin care where she appeared to be wearing makeup and that Milan lab snafu.
“She’s trying to take her ‘lifestyle of Kylie’ and expand that too much, and the way consumers might be perceiving that is, ‘Does she know who her customer is or is she trying to be everything to no one because of her name?’” Pillay said.
But the public’s perception may not matter in this case — the Kardashians and Jenners have built their brand around being authentically inauthentic. The 16-year-old who bought a lip kit in 2016 is now in her twenties and perhaps looking for a deeper celebrity connection. But there are plenty of people who are still buying what the mega influencer is selling.
“The people who like her don’t really think she’s authentic. They don’t care. Does the makeup work and do they get to participate a little bit in the Jenner Kardashian fame?” Driscoll said. “For people who care about authenticity, I don’t know that they would have gone along with her brand anyway.”
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