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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
#707: Building ROI in the Creator Economy with Brit Starr, CreatorIQ
00:26:52
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- [00:01]
Unknown Speaker
The Agile Brand.
- [00:10]
Greg Kilstrom
Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and martech platforms as we explore marketing, technology, AI, e commerce, and whatever's next for the omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information, go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest episodes, please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. And now onto the show.
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Unknown Speaker
Agility in marketing today isn't just about being fast. It's about building partnerships that last. So here's a question. Are you still running influencer campaigns or are you actually building a creator led brand?
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Greg Kilstrom
Today we're going to talk about the.
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Unknown Speaker
Creator economy and how brands like PepsiCo, Unilever and more are leaning into long term creator partnerships to drive relevance, resonance and ultimately roi.
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Greg Kilstrom
To help me discuss this topic, I'd.
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Unknown Speaker
Like to welcome Britt Starr, CMO of Creator iq. Brit, welcome to the show.
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Britt Starr
Hi Greg. Thanks for having me.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. Before we dive in though, why don't we start with you giving a little background on yourself and your role @Creator IQ?
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Britt Starr
Sure. Well, as you said, I'm the Chief Marketing officer@Creator IQ. I think the favorite part of my job and really what drew me to this space in the first place is as a marketer, I get to have conversations and help marketers learn all day, every day about how marketing is transforming through creators. I think we've all kind of experienced the power of word of mouth in everything, right. Whether you're a marketer or not. Right. We trust people, people trust people. And really what the creator economy and creator marketing has unlocked is this opportunity to scale word of mouth, conversations and connections. And so as a marketer, it is so thrilling to me to sit across the table from other marketers and really teach them about how to build brand and business and trust. Right. Consumer connection through people and the power of people.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I love it.
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Well, yeah, let's dive in here and we're going to talk about a few things But I want to start with this. You know, I kind of made the distinction between influencer and creator led. And, you know, let's. So let's talk a little bit more about that. The strategic shift towards creators. So companies like Unilever plans to invest 50% of its marketing budget in creator partnerships. PepsiCo's acquisition of Poppy is another signal that brands see creators as key to their growth strategy. What do these moves tell us about how brand marketing is evolving?
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Britt Starr
I think it's really interesting, your point, like creator versus influencer. I think there's a lot of misconception around specifically influencer marketing and everyone, I think five years ago, 10 years ago, maybe even today, you'd get into a conversation and the second you say something like influencer, you know, everyone is picturing like, Kim Kardashian. And I think the, the beauty of the space is that it's so, so much more than that. Right. And so the evolution, I think, of, like, influencers, creators, it's all kind of one and the same. But creators as a community, as individuals can do so many things for brands and business. They can actually create. Right. They can be creative partners helping to supply the exponential content demands brands have today. They can be very influential. Right. In driving influence, purchase decisions, connection with brands. They can, they can be flywheels for consumer insights. Right. How can you learn about your consumers? The conversation that happens behind closed doors, which I would argue is like, actually what brand means today is like what people say about you when you're not in the room. And so I think this, again, the shift from influencer to creator shows that diversification of creators as brand and business partners, yes, some drive influence, but there are so many other ways to tap into what creators do to help you solve business problems and drive business impact and results.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, given that, how do the traditional brand marketers out there, what do they need to be thinking about differently? What's the playbook to remain relevant in this world where creators are driving a lot of the change here?
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Britt Starr
Yeah, I mean, I think the first, and you mentioned this earlier, the first is just acknowledgement. Right. You have to understand the world you're living in today. And it is a world that is driven largely beyond the control and bounds of the brands themselves. Like, I like to take a controversial approach, especially when I'm talking to brand marketers, which is my background, but I don't think brands own brands anymore. I think people own brands. And so the way that the world works is just like baseline. You have to acknowledge that I think the second is you have to acknowledge that that translates into true value creation and realization. You mentioned the poppy acquisition by PepsiCo earlier. You $1.95 billion exit. We just saw this week elf cosmetics purchase Rhode Skincare for a billion dollars. So real value creation, real value realization at a rapid rate. And so I think understanding again that this isn't just a channel, this isn't just a campaign, this is a true investment in community building, in the relationships that drive connection between brands and consumers and at scale. And I think that scale piece is super important, right? We look at our customers and there are some that are working with, you know, hundreds of creators, but there are some that are working with hundreds of thousands of creators on a global level. And so when you think about that, like think about the power of those conversations, that content, those connections. So I think that's it. The other thing I think brands have to realize is that those conversations happen whether you engage with them or not. One of my favorite things to do is walk into a room and ask brands who they think their kind of top creators are and then show them the data that tells otherwise. Right. Like these conversations are happening about brands and products, especially in passion categories, all day, every day, right. Like we used to, you know, stand up on stage and give a 20 minute keynote and say like, in the time I'm up here on the stage or in the time we're chatting on this podcast, there will be 17.4 million hours of video consumed on YouTube alone. That's like watching Titanic 5.4 million times.
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Unknown Speaker
Wow.
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Yeah, right?
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Britt Starr
That's like, it's massive. So anyway, that's a long winded answer to like acknowledge the space, acknowledge the true power and scale that you can operate at. But then I think the real shift to, to your question from traditional marketing and what traditional approaches to influencer marketing has been versus how we are seeing it again, truly operationalized, is that it's really shifting to a central role within the marketing strategy as a whole. So it is not one piece, it is really fueling the entire marketing engine from again, content creation, using creator content in paid ads, in owned and operated, leveraging the consumer insights that you can learn from creators. Like again, every single way creators can help you solve problems, tap into them, and then you can do more with less. Which marketers are being asked to do right now more than ever.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I want to get to the scalability topic in a second, but I wanted to come back to the, you know, you mentioned. First thing to do is, is Acknowledge it. I wonder, you know, we, we've mentioned some very, you know, PepsiCo, Unilever, some very, you know, some of the world's biggest brands. Do you feel like most brands get it yet or is this, you know, are these a few like leaders? And there's a lot of, there's a lot of brands that need to kind of get it still.
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Britt Starr
I think it's both. I think that everyone knows and I'm using air quotes if this, that they need to be in this space, that they need to participate in this space in some way, shape or form. I mean there is a reason that investment is growing as quickly as it is. I think we've seen, you know, 143 +% investment increase over the last four years with industry leaders spending over 50% of their total marketing budgets on creators. So that is massive. Right. Especially for some of these bigger companies. What I think hasn't happened all the way yet is again that, that true operationalization. So if you look at beauty, which is a real leader in the space at large, they've been in this game for a long time. I'd put fashion there as well. They really understand what it looks like to put creators at the center. That's some of these really creator led brands are growing and scaling at such a rapid pace is because they understand that it should lead your strategy. I think we're still catching up. Like we see enterprise brands, the biggest brands in the world and Unilever is a good example, obviously put a huge stake in the ground in terms of investment. But what does that investment mean? It's not just putting more money into these creators as media channels. Right. It's again investing in multimillion dollar, multi year trans of what their marketing looks like. Right? This operationalization. So that's where I think we are right now. It's like the year of professionalization, to borrow a term from a good friend of mine, jasmine envirg from eMarketer. But yeah, the year of professionalization. We're all growing up. We're truly maturing as an industry and really unlocking the value that creators can bring.
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Unknown Speaker
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And so to come back to scalability, but I think this a good, good segue there anyway is, you know, you mentioned some brands are working with, you know, hundreds of, maybe thousands even of creators. How does this work? You know, like, how does this work from not only just, you know, the operational aspect of it, but also just proving ROI across. You know, it's one thing if you have, you know, one spokesperson and you know, either it works or it doesn't. But, you know, when we're talking about thousands of points, you know, how do you prove ROI and how do you manage it? Big question there, I realize, but yeah.
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Britt Starr
I think it's the big question, right? When you're like spending at these levels, you have to answer those questions in a way. Again, if you're spending at lower levels, maybe it's fine if there's a question mark behind the like, yes, it's driving impact. I think the couple things there is. One, the use cases, like this business is quite, quite complex, but the use cases haven't changed dramatically over the last decade. That influencer marketing, creator marketing has really, you know, come to play. It's discovering the right creators for your brand. Who is safe and suitable, right? Who makes a good partner? How is their content connecting with the audiences that you want to connect with? How is it resonating? So finding the right people. The second is managing them right, understanding that not all creators drive the same outcomes. What outcomes are you trying to drive and how can you organize your creator community to help you achieve those outcomes? And then the third is exactly what you're saying, measurement. How do you measure the efficacy of, of that effort, of that activity? And I think what we've seen is that measurement in our space has gotten incredibly sophisticated. We still have a long way to go, but it's gotten really sophisticated where, you know, brands that we work with, companies that we work with are ingesting this data into their MMMs and looking at the connection between, you know, super top of funnel into desirability metrics like site traffic, unbranded search, like you name it, and then all the way into to purchase. So I think at its simplest form, again, it's understanding the outcomes you're trying to drive and then measuring your ability to achieve those or drive incremental value or lift with creators versus traditional content. Or channels.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's.
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So that's. I was thinking, I was wondering about the incrementality because that's where my head usually goes with this stuff. And I was wondering if that was even a possibility with. I mean obviously you can do it with media and stuff like that, but with, with creators. Is that maybe talk a little bit more about like how exactly does that work?
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Britt Starr
Yeah, absolutely. So I think first and foremost, you know, we say a lot creator content works better. When we say that, what we mean is when you use creator content, say in your paid media, it is content that is one somewhat pre validated, right? Because a lot of that content starts organic in nature and you can see the momentum, you can see the reception from consumers. So you put that and you put money behind it and it excels, right? It overachieves. It's also significantly more efficient to produce at scale, especially when you're looking at kind of global programs that need to operate and activate locally. Right? That's expensive. Traditional production of that kind of content is very expensive. So we see some of our customers creating content at that scale and actually a B testing, right. How efficacious is my creator content versus my traditionally produced content? And a lot of times we see again, creator content works better. Even if it works neck and neck, it's so much more efficient to produce that. The ROI on those programs, those campaigns are like 10 11x. So that's one way I think you can also boil it down campaign level, right? You understand again what you're trying to get out. You have apples to apples measurement from kind of what you would achieve or forecast for say a traditional campaign and then measure the difference of that. I think that is like kind of where we are right now as an industry is proving it out, like taking your shots, right? It's like prove it out every, every single time you got to get those reps in and then build the playbook as you go.
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Unknown Speaker
So we're talking about lots of creators potentially across, you know, multi channel, you know, whether it's TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, you know, all, all of the things. What about consistency and you know, brand, you know, the, for the more traditional brand people, you know, I agree with your sentiment as far as I don't think that brands own as much of the brand as they used to or thought they ever did really. And it's more in the hands of the, the consumers. But for those that need the consistency and want the consistency, like how do you balance that with, you know, you're giving you're giving away a little bit to those creators. But how do you still maintain control?
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Britt Starr
I can't take credit for this because a good friend of mine who's like one of the smartest brand strategists I've ever met, her name's Vivian Walsh, she was at a brand at Meta, she was at Uber Visa before that. She says that the best brands are like the best humans. You know, they know who they are, they're vulnerable and they surround themselves with the best people. And I think that is how you maintain control today is you have to know who you are as a brand to operate in this space. If you don't know who you are, people can't relate to you or help translate your story and it won't feel comfortable. Right. You won't have the confidence to let other people adapt and make your story a part of their own. Which is really why this space is so effective. It's that translation layer that makes your story as a brand resonate with very diverse communities of people. It's how you reach new communities. So I think it's really about that. It's being confident in who you are. I think it's also really, again, acknowledging that creators are business owners and so treating them and briefing them like you would a business partner is super helpful. What's the context? What are you trying to achieve? What's the problem you're trying to solve? Don't give them a script, give them information, give them context and let them help you solve the problem. And I think that is where we see really efficacious content and also long term relationships is when you are working with a creator or creators, as we've talked about, at scale, but really working like, what are we trying to achieve together? How can I help you? How can you help me? How can we build mutual benefit over the long term? And that really has a halo effect that impacts not just the campaigns and interactions between the brand and creator in the context of that activation or effort, but beyond. Right. Like again, it's human behavior. They're going to talk about that. Other people are going to sense that. They're going to talk. That's the halo effect that I think is the true value. And also coming back to incrementality, you don't get that creator campaigns don't start and stop. They shouldn't in the confines of a campaign itself. They're relationships that go above, beyond, side by side. Right. They, they go beyond that. So that halo effect I think is really the true unlock.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I mean I think because the, the danger there is that, you know, if you have thousands of very short term creator campaign, it feels, it feels not only transactional to the creators themselves, but like to the, to the consumers, you know, generally pretty savvy about this stuff and growing I believe, more savvy by the day. So it seems like they're going to feel the transactional nature of that one off thing versus what you're saying, which is building a longer term find the right creators, of course, but focus on longer term relationships so that everybody kind of gets to know everybody. Right? Is that kind of the strategy?
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Britt Starr
I think that's exactly right. I mean it's how we look at our own businesses. Right. Retention is the single most important factor for growth. Creator communities, creator relationships operate the same. So we allow our, our customers can measure their creator retention over time periods. How many creators are continuing to create content about you? How is that value translating over time? And what we see is that the brands who are really good at retaining those relationships, right? At, at driving long term sustained conversation with the same creators and they're the ones that are growing exponentially, right? They're just outpacing their peers because they don't have to constantly fill a leaky bucket, right?
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And I just to ask you like, what is Creator IQ's role in, in this kind of, you know, creator relationship?
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Britt Starr
Yeah, it's a really good question. So we are technology, software and data. We facilitate everything that brands and agencies want to do with creators without intervening in the relationships themselves. So our software helps our customers discover the right creators for them, manage those creators effectively throughout their many multitudes of activations, campaigns, efforts, leverage the content that they're creating to drive the outcomes that they're trying to achieve, and then ultimately measure the impact of all of those programs. We also have deep data, 10 years of data that we've been learning on. And so we can really help to strategically guide our customers with that data. Where do they sit in their competitive landscape? What are the opportunities for them as a brand behaviorally? Right. Do you have more creators than your competitors talking about you? Do they talk about you more or less frequently? What's the makeup of your community? Do you need to invest in micro creators to broaden your base? So all of these levers for growth are really easily identified in the data. So we can bring that forward for our customers so that they can then put them into practice in the way they operate the campaigns, in the way they operate their programs, and ultimately in the way they build their business around these massive programs.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
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So I mean, then, is that, is that kind of the way you're recommending people think about it is in terms of community. It's not just like, I'm going to hire Greg to do this thing, you know, I know we kind of talked about this already, but it's this idea of like you're not just building a few relationships, you're building a community.
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Britt Starr
Absolutely, 100%. There's no other way to do it.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Love it. Love it.
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Well, Britt, thanks so much for joining today. One last question before we wrap up here. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
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Britt Starr
Such a good question. I am really lucky to be one in an industry that is nascent and growing. And I think that breeds a lot of generosity. And so I stay flexible by learning from the people around me, by being curious, by having conversations, by investigating the data and really, again, leading with questions versus answers. And I find that that approach keeps me learning every single day. It's what excites me about my job. It's what excites me about this space. So I'd say staying open and connected and curious and learning from those around me and the data that I have access to.
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Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Love it.
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Well, again, I'd like to thank Britt, Star CMO of Creator IQ for joining the show. You can learn more about Brit and Creator IQ by following the links in the show notes.
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Greg Kilstrom
Thanks again for listening to the Agile brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the show@theagilebrand.com that's the agile brand. And contact me if you're interested in consulting or advisory services or are looking for a speaker for your next event, go to www.gregkilstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.
- [24:11]
Unknown Speaker
Before we continue, I wanted to share a key strategic resource that a majority of the Fortune 500 are already aware of. Finding the best technology, business and talent solutions is not easy. With business demands and competitive pressures mounting, you need to be able to design, deploy and optimize your technology. To provide leading customer experiences while driving business growth. Those of you that have been listening to this show for a while know that this podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, a global provider of technology, business and talent solutions for more than 80% of the Fortune 500. Tech Systems accelerates business transformation for their customers. Whether you're looking to maximize your technology ROI, drive business growth, or elevate customer experiences, TechSystems enables enterprises to capitalize on change. Learn more at techsystems.com that's T E K systems.com now let's get back to the show.