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Creator Generation brings you behind the scenes of the creator economy, featuring top YouTubers and experts who share the strategies, lessons, and stories behind building successful channels, growing incredible businesses, and driving the world’s biggest online video successes.
Hey. I'm Fred.
Ant:And I'm Ant. And this is Creator Generation.
Zoe:A campaign is a moment, but creators drive movements.
Ant:$44,000,000,000 will be spent by brands with creators in 2026, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Our guest is Zoe Soon, the head of Creator and Gaming at IAB, and she's at the coalface of building advertising standards for creator brand deals. Now ad standards might sound a bit dull, but I assure you creators, you need to pay attention to this because this is what will unlock exponentially more brand deal dollars for you. Zoe, welcome to Creator Generation.
Zoe:Thanks, Anne. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Fred.
Fred:Hey, Zoe. Zoe, before we get started, I was reading through some of your background, and I and I read this on LinkedIn. I wanted to ask you about it. On LinkedIn, it says, I put revenue engines at the intersection of culture, creators, and brand partnerships. And I've been doing it since I flew twenty one hours from Sydney to New York for a thirty minute coffee meeting and then turned into my first job.
Fred:That is fascinating. What happened there? Twenty one hours, thirty minutes? What was that?
Zoe:Yeah. I really wanted to live and work overseas, and I worked in publishing at the time, and New York is the center of publishing. So I was chatting with the New York Times about a role. And I thought, you know what? They're never gonna say come in for a chat.
Zoe:So I'm just gonna say, I'll be in town. And they said, sure. Come in for a coffee. So then I booked a flight to grab a coffee, which sent it to an interview, which turned into my next job. And, yes, I packed four suitcases and moved, I think, in in four weeks.
Fred:Wow. And that that's what big what started all of this.
Zoe:Yes. And and fourteen days later, I'm still here.
Ant:I love the the casual. I'll just be in town. I'm on the other side of the world right now, but just I'll just be in town any day.
Zoe:I'll talk over for thirty minutes.
Ant:Great. I love that. Okay. And so, yeah, now you're still in in New York. You've been there quite a while, and you're you're in at IAB as a head of Creator and Gaming.
Ant:Elephant in the room, what is IAB? And why is it interested in creators?
Zoe:So the IAB is the industry setting standard setting industry body for the digital advertising industry. We're not most known for coming up with standard ad sizes. So if you're old enough to remember the advent of the Internet back in the mid to late nineties, you know, when it came about, advertisers were used to, you know, building ads for print or anything you you could, you know, display, customize. But when the e inkjet came about, we needed standard ad sizes so that if you're Pepsi, you can advertise across a number of websites without building bespoke ad units every time. So the IB sort of formulated as sort of like the United Nations of advertising and helped all the companies sort of come on get together on the same page and, you know, rising tides lift all boats.
Zoe:Let's just all agree to do it this way. And it sort of opened up the the marketplace so that brands could more easily invest across a number of properties. So that's our history. Fast forward to the creator space. We're sort of in a similar space.
Zoe:Right? There's a bunch of creators out there and brands that wanna work with creators, but there's no way to really activate at scale. So our focus is on how do we build the infrastructure to help brands invest more easily and with less friction in the creator space.
Ant:That moves beyond size of ads then. Right? Like the Yes.
Zoe:The internet has gotten much more sophisticated. So it it goes to things like, what are the best practices for working with creators? Right now, I think creators take on average over a hundred and twenty days to get paid. Should we have some charter around that and some best practices? And the and the reason they take so long to get paid isn't because brands don't wanna pay them.
Zoe:There's just so many intermediaries because the supply chain hasn't been optimized. So a brand will pay their creative marketing agency who might pay a talent management person, and each of those people have their windows to sort of get to downstream to the creator. Yeah. So all of these factors, you know, are at play. Like, how do how do we make that buying process more transparent and easier?
Ant:And so you mentioned scale and that some of the biggest players in advertising are like Unilever, Procter and Gamble. And if they want to go and work with, say, a thousand creators tomorrow, they can't do it. Right? And that's not because creators aren't there and willing. What's the gap?
Zoe:Yeah. That's a great point. So right now, if you wanna work with Kim Kardashian or a really big creator, you'll probably find doing a one off deal, and it's probably worth the time. But if you wanna activate, like you said, across a number of micro, nano, mid sized creators, that's that's like hand to hand battle. Right?
Zoe:Like, you're you're doing the deal each time, doing the contract each time. It's very bespoke. So companies like Unilever, they they've sort of got creators in their repertoire that it might be a little bit easier for them. But generally, there is nothing that's gonna let you activate across those smaller creators at scale. So that's that's what we're trying to solve.
Zoe:It's not necessarily those big deals because if you're gonna spend millions and millions on a creator, it's probably fine to spend the time working out that deal. But if you if you wanna activate across, like you said, a thousand, that's when you sort of need the automation and, you know, build at once, deploy multiple times sort of frameworks.
Ant:And and, like, these big advertisers, they're spending billions and billions of dollars on advertising. Right? So that's why it becomes important for scale to unlock. Right?
Zoe:I think scale is important for for a number of reasons. This year, we're projected to hit $44,000,000,000 in in ad spend on Creator, and that's growing at twice the rate of the rest of digital media combined. So it's huge growth, and this is happening in spite of the the the infrastructure gaps that we have. And if you think about it, I mean, I'm very bullish on creators. I think they are the future of media.
Zoe:They are the future media companies, and what we'll be finding is is media sort of couching themselves within creator ecosystems and creator and entertainment ecosystems. And I think we're very aware that the younger generations are adverse. They're not watching linear TV. They're just not in the places that we normally find them. They're spending time in these creator ecosystems.
Zoe:And I think it's more than one one in every four minutes of video watched in America is creator content. So we're really leaving a lot of opportunity on the table if we don't work this out.
Ant:Okay. And so and maybe we sort of haven't mentioned it and probably should say a bit clearer, but there's, like, a measurement gap, right, in this than in effectiveness. But like you said, that projected to $44,000,000,000 ad spend in the space and is growing at a much higher rate than traditional ad spend, which you there is, like, agreed standards of measurement. So what's holding this back? Are brands just throwing money in hope?
Zoe:I call it the $44,000,000,000 gut feeling. So brands know it's working. It's it's less of a question of is it working? It's more of a question of, like, how much of my media spend do I give it? Can how how can I prove what I got back for this doll that I spent?
Zoe:So attention has shifted. Brands know they can buy attention in other channels. What they can't buy in other channels is belonging. So they're partnering with creators to sort of enter these communities with, like, a concierge or a guardian that's going to steer them in the right insider jokes, the right languages. They know their audience.
Zoe:They have a relationship. So they're sort of, by proxy, buying that relationship. And, yeah, it's it's obviously working, but they what they don't have is they they don't have a way to compare it to how other media performed. There's no way to do projections. They're sort of just dumping the media spend that they've allocated for it into there and and not optimizing.
Zoe:So what happens with traditional digital media is you you do a test budget or you you you put some in, then you optimize. Oh, this one's this is doing well. Let's turn this dial up. Let's turn that dial up down. You sort of you're optimizing.
Zoe:With Creator, they're just sort of doing these big bulk bets, which are paying off, but there there's no way for them to sort of be nuanced with that.
Fred:The the element of belonging is is very key. Right? And I think a lot of people miss that. Can you just go into that for a bit more and explain that from a branch point of view why that's so important?
Zoe:Yes. I think the best way to explain this is is with an example. So if you think to the Super Bowl, back in the, I think, the early two thousands, Budweiser had a really, you know, hit commercial campaign that was the was up. It was like it became a viral moment. Everyone kept on saying was that it became part of the cultural vernacular.
Zoe:It was just a slam dunk. And that, for a long time, became like, the golden unicorn that every brand was chasing. Like, how do we come up with a campaign that's going to make people talk about it for weeks after the event? We have this thirty second slot to, like, make something stick, and you pour a bunch of money on it and a bunch of hopes. And and hopefully, you have that outcome.
Zoe:Right? Fast forward to today, brands don't need to sort of hope that their ad campaign goes viral. They can already find those viral moments that creators are at the center of and attach their wagons to those moments. So Sarah V, I think it was this silver bowl. They started an absurd Internet conspiracy that Michael Serra was the inventor of Sarah V or owned Sarah V.
Zoe:And I think they partnered with 400 creators to make this go viral. And people talked about it, created reels about it. It was just out there. And then when the Super Bowl happened, the commercial, like, then wasn't the start of their campaign. It was sort of the payoff of all of this social media swell that was already happening.
Zoe:And so that not only got them it made that thirty second spot much more valuable. It got them, you know, way beyond that time exposure. And I think they got the they had the highest moisturizer sales in their whole history from that ad campaign. So both really successful. One, just, you know, using creators to be able to plan that versus hoping that they come up with a creative campaign.
Zoe:So that's sort of to go back to tie it back to your question, Farrah, it was around belonging. In the Sarah V example, they sort of found that belonging by by working through creators who have earned that in the day to day relationships that are maintained beyond beyond the campaign. Because, like, a campaign is a moment, but creators drive movements. So
Fred:So clearly, belonging is so important, but, you know, it's a valuable asset for a brand. You can definitely see that, and that's a great example you gave us there. But honestly, though, do you think brands actually like dealing with creators?
Zoe:So there I think there are two types of brands, and what we're seeing is the brands that think of creators that are shoehorning creator into traditional digital media probably don't because they're thinking of them as a reach play or another distribution tactic or channel. Like, here's my message. Just go. I I don't wanna hear about your creative objections. Just read it like this.
Zoe:Do know? I know my audience. Just trust me. Just do it. Which is, I think, the wrong wrong way to approach creators.
Zoe:Like, if you're reducing Creator to a Reach Play, then you've completely missed the opportunity. The brands that see Creators as long term ambassadors, as creative directors, as strategy partners, they have a much more enjoyable relationship, I would say, because they've cultivated it. You know, this worked last time. What can we do next time? So I think that's the differentiator that the brands that are winning are the ones that are seeing creators as partners and understand that they don't just bring reach.
Zoe:They bring community insights. They bring relationships. They bring trust. Yeah. And that is increasingly becoming scarce with, you know, so much choice.
Ant:Is that then the problem, though, that, I guess, IAB is trying to solve in in a way or one of the problems in that hand to hand relationship and and deep relationship and creative building with a creative partner and a brand is inherently hard, if not impossible, to get to a scale that some of the biggest advertisers are gonna need globally. And is it so is that, like, is that one of the big problems, though, to to for the creator economy to then unlock the extra budget that is sitting out there and getting deployed elsewhere probably to less effect that because creators have all these other extra attributes and value they can bring. But there's a lot of money sitting on the table elsewhere, but it can't come into the creator space until that scale and measurement is unlocked.
Zoe:Yes. I think it's a couple of things. So the education I would put this under an education sort of umbrella that brands need to be educated on how to think about creators, how to partner with them. And also creators aren't like CTV display social. They're a living, breathing human, so it's it's a little bit different.
Zoe:But when you're talking about the the money left on the table, it's like these ad budgets that unlock when you have the infrastructure. That's a that's a different but equally important question. Right? When you have the the measurement standards, you've got the transparent supply chain, you've got the third party verification in place, standard definitions, and then it becomes predictable, and I can compare how Creator performed to how my other channels performed. Because if you're if you're a brand marketer, you have a bunch of budget, and you need to be able to justify why you're spending x percent on this channel versus another channel.
Zoe:So if you can't get a report that compares apples to apples across those channels, then it becomes sort of almost goes into the well, it goes in the innovation bucket, right, which is where we're trying to emerging media is always trying to get out of, and they're trying to get out of the that innovation budget into the the media plan.
Ant:But we're not comparing apples to apples, are we? It's like apples to an exotic fruit at the moment.
Zoe:Yeah. Yes. That is the journey that we're on, and we are the goal is apple to apples to apples. Right? So what we want we don't wanna standardize Creator to take the creativity out because that's what makes it bespoke.
Zoe:What we wanna standardize is the infrastructure around it. Right? And We're making progress. So it it sort of started with measuring things that were easy to measure. Right?
Zoe:Likes, follows, views, engagement. But they're sort of they don't really tell the the story of business impact. Right? Did it move units? Did I get a new customer?
Zoe:Did I get a return visit? So what we're doing is we're looking at how do we how do we tie creators to business impact? And a couple of things that we're doing. So if you if you look at Retail Media Networks, they're probably the resource that's a little bit out further, and they're having some success in this space. They're using their first party data and data clean rooms to tie creator exposures to sales.
Zoe:So, like, Walmart will have sales data. They'll put it in they'll upload it to a clean room. The creator will upload what they've done, and they can sort of match without without violating privacy. So we're looking at how that's being done. Can we operationalize that?
Zoe:That becomes a really great proof point. And, obviously, social commerce is a huge huge base. And the other thing that we're doing is can we build a framework that helps, you know, equate creator metrics to other metrics in in the media landscape at the different points of the funnel.
Fred:I wanna talk about that reporting a little bit more on that return on investment because it is important, and that impact is is not just important to Brent, but creators as well. And this is an example. There are lots of different types of creators and lots of different type of content. You've got short form content, which is like a fleeting moment, which you'll see in a 100 video feed if you're flicking through them. You got the long form creators on YouTube who have a more long lasting impactful content with longer tail, it's obviously resurfaced lots and lots.
Fred:You got live creators. There is a general frustration at the moment where a creator isn't able to understand very clearly what return of return on investment a brand is looking for depending on the content they make. And that they're not I don't think brands are able to properly verbalize that as well. Can you tell us a bit more about how the ROI maybe should work?
Zoe:Yes. That's a really great great point. What we're seeing is that brands will have all of these upper funnel goals, like reach, engagement, all of those. And then when you look at what they're measuring, they're measuring last click attribution, sales, all of those sort of lower funnel metrics. And I think what's happening is that those are the easiest things that are available to them to measure that are concrete.
Zoe:And also, if I mean, if you think about it, creators do a bunch of work before the sale. Right? But they might not get credit for the sale. So they they prime the sale. I might see my favorite creator wearing a jacket that I really liked.
Zoe:I'll think about it for a while, then I might Google it, see what it's like. I might walk into a store and buy I'll buy it online. But how there's no connected data. So how are you gonna know that that that's the thing that made me go and buy? I think MeatEater is one of the ones that has solved it because they have that created date connected data.
Zoe:Right? They can look at influence to purchase. So it's possible that we just we're we're just not there yet.
Fred:Mhmm. I I have noticed recently quite a few brands talking to creators for campaigns saying that they'll only pay on conversions, direct conversions, because it's very easy to measure, which I know has irritated quite a few credits because there's a lot of knock on effects from actually having integration that's not purely conversion based. Do you have any feedback on that? Why that might be specifically happening? Is it because it's so easy to measure?
Zoe:Yes. I think there's a a lack of other metrics that they can rely on and tied to business outcomes. So they're sort of they're going, okay. What is available that I can that is concrete to me, and that's what that's what it is. And so yeah.
Zoe:I think it's I mean, if you look at TV, that's never like, linear TV, that's never been demanded of it. Gaming face faces similar challenges. I feel like any emerging channel, the bar is so much higher for people to justify their spend. So I definitely don't recommend that because, like I said, there's so much that goes into priming the sale that if you're just measuring the sale, that might not happen there. There's, you know, there's nothing that doesn't mean it's not valuable.
Zoe:Yeah. So I I I agree with with that approach.
Ant:We're almost like a victim of having access to the data. Right? Like, you know, like you said, TV doesn't have access to the Right. Distribution and sale. But online, all of a sudden, can.
Ant:And digital advertising, if someone clicks a banner and then buys something, you can be like, hell yeah. But if someone watches, like, their favorite creator and the creator uses their product and mentions it, and that forms part of their decision making, but they're they don't click and buy then, but, you know, ten days later, they might click and buy. That creator that has in the measurement has done nothing to for that sale if we're going direct to, like, a conversion ROI. So but so we're, like, almost a victim of being online and having the ability to get data and track people. Right?
Ant:So how does then how does IAB look at all of that and then start to build, like, standardizations then that people will agree to?
Zoe:Million dollar question. So a couple of things that we've done. One, I run a Creator board, which is comprised of a number of, like, industry leaders. So they're sort of like my advisory group who have deep expertise and influence. That that was the first thing.
Zoe:We're also in the middle of what we're calling the trusted creator brand deal initiative. So we're surveying broadly companies from across the ecosystem, brands, platforms, agencies, affiliate marketing, talent management companies, creator marketing agencies, and and asking them what what how does it work today? What are your biggest friction points? If you had a magic wand, what would you fix? And then we're gonna use that as a sort of a way to prioritize our road map.
Zoe:So we'll be launching that for public comment later this year, so everyone will get a chance to review it and tell us where we got wrong. And then the last the last thing is yeah. This is sort of what we do. We we bring together come if you wanna get really, like, specific, we we bring together companies into a room, and then we we talk about it. We're like, okay.
Zoe:What should the standard be? We don't wanna create something that's totally new because the whole point is to, you know, make it comparable to other media. So we're sort of start we're not starting from scratch. We're looking at what is Unique here? How does this apply to Creator?
Zoe:What what do we need to build? Yeah. So it's a it's a lot of collaboration and and bringing people together, the right people together.
Ant:How does a media company think?
Zoe:Their audience. So, like, an ongoing relationship. Who who are they? What do they wanna hear? How am I fitting into their lives?
Zoe:What are my other ways of reaching them? So it's not just it's not just the content, but it's like, how am I monetizing them? How are they returning to me? What are the other channels that I can get them through? Like, there's a newsletter that brings people back to the site.
Zoe:Is there a collab I can do? Like, what are the other tentacles of me engaging with the these audiences? And who are my partners? Oh, could I do something with, you know, this company? And there's a collab there.
Zoe:So then we sort of both get each other's audiences. So it's sort of a media company thinks about it sounds the word that comes to mind is farming their audiences, which sounds terrible because creators aren't trying to farm their audiences. But it's sort of like it's sort of like that. Right? It's like, how am I ever present in their life?
Zoe:What other ways can I, you know Yeah? Be what they buy, what they what they read, what they listen to. So
Ant:Yeah. I I think that's that's fair. Like, some of the terminology can sound icky, but creators are generating so much value. What Yes. I find a what a media company does, though, if they could generate that much value for an audience, they'd also be able to capture the value back.
Ant:I got one for you. It's a if we build all these standards that the brands agree to, who can agree on behalf of creators?
Zoe:So we are focusing mostly on the the business side because, you know, the creators have their industry. They sort of know what they're doing. And it's sort of us to build the shell and and professionalize the creator space so that it that it has a place in the marketing mix. The creators are represented through the talent management companies that we work with, the creative marketing agencies. Obviously, all the platforms sort of give their creators a voice.
Zoe:But if you what you'll find is there are so many organizations and and ways for creators to get better. What what we need to do is sort of rise to meet creators and create the infrastructure that they're going to be a part of.
Ant:What about like, I wanted because you covered creators and gaming, and, obviously, there's an overlap. Yep. But there was, like, some interesting sort of data that came like, that I think from a report you sent me from the IAB with gaming, like, 90% of Gen Z game. It's something they do. But it's getting, like, less than 5% of ad budget.
Ant:And that's a huge gap, but gaming is a insanely huge industry. What's going on?
Zoe:Yeah. We don't have an audience gap in gaming. We have a confidence gap. So we know there are a bunch of people playing games with 3,000,000,000 globally, over 200,000,000 in America. The average age is 37.
Zoe:So highly targetable market. I think there are a few challenges that that are starting to shift, but that that have kept ad spend down. Perception is one. So I think this is a dated stereotype, but it's still there that, you know, the 22 year old in a hoodie playing in their parents' basement. I think this is shifting because millennials grew up gaming.
Zoe:So I I think their perception of gamers isn't as as tainted as as maybe older generations. But that definitely has slowed at investment complexity. So when you say gaming, are you talking about esports? Are you talking about mobile games? Are you talking about console?
Zoe:Are you talking about you know, there's so many things that you could be talking about. So I think we also have a ways to go to simplify it for the for the market. And then similar things, you know, measurement, brand safety, all of that. That is has been a blocker as well. But what we're seeing is, one, I think because, like you said, 90% of Gen Z, I think it's 95% of Gen Alpha game, we're gonna have to, by necessity, work it out.
Zoe:And two, if you look at what's happening in the space, EA just announced, I think a couple months ago, a launch of their their ad product suite. So now you can dynamically place games in console, which is huge. The big the biggest signal to the the market is that infrastructure is coming. And then Xbox announced that you can play games on the that you own on the cloud without Game Pass if you watch an ad. So that's an ad supported model there on some really big names.
Ant:Yeah. It's it's interesting in that it's not a linear equation then that mass attention and engagement equals brand fund like, brand funds coming into the space. Right? It needs like, it almost, like, highlights the case for the standard like, you know, the standardization and the the infrastructure around that. Right?
Ant:Like
Zoe:And what's the ad model? Like, what's the business model? Is it like, rewarded ads do really well? So, yeah, so we can lean in because people there's a value exchange. It's not interrupting my experience.
Zoe:There's a call to action so I can really measure something. Like, did someone watch? Did they complete this watch? Yeah. So those things work work really well.
Zoe:Mobile has a huge amount of the ad investment right now. And console, like I said, the infrastructure is coming.
Ant:Nice. And then so tell us about Playfronts. What's that? And now you're doing Creator Fronts.
Zoe:Yes. So Playfronts is the is gaming answers gaming's answer to the digital new fronts, which is streaming video's answers to the TV up fronts. Are you familiar with the TV up fronts?
Ant:I am. But, like, you know, let's let's unpack it if you yeah. Like, I think that's an interesting angle to to explore.
Zoe:Yeah. So the TV up fronts, this is when linear TV networks would get up and say, here's this all the shows that we have coming up this season, and advertisers would be in the audience, and they would buy against the different shows. Like, we have this show coming up. We reached this audience. This is why you should advertise with us.
Zoe:And it was sort of like it's like a marketplace. So that where there where advertisers are spending their media budgets on different television shows. When Hulu, Netflix, all these streaming properties came about, we launched the New Fronts, which is sort of streaming video's answer to that. So you would get up and see the streaming options. I launched PlayFronts for gaming, I think it's five years ago now, in 2022, which is a marketplace for gaming.
Zoe:There are a few reasons for that. One is to sort of, you know, signal to the market that this is a channel that deserves a seat at the table. Two, it sort of brings buyers and sellers and and intermediaries into the same room. So it gives you a moment where you see the head of gaming for Publicis or WPP in the room, and you see the big players and talk they're giving you the exclusive of what's launching. So it creates creates a moment.
Zoe:And what we found is that also drives infrastructure because people are talking about it. There's there's excitement. There's momentum. And people want an announcement for the next year. So they're they're building to to to give an announcement.
Zoe:So we're launching Creator Fronts in mid September this year, and that's also to create that marketplace moment for creators. Creators have a lot of momentum. What we need now is the marketplace.
Ant:Yeah. So, like, what does that look like? A bunch of creators with their like, showcasing their new content? Is that kind of is that the idea?
Zoe:Great question. It's not really individual creators up there. It's more like Meta or TikTok getting up there and saying, here are the creators you can work with if you work with us. Or a creator led media company would would be another good example of getting up there and saying, here's how you work with us. It's less creators of going back to the question about, you know, is I be working with creators?
Zoe:There are, like, I think 200,000,000 is it 200,000,000 paid creators? That that paid creators in in The US. So it's just impossible to sort of have that. So we're we're sort of having, like, you know, the platforms and the intermediaries on the stage. And they'll be presenting, like, here's how you can partner with us as brands.
Zoe:We'll also have branded research on the stage. Yeah. Sort of like a here's all the ways you can win with Creators.
Ant:Yeah. He he here's Creators as a as a class, as a category, almost, as a media buy. Like, get excited. Come spend your money here, and this is why. On a smaller scale, I know Spot has been doing it for a couple of years.
Ant:They've been doing essentially upfronts for, like, with Colin and Samir and a few other of their creators they've invested and they have catalog. I think and YouTube did one recently.
Zoe:YouTube and there's, like, Amazon and is it Forbes? Amazon Walmart and Forbes did one? They've done a couple so the the different differentiator here is this is the first industry stage that we'll do. So if you go to the Forbes upfront, you will be seeing the Walmart suite of creators. And you'll you'll get the different creators, but that's all Walmart.
Zoe:Same with YouTube, you get all the different YouTube creators. With us, we'll have a mix of, you know, everyone that's available across the industry. Well, not everyone because we have a limited number of spots, but it's it's an industry neutral stage.
Ant:It's the entire creator class, essentially, and is is the and the industry broader. Yeah. Super interesting. Like, what do you hope comes out of that? Like, what you know, speaking of measurements and objectives and goals and what, like, what what's the best outcome?
Zoe:I think there are a few things. One, Creator is thought of more like media versus, you know, stuck in the the innovation bucket or a lot of the times creators with the PR team because that's sort of where it was born out of. So one, perception of Creator as a grown up media channel. Two, impetus to drive the industry forward. So more people leaning into industry initiatives, more pressure around us coming together as an industry to work out these infrastructure challenges.
Zoe:And then third, I hope deals come out of it. Really, that's the the main thing. And we saw that with Playfronts that it wasn't just what we don't want we don't need is another conference. What we need is a marketplace. Right?
Zoe:So where brands are talking to people who are selling these capabilities, and it's not this anonymous faceless problem to solve. You can have a low pressure conversation in a space that you can then follow-up with a meeting or try something with if you have a good feeling. But it's not just this this wall of how do I get into this. So, yeah, demystifies it, has this movement happening, there's some deals made is the ultimate.
Ant:Love it. Yeah. I I it's more important for creators than people realize, I think, is is, you know, this of of the work that you're doing. So if they like, you know, if if you end up with a a great set of standards and they land, like, what does that do to brand to create a budget?
Zoe:I mean, if you think about about it, like, $44,000,000,000 of brand spend is going in there when they don't have verification, they don't have the standards. So just imagine the floodgates that open when they do. I think it does a couple of things. One, it lets budget scale across those, you know, a lot more creators. So you see the, you know, the the mids and smaller ones being able to activate more easily.
Zoe:I think it competes to the next dollar next to the rest of media. It's it's getting compared across other media channels. It's not just in its own lane. And yeah. Then I think we start seeing brands get better at treating creator as to creators as part of their their media channel.
Zoe:And we're already starting to see this shift to creator first marketing, where creators aren't just the tack on at the end. They're sort of brought in much earlier and and you're almost designing your campaigns around around these channels versus using them as a reach play, which is sort of denigrating it to, you know, the the confines of of old old digital media.
Ant:Love it. What's the pitch to a creator to wanna get behind standardization? Like, what the work that IAV is doing in this? Like, what will look different for them?
Zoe:That's a great question because I I feel like it will make brands be able to buy them without making the case every time. So it automates it. You're not going through the negotiation, like, every single thing. It will give them another revenue stream. So it's great for if you're Justin Bieber or Kim Kardashian or Jude Bellingham or any of these other major creators or even even the ones that are that are not celebrity that are just really big creators, though that distinction doesn't really matter anymore.
Zoe:It's fine because you can say, this is my rate. This is how I work. You're in or out. There's so many brands that know about them and wanna participate. If you're a a mid sized creator it's looking for that that $5,000 deal or that $2,000 deal.
Zoe:This is what's gonna make it easier for you to get those. So that that would be my pitch. It's it's not you're not how are you gonna get Unilever to do 502,000 colunteals? It's probably not gonna happen. So to get those big brand budgets, that's that's what standards is gonna open the door for.
Ant:I love that. You struck it perfectly. I see it in my head. So much time and energy is spent for creators convincing the brand that, like, they are right. So a brand will reach out, but then they still have to convince them.
Ant:Like, here is why you should still invest in me. This is what I'm gonna bring to the table. This is the value. This is my audience. These are the metrics.
Ant:This is the engagement rates I'm selling. So you've still gotta sell it. Yeah. That's that's that's really cool. So, Zoe, if you're a creator, you rely on brand deals, finding you, like, air quotes, bible.
Ant:What's something you can be doing right now to make you harder to replace or make you really attractive?
Zoe:The first thing I would do is stop thinking like a like content, like inventory, and start thinking like a media company. Right? Because reach is cheap. If you are just focused on how many people brands can reach, someone will always undercut you and you'll be someone else that can replace you. So think like a media company.
Zoe:And then I'd focus probably on on three things. Proof. So knowing your audience and being able to say what you influenced. Like, do they search? Do they repost?
Zoe:Do they go and buy something? So being able to show that you drove an influence. Ownership. So, you know, followers are rented, but create something that's yours. Newsletter, IP, tagline, like, content that's, like, unmistakably yours.
Zoe:And then probably the last thing is, like, differentiate yourself in a way. Like, how are you you? I think we need to really remember that this media is working so well because of the connection. I won't say I won't say the a word because it's overused. Authentic?
Zoe:Yeah.
Ant:What?
Zoe:But, yeah, that lean into that. Like, it's it's about being having that connection. And that's what the brand is trying to get next to. Right? That that that trust, that thing that you've developed relationship over relationship day after day that they're sort of that they wanna be next to.
Zoe:So
Ant:Alright. Where is this all heading?
Zoe:I think what we're seeing is the definition of media change. Right? Creators are the new media companies. Although even bigger than media, the media and entertainment. If you look at Beast, he's sort of got his consumer products line.
Zoe:He's got a TV show. So the whole model is sort of flipping on its head. If you look at, you know, the in the twentieth century, we had mass media, and mass media created mass culture. And there were, like, a handful of, you know, people that controlled what everyone got to see. And brands, you know, sort of bought their way in in front of us.
Zoe:The Internet sort of democratized that, and then it became about communities and and creators and relationships. So we're gonna be moving from marketing to audiences where I'm 18 to 34 year old males, where are my moms, where are my household spenders. We're gonna stop trying to find audiences around channels. And we're gonna be looking at communities and how do we become a trusted voice within those communities. And increasingly, creators are sort of the doorway for for brands.
Zoe:And then if you look at AI, which is upending everything, that's, I think, only gonna elevate creators more. Because when content becomes abundant, then you're gonna need your trusted voices to tell you, what do I read? What do I watch? You know, sort of that that human element becomes more important. It's letting creators sort of have more of an equal footing against big organizations that have these big teams.
Zoe:Now you can sort of automate a lot of it. You don't need a different person or to be a jack of all trades to do so much. And then you're also seeing it affect the buying process. So recently, PubMatic launched a new agentic marketplace. And I think what it does it's not about buying creators.
Zoe:It's creator led CTV content can be bought programmatically, which is a huge signal to the market that, yeah, a creator can be bought like other media. So but in short, I think that AI is only gonna further turbocharge where we're going, which is Creators is the future of media.
Ant:That is a epic place to leave it. Zoe Sain, thanks for joining us. This is the future of media is in the hands of creators. We already knew it, but it's good to hear it validated once more.
Zoe:Great. Thanks for having me.
Fred:Created generation. Look on the mic.