From Grey and Mama to Food Baby to the LaBrants, there’s no shortage of content on the internet that documents kids trying foods, playing sports, and growing up.

But family vlogging isn’t always wholesome. It can create risks for the children involved, including attention from stalkers and pedophiles, as well as exploitation and abuse from adults who run the channels. What’s more, kidfluencers have few legal protections—but that could be starting to change.

Chris McCarty, 19, said they were inspired to speak out on behalf of child influencers after reading about the Stauffers, a YouTuber family who adopted an autistic toddler from China and featured him in video content before “rehoming” him.

“I wanted to do a little bit more of a deep dive into other influencer families to see if others were using their kids to generate interest and therefore revenue in their channel—and it turns out that they are,” they said.

In their senior year of high school in 2021, McCarty started Quit Clicking Kids, which aims to stop the exploitation and monetization of minors on social media through awareness and legislation. Since then, they have worked with lawmakers in Washington State and Illinois on legislation that would ensure financial compensation and protections for children used in online content.

Last month, Illinois passed a law that requires parents to set aside earnings for children under the age of 16 if they appear in or are discussed in video posts. Money must be placed in a trust fund for the child to access once they turn 18.

We spoke with McCarty about the work they’ve done to date as the sole operator of QCK, their recent legislative victory in Illinois, and where the movement to protect child influencers goes from here.

Read our interview here.—KH

Ever hear the phrase work smarter, not harder? Well, marketers, turn your attention to composable content—content that can be built with existing elements and managed across all your different channels.

New to the composable world? No worries. Contentful created The Marketer’s Guide to Composable Content just for you.

In this guide, you’ll get a crash course in the benefits of going omnichannel with digital content, including the ability to:

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Learn how to create, connect, and extend content experiences with composable content. Get the free guide.

Women in Cincinnati are drowning their sorrows over the rumored engagement of Bengals QB Joe Burrow with 9-cent “Sad Girl Shots” at a local bar. Marketers might follow suit if they can’t score a different kind of partnership with the NFL star.

In addition to being No. 1 in our hearts, Burrow landed on top of the NFL Players Association’s Influencer Hot List this year. The association worked with partnership measurement company Zoomph to rank players’ social performance based on their number of organic posts, followers, engagement rates, impressions, and follower interaction rates across Instagram and X from September 2022 to July 2023.

Burrow has worked with brands including BodyArmor, Bose, and Kroger. While he’s certainly desirable, marketers might want to consider players further down the list depending on their goals, Gina Scott, VP of group licensing and partner services at the NFLPA, told Marketing Brew.

Burrow’s stats are off the charts, and not just his record-breaking completion percentage (despite a less-than-ideal Week 1). On social, he has an engagement rate of over 13%, higher than any other player in the league, according to the list.

“Joe’s got that swag, he’s got that style,” Scott said. “Joe’s taken control of his entire story. He’s not relying on anybody else to give you that peek behind the curtain, or to tell you who Joe is. He’s actually doing it himself.”

It also likely doesn’t hurt his social stats that he already had a following from his LSU days, Scott said.

Keep reading here.—AM

It seems celebrities are swapping red carpets for gray.

In light of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, actors aren’t doing any project promotions, causing studios and streamers to scramble and turn to other marketing tactics for new releases. But the itch to attend awards shows is still there among some actors, based on attendance at this year’s Soho House Awards, which are…apparently a thing.

Compared to the social club’s inaugural awards show last year, there was a notable increase in A-list attendees at this year’s event, which took place last week. Celebs including Ayo Edebiri, Oscar Isaac, Paul Mescal, Daniel Kaluuya, and Emma Watson, who largely stays out of the public eye, were there. Sponsors of the event included Porsche, which recently announced a three-year partnership with Soho House, as well as Renais and Patrón.

While some people have questioned whether awards shows of this nature are a loophole or strike violation, the celebrities in attendance clearly attracted attention around the event.

The strikes are already having an impact on this year’s real awards season: The Emmys have moved from September to January, while the Governors Awards—a non-televised event for honorary Oscars—will take place in January instead of November. As of now, the Oscars are still set for March 10, though if the actors’ and writers’ guilds are still on strike, striking actors won’t be there.

Changes or delays to this year’s awards season could impact marketers, many of whom rely on events like the Oscars to bring in eyeballs. As Marketing Brew reported last year, the Oscars still bring in ample ad revenue for ABC, even as viewership has declined; in 2022, the average price for a 30-second spot was around $1.7 million, according to one estimate.—KH

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

Marketing renaissance: How B2B marketers can take a page or two out of Beyoncé’s playbook.

Helping hand: How BBDO is using AI to write briefs.

Catch up: Pinterest debuted a series of new advertising tools at its annual advertising event this week.

Real influence: Would you trust an AI-based influencer to promote your brand? In our new series on the creator economy, we dive into virtual influencers + the AI behind them. Sponsored by Tagger.*

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