How 'Love Is Blind' stars Lauren and Cameron turned reality TV fame into lasting careers

Summary

The Digiday Podcast: How 'Love Is Blind' Stars Lauren and Cameron Turned Reality TV Fame into Lasting Careers

Introduction

In the November 26, 2024 episode of The Digiday Podcast, hosts Tim Peterson and Kameko McCoy delve into significant industry shifts and spotlight the inspiring journey of Lauren and Cameron Speed Hamilton from reality TV stars to successful content creators. This comprehensive summary captures the essence of their discussions, insights, and key takeaways from the episode.

Current Events: "Breakup Week" in Tech and Media

The episode begins with Peterson and McCoy addressing what they term "breakup week," highlighting notable separations and strategic shifts within major companies:

1. Google and the Chrome Browser:

   • Tim Peterson (04:54): Discusses the Justice Department's antitrust ruling pushing Google to divest its Chrome browser. He remarks, “The Justice Department really went for it with this.”
   • McCoy (05:14): Highlights the potential impact on competitors like OpenAI entering the browser market, stating, “Now you've opened the door to competitors, including OpenAI.”

2. Comcast's Cable Network Sell-Off:

   • Peterson (07:21): Explains Comcast's decision to retain only one cable TV network, Bravo, citing declining traditional TV revenues and audience engagement. He contrasts this with past actions by Warner Brothers, Discovery, Paramount, and Disney in similar veins.
   • McCoy (08:34): Draws a parallel to traditional newspaper spin-offs, suggesting potential private equity involvement.

3. The Trade Desk's Connected TV Platform:

   • Peterson (11:39): Introduces The Trade Desk's venture into launching a connected TV platform, pondering its impact and feasibility amidst existing streaming services and potential competition from giants like Google.

Controversy: Jaguar's Inclusive Advertisement

The discussion shifts to advertising challenges, particularly focusing on Jaguar’s recent ad:

• McCoy (16:20): Describes Jaguar's ad featuring people in brightly colored outfits without showing the car, sparking backlash from both ad purists and critics advocating for diversity.
• Peterson (18:13): Observes the heightened public engagement with advertisements, noting, “It's wild every time there are these supposed controversies about ads... people are actually paying attention to ads this much.”
• The hosts debate the precarious balance brands must maintain between creativity and audience sensibilities, emphasizing the fine line between inclusivity and alienation.

Sponsor Segment: Bliss and Smart Holdout Groups

The podcast seamlessly transitions to a sponsored segment featuring Amy Fox, Chief Product Officer at Bliss:

• Fox (00:00-25:40): Explains Bliss's innovative approach to omnichannel measurement through smart holdout groups. She emphasizes the importance of creating balanced control groups based on factors like income to ensure accurate measurement of advertising effectiveness without bias.
  • Notable Quote: “We want to make sure that the income... of our control group is similar to the average income of our exposed group...” (00:00).

Fox further outlines methodologies for implementing this strategy, such as geographic AB splits and leveraging comprehensive data to enhance measurement accuracy.

Main Interview: Lauren and Cameron Speed Hamilton's Journey

Lauren and Cameron Speed Hamilton join the podcast to share their transition from reality TV fame to building a sustainable content creation business:

1. Discovering Content Creation:

   • Cameron (27:05-28:13): Highlights the unexpected difficulty and skill involved in content creation, stating, “People think that it's so easy to just pick up your phone and record... it is truly a skill.”
   • Lauren (28:13-29:25): Reflects on her initial skepticism towards social media, later recognizing the meaningful impact of her content on audiences.

2. Building Their Platform:

   • McCoy (30:45-33:23): Asks about their current platforms, including their podcast "The Love Seat," which focuses on relationships, love, and mental health.
   • Lauren (33:23-34:19): Discusses the importance of capitalizing on their viral moment by rapidly expanding content through YouTube and other social media channels immediately after the show's release in March 2020.
   • Cameron (34:19-36:35): Emphasizes authenticity and the direct connection with their audience, aiming to provide valuable and uplifting content.

3. Monetization Strategies:

   • Cameron (42:58-44:16): Explains reliance on brand partnerships and the strategic choice to align with brands that resonate with their values. He notes the preference for fewer, larger sponsors over numerous small ones to maintain clear messaging.
   • Lauren (43:38-44:16): Mentions exploring additional revenue streams like merchandising and subscription services to ensure financial sustainability.

4. Navigating Contracts and Legalities:

   • Lauren (49:05-52:38): Shares experiences with restrictive contracts from their reality show and the necessity of having legal support to protect their likeness and creative ownership, especially in the age of AI replication.
   • Cameron (52:38-52:53): Stresses the importance of clear contractual terms regarding exclusivity, ownership, and usage rights to safeguard their brand and creative output.

5. Balancing Authenticity and Brand Safety:

   • Cameron (53:19-54:18): Advocates for using their platform for meaningful causes, like encouraging voting, while maintaining personal integrity over financial gains.
   • Lauren (54:21-60:58): Balances political neutrality with advocacy on crucial social issues, emphasizing the need to resonate with a diverse audience without compromising their values. She discusses challenges with platform policies, such as YouTube demonetizing their content on sexual wellness despite its educational value.

6. Sustainability and Future Plans:

   • Lauren (61:00-66:53): Outlines strategies for long-term sustainability, including creating evergreen content, diversifying revenue streams, and building a strong community through live events and merchandise.
   • Cameron (66:53-68:19): Highlights the importance of expanding beyond social media into areas like live performances and community engagement to ensure ongoing relevance and income stability.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Lauren and Cameron conclude by reiterating the necessity of diversification, authenticity, and strategic planning in building a lasting career beyond their initial reality TV fame. They emphasize the importance of aligning brand partnerships with personal values, maintaining creative control, and continuously engaging with their audience through various platforms and content forms.

Final Thoughts

The episode offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of digital content creation, the importance of strategic brand management, and the challenges of maintaining authenticity while ensuring financial sustainability. Lauren and Cameron's journey serves as a compelling case study for aspiring content creators navigating the complexities of the digital age.

Notable Quotes

• Cameron Speed Hamilton (27:05): “People think that it's so easy to just pick up your phone and record... it is truly a skill.”
• Lauren Speed Hamilton (33:23): “Creating evergreen content, content that's not tied to current events, something that people can come back to.”
• Cameron Speed Hamilton (53:19): “All of this means nothing if you lose yourself in the process.”

Timestamp Highlights

• 00:00: Introduction to the episode's sponsor and measurement discussion.
• 04:54: Discussion on Google's potential breakup and Chrome browser sale.
• 16:20: Analysis of Jaguar's controversial ad and inclusivity debate.
• 27:05 - 69:18: In-depth interview with Lauren and Cameron Speed Hamilton covering their transition, strategies, and future plans.

This episode of The Digiday Podcast not only sheds light on significant industry changes but also provides an inspiring narrative of leveraging initial fame into a multifaceted and sustainable career in the digital media landscape.

Transcript

[Amy Fox]

We want to make sure that the income, or the average income of our control group is similar to the average income of our exposed group, where we're going to do our measurement to make sure that when we do our measurement for our Mercedes car, we're not predisposing A to perform better than B. They're neutral and they're distinct. They're similar in terms of their audience makeup.

[Christina Ko]

That's Amy Fox, chief product officer at Bliss, our sponsor on this episode of the Digiday Podcast. Later in the show, custom talks with Amy about how smart holdout groups present advertisers with a new omnichannel measurement method that addresses current challenges in the space.

[Tim Peterson]

Hello, and welcome to the Digiday Podcast. My name is Tim Peterson. I'm the executive editor of video and audio.

[Kameko McCoy]

And I'm Kameko McCoy, senior marketing reporter here at Digiday.

[Tim Peterson]

How's it going, Kimiko?

[Kameko McCoy]

You know, we've made it through another week, and that's all that matters. How are you?

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, same. I've been. I've found myself, like, really lowering my standards on what I watch at night right now. Like, it's basically like any Netflix Christmas movie or any Christmas movie on Netflix that seems not atrocious. I'll at least give a try. But I feel like we really started scraping the bottle of the barrel last night.

[Kameko McCoy]

This is fair. Within that rotation, has Love is Blind found its way in there?

[Tim Peterson]

I'm aware of Love is Blind. I've never watched Love is Blind.

[Kameko McCoy]

Oh, sometimes it's good to BINGE those things 100% get, you know, cram it all in. Um, but I only asked that because that's who our guests are gonna be this week from season one. We've got Lauren and Cameron Speed Hamilton, who will join us on the podcast. So was wondering if you had seen any of those episodes.

[Tim Peterson]

No, I. Yeah, I am a noob when it comes to all this. So what are they up to? You said they were on season one. What have they been up to since then?

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, they have been. And this is kind of the topic that the focus of the conversation is, like, back in season one, Love is Blind is brand new. They've got this massive viral moment, you know, taking over the Internet, and then, not to mention it was pandemic lockdown. We're all glued to our TV screens. Right. But kind of how they've managed to capitalize on that moment and really move it forward to kind of build out their own, you know, business. They've got a new podcast that they've launched some monetization opportunities. So we talked about that with them.

[Tim Peterson]

Okay. And so they got together on the show and they've stayed together since then.

[Kameko McCoy]

Oh, my gosh.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yes.

[Kameko McCoy]

You didn't know that? Okay, so in season one, Lauren and Cameron were a fan favorite couple. I think specifically there was one episode where Cameron raps for Lauren's dad. And that kind of sealed, in my opinion, sealed the deal.

[Tim Peterson]

Oh, sealed the deal. As opposed to was a complete deal breaker, which was what I would have expected you to say.

[Kameko McCoy]

It was a really, really good time.

[Tim Peterson]

That's a hell of a wrap. Well, that's great that they're together. And it's funny to have them on the show this week because I feel like when we're talking about the news of the past week, it's felt like breakup week. There's the Justice Department trying to make a case for Google to have to sell off its Chrome browser. So basically breaking up Google. And then Comcast announced, eh, not so fond of the cable TV business. We're actually going to get rid of all but one of our cable TV networks. And we have other news that we're going to discuss. Jaguars rebrand, which has been questionable a choice. A questionable choice. We all make questionable choices, but often not with so much at stake. And then the trade desk and adtech company deciding, you know what, we could make a connected TV platform. People will buy that. But first, let's talk about breakup week. So one actual breakup that's happening, one potential breakup that could happen. Let's start with the potential one Google may have to get rid of its Chrome browser business. This is an outcome from the search antitrust ruling that was made over the summer. And so the Justice Department this week said, okay, here's the remedy we propose for what to do about Google having this antitrust in search. Let's make it get rid of its Chrome browser, which is strong. I think a lot of people were expecting the proposal to be okay. Google can't do any more of these preferential deals where it pays Apple to be the default search engine on Apple devices and Safari. You know, we're just going to open things up. But the Justice Department really went for it with this.

[Kameko McCoy]

They did. They brought, I mean, I think we knew they were going to bring down the hammer. We just didn't know how and how big that hammer was going to be. But I think, I mean, it's intentional because if the whole thing was antitrust and monopoly and things like that, now you've opened the door to competitors, including OpenAI.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. Well, it's also interesting because there was something I was reading this week that kind of brought into question, like, well, what's the value of the Chrome browser if it's separate from Google? It's so entwined with Gmail and Google Docs and the whole Google Drive Suite, YouTube, all of the products that Google has that separate from Google, it's kind of just another browser. And also, like, does that preclude Google from creating a new browser? Like, are we getting in the realm of like saying what businesses a company can't be going into? And yeah, like, so the information also reported this week that OpenAI is considering creating its own browser, which is really interesting because OpenAI seems to be the biggest potential contender answer to Google having a monopoly because Obviously they have ChatGPT, their search GPT, which they've now started rolling out inside of ChatGPT and now OpenAI having a browser, it's like, okay, this could be more of a competitor to Google on the browser front. What's also interesting is part of what the Justice Department is proposing in terms of penalties or actions Google would have to take as part of this antitrust suit is having to provide its search data to other companies for the next 10 years. Which is wild.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, shiver me timbers.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. Because then it's just like, okay, then, like now people really wouldn't have necessarily a reason to have to use Google because, you know, I use Google for search because it's better than all the other search engines that I've tried and I've tried them.

[Kameko McCoy]

And I mean, to be honest with you, like, you think about how ingrained it is even in like culturally, you don't say, I'm going to search for something, you say, I'm going to Google it. Which speaks to just how, you know, powerful that is. So that, that'll be interesting to kind of watch how and if that shakes out the way that we suspect it is going to be. But like you said, that's a potential breakup. The breakup that's absolutely confirmed is Comcast breakup with its news publishers.

[Tim Peterson]

Not just its news publishers, its cable networks, all of its cable TV networks except for Bravo. That's the only one it's keeping. There was something, I think it was Matt Bellany and Pak was writing about this and mentioned how I think it's like Bravo accounts for a lot of Peacock viewership. But all the other NBC Universal owned cable TV networks account for 2% of what people watch on Peacock. So it makes a lot of sense to get out of that business now because the traditional TV business has been in decline for really the past decade. But this year, especially like we've talked about before, because this got floated a few weeks ago when Comcast had its earnings call. And over the summer both Warner Brothers, Discovery and Paramount took write downs of their cable TV network businesses. And Disney has talked about last year, Disney CEO Bob Iger floated the idea of selling off some of its TV networks or spinning off some of its TV networks. But now you have Brian Roberts from Comcast saying, okay, hold my beer, I'm actually going to do this thing.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, that's. So it'll, it'll sever off. And I think it's. When you, you mentioned Bravo and I said, so what you're telling me is that the Real Housewives is what's gonna be, it's what's gonna save the network essentially.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's basically like everything Andy Cohen did with Bravo, this is like the biggest sign of that being successful because all of the, I think what Matt Bellany termed it, like the Crazy lady franchises.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, love those. They're good watches. Like love is blind.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. I know for me it's been like Top Chef. I watched Top Chef a lot on Peacock earlier in the year, so. And now it's kind of the question of what really comes of this company that's going to own all these legacy cable TV networks. Is it? I mean, I guess it's. And Matt Bellany made this point too, not to crib from him too much, but it's like local newspapers and kind of print publications that have gotten diminished, gotten spun off and then ended up getting acquired by private equity and kind of just running more or less into the ground. Seems like that's probably what's going to happen here.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, that's a lot to think about. I'm, I'm, you know, I was curious, like if that spins off because that means that then Comcast is no longer responsible for the financials of that. Hence a private equity firm potentially stepping in.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, at some point right now, I think it's in the past 12 months leading up to the end of September of this year, these networks that are being spun off had generated more than $7 billion in revenue. So there's still a lot of money to be made here, but that money is diminishing. Their audiences are diminishing. And then also just like kind of a lot of their cultural relevance has kind of diminished. Like people watched suits on Netflix, not on USA network when it was originally on. So one of the really interesting questions is you mentioned the news outlets MSNBC and CNBC are being spun off as part of this. And so one of the things that hasn't yet been sorted out is, okay, does that one, do they have to change their names since they're not going to be part of NBC anymore? And then two, what, if any, relationship do they have to NBCUniversal's news group that they have been fairly reliant upon? They have NBC News reporters on the shows throughout the day. Maybe that'll continue for a time, but you would think at some point they're going to need to sever those ties. And what impact is that going to have? MSNBC is just having a tough go of it with the viewership and side traffic being down since the election.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Peterson]

And all that.

[Kameko McCoy]

This is all very reminiscent of an actual breakup. Who gets to keep the dog, who gets to keep the apartment? Things like this.

[Tim Peterson]

Right. Yeah, yeah. So. So that's a company that's getting out of at least part of a business, but then we have a company that's getting into a new business and not necessarily a business that I think any of us would have guessed getting into. So the Trade Desk, which is an ad tech firm for anyone who isn't familiar deep in the weeds of Programmatic, is launching a connected TV platform. So basically, in the same way that you have smart TVs powered by Roku or Amazon Fire TV, they're going to be smart TVs powered by the Trade Desk and that.

[Kameko McCoy]

Good, good Programmatic.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. So still a lot to be sorted out then. I mean, I think the biggest question is what are going to be the prices of these TVs because the Trade Desk isn't building these TVs itself. It's going to do similar to how you have Roku and Amazon built into existing TVs, it's going to try to do deals with TV manufacturers to have their TVs be powered by its platform. But then is this going to be in the aisle in Walmart alongside the eventually Walmart owned Vizio TVs that are pretty cheap, Hisense TVs and the like. Is it going to go the route of telly, which came out what, two years ago or a year ago? Last year I think it was, and said, hey, we're just going to give TVs away for free because we're going to be grabbing a lot of data from these TVs and they're going to be very heavily ad Supported.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah. And I mean, I mean if something's going to be ad supported, you got to have content. So I mean, you're obviously in this space more than I am, but like, who the hell is producing all that content to put on there?

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, well, what Trade Desk will have to do is the same as what the other CTV platforms did of Strike distribution deals with Netflix, with Disney plus, with Peacock, as we were just talking about on down the list. And those will be interesting because typically as part of those deals, the company in Trade Desk position would be asking for a cut of subscription revenue. There would be also angling for a share of ad inventory or a share of ad revenue, which I would expect Trade Desk will definitely be asking for. And so how willing will these streaming services be to give up that. Because in 2020 there were standoffs between Disney and Amazon. There were also standoffs between NBCUniversal and Warner Brothers with Amazon as well as with Roku about this. And then the real interesting one is what's Google going to do? Is Google going to say, yeah, we'll create a YouTube app for the Trade Desk CTV platform or is Google going to say, well, the Trade Desk is our biggest competitor on the ad tech side of things and YouTube is the most watched streaming service on TV screens. So, oh gee, Trade Desk, sorry, we're not going to be able to give you YouTube. In which case I would think that could be a deal breaker for a lot of people to buy these TVs or at least use like maybe people buy these TVs if they're super cheap, but then they just plug in like a Roku streaming stick so they could watch YouTube.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, there's, I think with all of this there's obviously a lot more questions than answers with this being the early days and whatnot. But a question from my end of the perspective is like, how likely is the success of a venture like this? Because you know, the streaming platforms right now, there's conversations and even Bergers and what did I call them last time, accusations, acquisitions and things like that happening for these businesses to be able to stay afloat. So now you've got a new player in the space, given, you know, their backing is a little stronger than some of the others. But that's still a question to be considered.

[Tim Peterson]

Right. But it's also like financially they may be, you know, in a fair position, especially they have ties to the advertisers. But the Trade Desk, their primary business is piping ads across the Internet, not consumer facing products. But and I won't give away too much in this week's Future of TV Briefing, which will be coming out on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. I do float the idea of maybe trade CTV platform doesn't need to be directly consumer facing.

[Kameko McCoy]

So interesting.

[Tim Peterson]

Please read that if you are interested.

[Kameko McCoy]

In Tim, was that a juicy scoop.

[Tim Peterson]

Reading my tea leaves? It's not a scoop. It's pure speculation. But hopefully interested in speculation.

[Kameko McCoy]

Absolutely. Okay. We've talked a lot about breakups and getting together, but obviously we can't let an episode go by without talking about inclusivity. Right. So for those of you that did not see Jaguar, the car company had an ad that premiered that got a lot of people talking. Essentially the ad was a car company advertisement, but the car was not seen. It was people dressed in brightly colored outfits and the Internet had a complete meltdown. I saw the poor social media manager kind of fighting for their lives in the comments section being like, just wait and see. I promise it'll it's part of a larger strategy here. Tim, did you get the chance to see that ad?

[Tim Peterson]

No, I didn't. All I saw was I think on my TikTok this morning some like ad industry person talking about the branding like the new Jaguar logo. And I wasn't aware I my world missed all of this this week. But catch me up. Why are people do people not like colorful ads?

[Kameko McCoy]

So you've got two sides to this. One is just kind of the pushback from I don't want to call them like ad purist or anything like that, but you've got a structure for what an ad is supposed to look like. If you're selling a car, you would imagine the car needs to be somewhere in the ad and the ad itself I guess wasn't to what that framework typically looks like was kind of the pushback from like the ad and the creative community. On the other side of that there was pushback from, you know, the other side of the aisle that was calling it Bud Light 2.0. In more woke, you know, diversity focused initiatives, you've seen opinionists from the Guardian and a handful of other publications kind of calling it out, which again, you know, in the, in the polarized climate you've got a car commercial that's got people of color and brightly colored things. And now the Jaguar has found itself in hot water for its rebrand.

[Tim Peterson]

So these people just wanted want ads to only feature white people.

[Kameko McCoy]

I have no idea what the calls are for here, but I think it speaks to the idea that brands are in a very precarious predicament, you know, where any. Where what can be deemed as woke and what can be deemed as the other side of the aisle is a very slippery slope here.

[Tim Peterson]

What's. Not to be too glib about this, but what's wild every time there are these supposed controversies about ads is like, so people are actually paying attention to ads this much? Because when I came up covering digital advertising specifically, the big topic at the time was banner blindness was just people ignoring ads, people cutting cables because there were too many ads. And yet people seem to be getting really riled up about ads.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, you saw the same thing happen with, I don't know if you remember the Apple ad that happened, where they like, they put like pianos and music and things like that and crushed it and people lost their minds, which reasonably so. But I do wonder, you know, kind of what does this mean for advertising going forward? Kind of breaking the tradition, breaking the mold and trying something different if you have to toe the line between, you know, being new and not pissing people off.

[Tim Peterson]

Right. Yeah. Because it's also kind of reminds me of the conversation we had last week with Christina Monlos and Sara Guaglioni, our senior marketing editor and senior media reporter, respectively, about. Well, you use the term bland blans to refer to brands, and it does feel like all of this then discourages brands from doing anything interesting with their ads or trying things and just being, okay, here's a generic shot of a car. You're welcome. Now, really, no one's going to pay attention to these ads because there was also the controversy the past week around Coca Cola and their AI generated holiday ads. I spoke with Coca Cola's head of generative AI for last week's Future of TV briefing about that. And I get, like, some of the issues people take with those ads, but it's at least interesting. And there were, like, people involved and there were, you know, actors who were compensated for their likenesses being used in these ads. So it seemed like Coca Cola did everything above board. And at least, I mean, I'm not going to say it was a great ad. It very much looked AI generated, but at least they tried to do something interesting and not just be another bland.

[Kameko McCoy]

Another bland. You know what's interesting in the conversations that I've been having with CMOs and marketing executives about AI is like, there's a dependency on AI to obviously make ads bigger, better, faster, but also to avoid any missteps, because AI can, I guess, predict it in a way that humans can't. But also, again, there's the creativity and you risk losing that. Again, bland.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, like the outcry over the new Jaguar logo. I get it. It looks, it reminds me of like when Tropicana and some other brands, like, really softened up their logo in like the late. I think it was like after the 2008 recession, if I'm not mistaken.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Peterson]

But like having a colorful ad and reflecting, you know, the general population in that ad seems, it just seems ridiculous to come after them for that. With the Love is Blind people that you talked to for this episode, like, I imagine they're working with brands. Did they talk about, like, to what extent they're being given any guardrails when it comes to the content they may be creating for brands?

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, that's something that when I talk to them, they're getting more cognizant about. Right. And reviewing contracts and things like that. Just seeing how much space there is to one, maintain authenticity because that's what your audience is coming to you for. Right. While at the same time being sure not to alienate people so that you can continue to take in money and ad revenue. When I talked to them, they said, you know, that'll be a bigger part of the conversation, especially moving ahead to make sure that, you know, as a content creator you can maintain. That's your full time job. And if you, you can't afford to piss a bunch of people off because then your job is at risk. Right. So it was a really interesting conversation. We did touch on that. We touched on kind of what creators look like in the 2025 going forward, brand safety, navigating politics in the election and whatnot. It was a juicy conversation.

[Tim Peterson]

All right, let's get right into it. We are going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor and we'll be right back.

[Christina Ko]

I'm Christina Ko, senior editor at Custom Digiday Media's In House agency. In this podcast, interstitial story sponsored by Bliss, we speak with Amy Fox, Bliss's chief product officer, about how smart holdout groups present advertisers with a new omnichannel measurement method that addresses current challenges in the space.

[Amy Fox]

I mean, the key foundation to measurement is having some kind of a control group that you can use to then baseline any kind of lift or any kind of defending of a decline against. That's like the heart of how all measurement has been done. Now, in the past, there have been two kind of core ways of splitting an audience into control and tests and control. And the most common one in the digital space has been to take a bag of IDs or a bag of cookies and just take 10% of them and put them in a holdout group. Of course, the downsides of that is it requires IDs to be present, of which there are very, very few.

[Christina Ko]

It Nowadays, as many advertisers shift away from relying on cookies and various IDs due to several downsides related to them, they need alternative measurement methods. With this, many are looking to geography as a guide.

[Amy Fox]

Now, geographical AB splits, it's definitely not something new. It's something that's been done by the industry for a very, very long time. What we're doing with smart holdout groups is we're still using geography and we're using zip codes critically as the thing that we spin out our control group against. But we're trying to be as smart as we possibly can be. And we're leveraging all of the data that we know about zip codes. We're leveraging the data we know about, the people that live in different zip codes, what kind of consumption habits they have, what kind of spending habits they have. So all the data partnerships that we have in our platform, we leverage that data to try and take an audience that's been built and let's say the audience is made up of, I don't know, 30,000 zip codes across the US and when we spin out a control group, we find isolated clusters of zip codes spread throughout the full audience that are balanced mathematically in terms of their makeup based on a factor, a given factor. So a really good default factor that we tend to use is income. So we want to make sure that the income or the average income of our control group is similar to the average income of our exposed group. Where we're going to do our measurement to make sure that when we do our measurement from Mercedes car, we're not predisposing A to perform better than B. They're neutral and they're distinct and they're similar in terms of their audience makeup.

[Christina Ko]

While AB testing isn't new, the smart holdout group method provides a more strategic approach for advertisers, ensuring they're conducting a sound experiment and are well set up for future campaign measurement studies.

[Amy Fox]

To make it a bit easier, we've tried to bucket three or four things that we think of that work really well. So, for example, brand surveys. Super simple technique that's been used for years and years and years to measure brand opinion that works really well with this framework. Instead of trying to serve a survey to someone who's you know, an ID or a cookie that's seen your ad. You're basically serving the survey in these zip codes that have seen exposed to the advertising and then not also serving it in the in the zip codes held out as your control. And you're effectively trying to monitor the difference in the response. If you're a car brand and you are trying to get people to sign up for test drive or brochure, most of the time you'll be capturing details about a customer, including, for example, where they live. Now, you can't share all that personal information for advertising, but you can look at aggregated customer signup information and you can start to see if you can see kind of pattern analysis between abs and hold outs. So for me, this is sort of a version of using that kind of client econometric data that makes it really exciting.

[Christina Ko]

You've been listening to Amy Fox, chief Product officer at Bliss, our sponsor, on this episode. And now back to the Digitay podcast.

[Kameko McCoy]

I am joined by two very special guests today, Lauren and Cameron Speed Hamilton from Love is Blind Season one. So excited to have you guys on the podcast.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Thank you for having us.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Very excited to be here. Thank you.

[Kameko McCoy]

Of course, of course, the pleasure is all mine. I like to start my conversations with a fun question. There were so many that I was kind of going through in my head and I was like, you know, I've got reality TV stars here. I've got to make it a good one. But since the topic of today's conversation is about you guys moving into being content creators, influencers and media personalities, I thought that's what I'd focus it on. So what has been the most surprising thing you've learned since becoming content creators?

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Ooh, that's a great question. The most surprising thing that I've learned since becoming a content creator, that it is honestly truly a talent. People think that it's so easy to just. And in some ways it is pick up your phone and record. But it is a skill. I mean, when it comes to planning out your content calendar, making sure that your content is organic and that you build an audience that really supports you so that brands see that support and you kind of start to build all these bridges with different people, it is truly a skill.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

So, yeah. And to piggyback on what Lauren said, I used to be a social media denier. I used to think that it was a waste of time, that it was very vain pursuit. And then when you start doing it, you realize like this does, as Lauren says, take a lot of work and A lot of creativity. I personally am still improving, I'm still working and I've been doing it professionally for five years. But I still have a long ways to go. So it is, it's a full time job and sometimes it's just like any, you know, self employed type of job. You know, the hours can be unlimited if you don't set some sort of constraint on yourself. So the other thing that I learned was that this content actually means something to the audience. And that was the disconnect for me originally I didn't understand that there's actually audience out there, that when they see your content it really resonates with them. Maybe it invokes some emotional response. Maybe it just brightened their day. Maybe it taught them something they didn't know before. So I really learned that this can be a very fulfilling and valuable pursuit.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, I think those are two very honest answers. And another thing that I've heard in this space that can be messy is having to figure out the taxes part of it. Oh yeah, that's a nightmare going through all of that because there's so many moving parts.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

There are. And thankfully we have an accountant for that.

[Kameko McCoy]

Build out a team.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, that was one of the first things that we did. Just like it's so important to have your business in order because it's an art form, but it's a business like you want to generate money, you know, so you have to be sure you got your taxes right, you got your bills pay. If you have to pay a crew, you have to have a budget. So it definitely takes some smarts.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

And a lawyer, an entertainment lawyer specifically.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yep, there's a lot of work involved which I mean feeds really nicely into the conversation. Like I said that we'll have today about, you know, being an influencer and kind of that definition, how it's changed. Right. So I want to double click into, listen to me, double click. I want to double click into you being a social media denier and now becoming a content creator. Talk to me a little bit about kind of, you know, for both of you, that shift from going to, you know, I guess regular everyday people, viral reality TV stars to now content creators. Talk to me, you know, walk me through that journey.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Oh yeah, Well, I know that going into the release of the show 2020, it came out February 2020, prior to that I had 200 followers on Instagram. I really did not post, did not go on there myself. And Lauren, to give her her credit, she was like, hey, you know, when this show comes out, you are Going to want to capitalize on that attention. And there may be people who want to know about your story, who want to know more about you as a person. And this is an opportunity because I was like, I don't want to be an influencer. I have no interest in that. I was working as a data scientist, leading a team of data scientists. And Lauren really encouraged me and said, like, you need to get your content up because you never know what you can do with that platform. And you can talk about artificial intelligence on your platform. You could talk about whatever you want. So it's just something that you should take advantage of. So I really am grateful for her for encouraging me. Not only encouraging me, but also kind of showing me the ropes of social media. You know, we would do photo shoots in the backyard or, you know, make some videos. And I really felt kind of. I had done entertainment before. You know, I'd been an extra in movies. I had done musicals and all this sort of thing, but I had never done anything with social media. And thankfully, Lauren really showed me the ropes.

[Kameko McCoy]

Cause Lauren, you had that background, correct?

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Absolutely. I was gonna say, prior to going on the show, I actually worked in media. I had my own media company. I actually went to college, got my degree in electronic media and film. So for me, I was excited about the possibility of like, okay, now I'm gonna have a platform. I can really show my skills. Like, previously I was working with brands, kind of helping them, working with different artists, doing music videos, commercials, what have you. And now it's like, oh, I'm in front of the camera now I'm producing my own commercials, my own videos and stuff. So I was excited about it. But I will say that just having that growth and platform is different. It's different from what I was doing before to what I'm doing now. But my initial skills definitely helped to kind of catapult what we had going forward.

[Tim Peterson]

Yes, yes.

[Kameko McCoy]

Walk me through the platform that you guys have right now. Right. Obviously you guys are on social media, but you've also recently launched a podcast where four episodes in deep. So talk a little bit about that.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yes. I mean, we're so excited. Like you said, we're on all the socials, but we also have our podcast. It's called the Love Seat. And this show is a way for us to really connect with our supporters. People ask us all the time about relationships, love, mental health, things like that. So this is a vehicle to really bring in some experts, like really get some tactical to do list advice. Not because, you know, A lot of podcasters are just kind of sitting around giving opinions, which is good. We do that, too. But we really wanted to bring some valuable information to this podcast and make people feel seen and uplift them. Because there's already so much dark stuff going on in the world, we wanted to use our platform to spread some light. So we're very excited about it. The reaction to it has been amazing. The supporters love it. We're four episodes in, and, you know, we. Our growth is. We just gonna keep going up. Yes.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

And it's such a. It's such a blessing to be able to work together. Like, we've been working together for five years, and it hasn't always been easy, but seeing the loveseat take form, and now, like you said, we're four episodes deep. I think each one of these episodes really has some gems from our guests, because that was one of the things is, you know, of course, people know us from Love Is Blind.

[Kameko McCoy]

Right.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Love. The Love is Blind franchise. Great show. Thankful that it led to Lauren and I getting married. I can never take that away from the show. But we want to grow beyond the show, and we already have. But I think we want to expand even further beyond where we are now and just give people. Because a lot of people have come to us and said, hey, you've given me hope that I can find love, relationships, commitment. So we want to give people actionable insights into how to do that. What's worked for us, what's worked for our guests, some of them marriage counselors, some of them sex therapists, financial experts. So we really want to give value and that. And that's what it is at the end of the day, as a content creator, is giving them value in exchange for their attention.

[Kameko McCoy]

Right, Right. I think to do that for a span of five years is no easy feat. Right. You had a mega viral moment, and not just like a regular reality TV show moment. Like, it was 2020. We were all at home, glued to our TV screens. Right. So you really got that amplification there. But talk to me a little about taking that viral moment and, you know, being like, all right, we've got to find a way to make this a sustainability, sustainable business. Right. What did that kind of look like?

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Wow. I mean, I think that the timing of everything, like, you said, it was 2020. So I think everyone was kind of in the mindset of, like, okay, what.

[Kameko McCoy]

Are we going to do?

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

What are we going to hustle? How are we going to keep ourselves busy? So I think for me, being a Creative is already natural. You know, I was already kind of making content, and now the fact that Cam and I can kind of be public with what we're doing, it just kind of opened a whole new floodgate of creativity and us, like, coming together to create content and, yeah, we made the most of that.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Absolutely. And to give some context, I mean, I remember Lauren saying that, you know, we don't know how big the buzz of this show is going to be, how long it's going to sustain itself. That was something we both understood early on. So we said, let's hit the ground running and create as much content as we physically can during this early period. We started our YouTube channel, I think, in March 2020. So the show came out February. Did the YouTube channel in March. Thank goodness we did, because we had really explosive growth by starting at that point. If we had started six months later, it may not have gotten as big as it did. So taking advantage in those early days is really important. And just thinking about, like, the trajectory of everything, you know, we always knew, like, we don't, you know, we never want to rest on our laurels, and we're, again, we're super thankful for Love is Blind, but we have so much more to say and do, and we want to create sort of, like evergreen content that can be sustained and is a more general audience sort of content. So that's why we created the Loveseat.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

You know, when we kind of had this viral moment in 2020 and we came out, it was a way for us to also have our own direct line to people who were interested in our story. We could say it in our voice, how we wanted to do it. It was authentic to us. It wasn't something that was edited by another producer. It was us talking straight to the people and giving them the real. So I also think that that was a game changer because people were interested. You know, we didn't try to be characters from a reality TV show. We, like, made it a point to be authentically ourselves kind of show more of our lives. Like, yeah, we're still together. We're regular people. And I feel like that's also what really connected with people.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah. The idea of the going back to the five years of doing this. Right. I would imagine there were a lot of different iterations of Lauren and Cameron that happen here. Right. About different niches and exploring different opportunities and things like that. Talk to me about kind of what it was like or how you guys talked about maintaining that level of, like, brand awareness. I guess, for lack Of a better word for, you know, for what you guys were doing throughout that five year span.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, I mean, I think for me it was very important. I know I keep throwing out this word authenticity, but it's so important for me, even with the brands that I work with, I want to be sure that it's a match. That's us.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

I mean, cause two, for the sake of our audience, if they feel like, okay, you're just selling me something, I'm not going to trust you, I'm not going to support you anymore because you're just being a salesman. Like I'm. If I wanted just a salesman, I'll go to the store, you know, so we try to do things that are natural and organic when it comes to our brand voice and just be ourselves. That's really, you know, our business model is to keep it authentic.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

And we also have a keen sense too, of what the audience responds to. You know, luckily our audience has been following us since the show came out in 2020. And you know, of course new people come, some people go, just the natural ebbs and flows. But, you know, it's kind of. It's an interesting dynamic where as they watch us, we are kind of watching them in a broader sense and seeing like, what is the type of content that they really love? What stuff are they not engaging with? And if they didn't engage with it, why didn't they engage with it? As an example, I'm very passionate about artificial intelligence. I've tried to create technical content, sometimes talking about, and nothing too crazy technical, but trying to give people a little bit more of the background of that. And I found it hasn't gotten as much traction as I want. But my cooking content, for example, has gotten way more traction and the audience really loves that. And they especially love seeing my interaction with Lauren, like giving her the food and getting her reaction. So there's that sort of dynamic between us and the audience. And of course, as a creator, you never want to just sacrifice your own vision to just try to get the most number of views. No, but you do have to kind of balance your vision with what, you know, the audience will respond to.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

See, I kind of differ a little bit there.

[Kameko McCoy]

Oh, say more, say more.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, I mean, I'm with Cam on that. Like, of course you want content that your audience is going to enjoy. But and he mentioned this not to the point where you're just making content for them. You have to enjoy what you're doing. It's so authenticity. You have to be yourself. Unless you're trying to sell, which some people just are. But for me, and to the fact that I'm a creative, so I like to try out different things. You know, it may be a vlog, it may be a short film that I'm working on, it may be a comedy sketch. So you never really know what you're gonna get. And yes, there are different responses, but I think for me it's more important to just be true to what I enjoy. Like, I wanna share what I like with you as opposed to sharing what you like with you, you know?

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, yeah. I don't think creators should be afraid to try stuff, obviously. And we've both done that and tried stuff. It flopped. And I think you just have to, as a creator, come to terms with the fact that not everything is going to be a home run.

[Kameko McCoy]

Right, Right.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Just not. And you just have to accept that and not internalize that and be like, oh man, I suck as a creator. No, you can't do that. No, I'm just saying. But I do think, and maybe Lauren feels differently about this, but I do think it's important to see what the audience is responding to versus what they're not responding to. And of course, never sacrifice your integrity as a creator, but those insights help.

[Kameko McCoy]

I think I would also imagine that that ties into monetization. Right. This is you guys job. So for. You have to kind of tap into what is it that people like so that we can then monetize that space. So five years of doing this, talk to me a little bit about monetization, especially, you know, with the podcast, another monetization opportunity. So kind of talk about, you know, building that out.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yes. When it comes to, you know, creating an income from what we're doing, a lot of it is through brand partnerships, which is kind of the preferred way because we get a chance to partner with a brand that we align with. For us, we find that it's easy to get fewer larger sponsors as opposed to a lot of little ones, just because that can kind of also get lost in the messaging if you're constantly sharing all these different things. But yeah, monetization, even when it comes to Instagram and TikTok, now, you know, you can make money just by posting stuff and how many views you get, streaming YouTube. So we monetize everything.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Because time is money.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is our job. I think there's still avenues that we haven't fully explored, like merchandising.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Patreon.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Patreon, yeah. Membership, subscription type stuff. We haven't done that yet. You know, would definitely love to move into that space. I think if we were to do membership subscriptions, we want to offer even another tier of premium content. I think everything that we do is high quality. So I think that would take some, some discussion to figure out. Like what, what more what. How can we take it to the next level for the audience and offer them even more value?

[Kameko McCoy]

Does the podcast offer another opportunity for monetization? I think in the conversations that I've had with creators is there's a push to not be overly reliant on the platforms. Right. Because you've got the potential TikTok ban happening. There's algorithms that are constantly changing. Right. And creator funds that are constantly shapeshifting. So talk to a little bit about the importance of having that kind of diversified.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, I mean, having a diversified stream or having diversified streams of income is important because, you know, things can shift. Nothing is set in stone when it comes to doing brand partnerships. It can also be seasonal in a way. You know, of course, holiday times, you can maybe have a lot more deals. There may be slower parts of the year, around the middle of the year. So you, as a creator, you don't always know when the next brand partnership is going to come through. So being able to diversify is a wonderful thing. You know, you've got with the YouTube, of course, and the podcast, you have just the AdSense revenue or the number based on the number of plays of the episode. That's very important. And again, you know, we are looking to diversify even more and possibly do membership subscriptions or possibly do merchandise. We haven't figured that component out yet, transparently.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

We just don't want to have all of our eggs in one basket. Like you said, it's so important to have that diversity just because in case one thing doesn't work, you don't have to like fret, oh my God, this failed. It didn't do what I thought it was going to do. You still have some other things going on at the same time. So that can kind of hold you while you figure out what's going on over here.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, I think it's interesting when you guys get to a level of content creation, right. Of being a content creator to where it's like a full time job that you have to build out a team to help manage all of these things. So talk to me a little bit about the timeline for building out that team. You know, when did we be like, yeah, we got to get an agent on this and when did we say we've got to get. We've got to get our lawyer to look at these contracts.

[Tim Peterson]

Yes.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, I know. Back in 2020, gosh, we were really burning the midnight oil every day. We were. And the brand deals, we were very fortunate. They started coming in pretty quickly because we were on the ball about making content from the jump. Yeah. And our agency reached out to us. Caa. They reached out to us. I think it was in February or if not early March. And so we were with the agency right away. They targeted us. They brought us on board, and they've been wonderful and they've helped us navigate the brand space. But then there's a question of, okay, we need help with videography. You know, more hands on deck, really. Videography, you know, sound. Lauren can talk more about, like, assistance.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

I was gonna say, when we first started in 2020, you couldn't really work with people because of quarantine. So I was doing everything.

[Kameko McCoy]

A little thing called the pandemic.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

I was filming. Yes, exactly. And it just got to the point where I was like, I literally physically cannot do this anymore. Like, is our. What we're creating is going to suffer or I'm going to suffer that. Neither of those should be an option. We brought in a manager. Then I said, you know, I need an assistant. So we just kind of started building our team out, crew members. We need to find an editor, we need to find a videographer. Production was really our first grouping of employees or, you know, people that we work with, just because that's our bread and butter, you know. So we had to start building out that team pretty as soon as we could.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Not. Not to mention hair, makeup, wardrobe, styling, that production. Yeah, that came on from the very beginning as well. And then, you know, there can be. It's an industry where there can be a lot of turnover for different reasons. And it's so important to have the right people. I mean, it's night and day difference. You know, for example, if you're working with editors and they have a really slow turnaround time and, you know, you have your own deadlines that you need to meet, whether it's for the brands, whether it's, you know, it's a whole ecosystem now of people who depend on you. It's the agencies, the brands, your guests, who you have on the podcast, if we're talking about that, because they have their own obligations in terms of when they need to post things. So to be respectful to everyone's time, you know, the content needs to hit certain deadlines at certain Dates. So, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts, as you know.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah. I want to hone in on, I guess, what contract negotiations looked like back then for you guys and what they look like now. What do we look for? What's important? You know, what type of. I think one of the things you mentioned was AI that is now starting to show up in contracts. So talk to me a little about when you. What are you guys with your lawyers kind of scanning for what's important.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, at first, when we first were signed to our agency, it's just like, oh, okay, yeah.

[Kameko McCoy]

Sure, we'll do it.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

We were just excited, like, they want to work with us. Yay. But then we quickly learned, like, no, you need to go through. What are the things you don't want to do if this doesn't fit you. I learned that the hard way. I signed a contract, I was locked into something I didn't want to do, and it was a terrible thing. I think after that, that's when we're like, we need a lawyer.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

When you start out, you know, someone's like, hey, we're going to pay you some money to make a video. You're like, oh, that's amazing. But one funny story that I have to tell. When we signed up for the show or they cast us, you know, we had to sign this extremely long, detailed, you know, contract. And I remember one of the articles in the contract was, hey, we can basically use your likeness for any sort of merchandise that we want to make from here to infinity and beyond in any universe, any multiverse. So we, you know, you have no choice but to sign. I actually went back to them and I underlined, highlighted, and they're like, yeah, we're not changing a single word. So either sign it or you not cast. Yeah. I was like, okay, cool. But anyways, so fast forward to. It was like, probably 2022, I'm going to say. We were in Target and we were at the board game section. There was a Love is Blind board game. Someone had opened it already. So we opened that box up and looked at the board, and on the board were our names written on the board somewhere. And we're like, what the heck? So, you know, you don't think that, you know, when you get cast for a show, you don't think you're going to have merchandise. That's not a thing. But you just. My point of this story is to say, you just never know what the future is gonna hold. You might sign it, you might Have a deal. And one of the things is like, hey, you can't work with another phone company for the next 12 months. And you're like, ah, like that's like, that's fine. I'm not gonna work with another phone company.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah. One of the main things that we really focus on, cause you had asked about what we have our lawyer check for exclusivity is one thing for sure. Also, how long will this have to be? You know, because that kind of also goes with exclusivity. You know, you can miss opportunities for something that, you know, maybe didn't pan out how you want it to. But those are like some of the main things. Also owning certain things. If we're doing a production or if we're coming up with a creative for something, we want to be sure that people know that it's us.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

We own the ownership.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah. The film and the audio and. And yeah. With respect to likeness, now that AI has the ability to pretty much replicate your likeness with a scary degree of accuracy. That's something to be aware of and spell out like, hey, you can't use my likeness beyond this date and you can't make an AI avatar of me and clone my voice. You know, something to definitely be aware of.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah. And deadlines and dates are good too for the talent because it ensures that you get what you're owed. You know what I mean? Like, you paid me for six months. Don't use my stuff three years from now. You know what I mean? So that's also very important.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, I could imagine. I think. And I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't address the elephant in the room. Right. Obviously we just got to the other side of election politics and whatnot. And in my reporting, one of the things that kept coming up was this idea of like brands wanted to work with somebody that was anti political, politically neutral. Right. Where there would be no politics on their page. How did you guys navigate that?

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

I definitely put out my political opinion. I mean, I just for me personally, I thought that this election was too important to not speak out. And even if it's just telling people to vote.

[Kameko McCoy]

Right.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

You know, that was important just to let them know that there are stakes in this election. So you have to get out and make your voice heard. So I said it. And I feel like some things are more important to me personally. I know a lot of creators don't feel this way because they're afraid of their money. They don't want to lose this opportunity, that opportunity. But for Me, the longer that I'm in this industry and that I'm here, I realize that all of this means nothing if you lose yourself in the process. If you feel like you're just becoming a shell just to make money or it's like you have to focus on what's important to you in life, what's your purpose in all of this, you know, so I still try to lead with some type of. Use my platform for good, basically. Right.

[Kameko McCoy]

Cameron, did you. What are your two cents on that?

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, my two cents when it comes to politics, especially like with this recent election, you know, I did take a very politically neutral stance. I definitely encourage people to vote, and I think people should vote. I think that they should research what's at stake here. You know, what are the candidates views. I don't feel like I ever want to tell someone who to vote for. You know, I just want them to do their own research and make their best judgment based on that. I guess my perspective is that I am a business, like my social media. My content is my business. My family depends upon my business being successful. You know, I think about my family first and our household and what we're trying to do and that that's my very top priority amongst everything. So, you know, I have to take care of the business and, you know, treat it, treat it like any other business would be treated and not side politically one way or the other. Now, when it comes to something like we were talking about what happened in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter movement, with systemic racism being highlighted, with police brutality being highlighted, that's something that I felt like, okay, I need to speak up and say something. I made a video talking about what white people can do as allies, you know, talking about the systemic racism that I've observed. So I think it's fundamentally different than telling someone politically who they should vote for. That's my perspective. So those sorts of things, I feel like it's something that I should use my voice for.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, I suspect that'll become a bigger theme in 2025. So I'm kind of curious how you guys are thinking about authenticity but also maintaining brand safety. Because even with the podcast, right, we're touching on touchy subjects like sexual wellness and things like this. So talk to me a little about how we, how we navigate it from that perspective.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, for. For our podcast, we really try to tackle topics that are real to us. You know, mental health, getting our money right, being sure that we're our families healthy. So I think that our audience going back to them. They watch us because they can relate because they're interested in our opinions about stuff, but they also value the things that we talk about. Yeah, we just do things that really. We feel like people our age, our friends are telling us this is what they're struggling with, this is what we hear online. And so we wanted to use that to kind of echo that.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, and sometimes that has come at the cost of, you know, we had a video that was demonetized because we were talking about sexual health, sexual wellbeing, you know, and it was nothing very graphic at all. But according to YouTube's policies, it didn't fit the bill for what was advertiser friendly. But I don't regret making the video. I think that what we talked about was very important. You know, there's so much timidness, so much fear when it comes to sexuality, but what we were talking about is healthy sexuality between two consenting adults. How to, you know, have a better sexual intimacy with your partner. I mean, there's really, in my mind, it's. It's a. It's a pure topic. It's nothing, you know, seedy or malicious. And we didn't do any graphic descriptions. But nonetheless, you know, based on the YouTube policies, they get demonetized. So I think there are times where, you know, you have to make that sacrifice for the sense of putting out something that is still valuable.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah. Do you guys think it's a challenge for creators right now to kind of tread that or toe that line rather, where again, you maintain being authentic and talking about things that are important while also making sure not to, for lack of a better way of saying it, piss any advertisers off.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, I think that a lot of creators kind of struggle with that because, I mean, just because of what you said, it's like money or personality. Which one am I using my platform for? If it's money, then I may not say what I would usually say to protect my work space. If it's, like I said, personality or you're using your platform for something else, then you may go that direction. But it depends on the creator. You know, I know some creators that tell their opinion how they want to. They don't care what you think. That's just them, their style, and they have people who support it and love it. So I think as a creator, it's just important that you know your audience and you know why you're doing it. Because sometimes people just get into something because it's trendy. They don't even know why they're doing it. They're like, this is popular. I heard I can make money doing this. And it's like, have some purpose behind what you're doing. Yeah.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Another perspective to look at it from too, is to consider the fact that, well, for us, we have an audience that has a fairly wide age range. I mean, we have a concentration of people in their 20s and 30s, but we have some fairly young audience members and we have some older audience members. So for me, as a creator, I want to try to cater to as much of the audience as I can. And it's not really my style to do anything, you know, super lewd or vulgar anyways. And there's sometimes I feel like that is unnecessary. Of course it can get people's attention.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

But I don't want to do that type of content just for attention. I think there's things that Lauren and I could have done content wise that, I mean, you see it pop up on the feeds and the feeds push this type of content. But we just, you know, the more like sexually explicit, innuendo type stuff, we just didn't want to go down that route. Likewise, like, there's just a lot of. I don't even know if I want to go down that road, but there's just a lot of content where it's like, it's just not our style in the first place.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, you have to find your lane.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

You know, find your lane. What, what excites you? What excites your audience? Yeah, that'll cut a lot of. Yeah, the noise.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really fair point because even, like, you know, scrolling on my own TikTok, one of the things that I've noticed is like, the longer that I stay on that platform, the more outrageous people get. Because you're competing for attention. Right. And if TikTok is shelling out dollars based on how many people are watching your content, well, the more outrageous you get, the more people are watching, the more money in your pocket.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

It is such a weird line to toe because, yes, they are paying for attention, but they also don't want that attention to come from something that is inappropriate based on what they deem inappropriate or not. So you have to maximize the amount of. For the advertiser's sake, you have to maximize the amount of attention. But it's attention from specific content that is family friendly, to put it, you know, simply. And we make mostly family friendly stuff anyways. I mean, sometimes we do touch on adult topics, serious topics, but, you know, we're not gonna shy away from that. So.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

But I'm with you. I've seen stuff on TikTok and on Instagram. It's like, oh, my God, these people are doing the most outrageous things just to, like, get attention. And to me, that's kind of. You're toting the line because you don't want to go up to the wrong person trying to make a funny video and you have a bad day. You know what I mean? So it's. I don't know, it's. I watch those in disbelief, like, who is. This is crazy.

[Kameko McCoy]

I think with that considered, right, with the way that social media is moving to where, like I said, competition is getting fierce. There are so many different diversification of, like, revenue streams that need to happen because of algorithms and things like that. So talk to me. How are you guys thinking about sustainability here as content creators as a business for years to come?

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah. I think one thing is, as we said earlier, creating sort of evergreen content, content that's not tied to current events, something that people can come back to. For example, like, I am doing my cooking series where I'm making my own recipes and then giving them to Lauren and giving her reaction. Our podcast, the Love Seat. These are evergreen topics. You know, we're talking about fertility, we're talking about mental health, we're talking about personal growth. So these are things that never get old. So we're trying to build up our catalog. Right. And those things can be recurring revenue. Potentially.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, too. I think for me personally, it's important for me to grow outside of social media as well. Whether that's investing in something I believe in, to also have income coming from.

[Kameko McCoy]

That to being in commercials. I saw you in a commercial to be in commercials. Yes.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

You know, branch out. Also just kind of connect with my audience outside of social media. Like, we have our podcast, but we're also pretty soon hoping to get into live events and meet and greets and meetups and events like that. So, you know, you actually make these connect. You have a community, because that can make all the difference. A community will support you differently than a follower. You know what I mean? So, yeah, that's kind of been top of my mind this year. I've really been kind of working towards that and actually kind of still being active in social media, but really making sure that I'm filling these other buckets.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, that's fair. And I almost wonder if that's like the progression of what today's influencer looks like, which takes us back to the original talking Point. Right. Like you have the viral moment of fame, how do you then sustain that? And like, I don't, I don't. Can you be an influencer long term or do you eventually shift into being a media personality?

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, I feel like that will be the goal for me just because I feel like being an influencer can be draining. It could be. You know, the whole point is that you kind of want to show your personality and that can open up way more doors as opposed to just selling slim tea. No shade there. I'm just saying, you know the difference.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

It's funny, that's always the example because we've never gotten an offer for or sold slim skinny skin.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

It was just an example.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

You know, to really grow your brand and reach more people.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

So it's funny too. I think the modern content creator as it's evolving is a multi hyphenate in the line between a content creator and a media personality is blurring a lot. You know, we're seeing people start out on TikTok, start out on YouTube, Instagram or reality show or they're an actor. It's all kind of blending together. Everyone kind of has to have an online presence and do something with it in some way to keep their revenue flowing in. I mean, if you're an actor, sometimes it's a long time between one role and the next. You know, reality stars, it's. It's even worse in the sense that you, you may not get booked for another reality show.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

I think as much as you can diversify, that's kind of one of the themes, it seems, of this conversation. That's what you gotta do is diversify. We wrote a book back in 2021, just as another example. But I think creating a community, as Lauren said, is super important. Trying to tap into what people really want. Live events, I mean, you just have to. Sometimes you gotta get creative and just see how you can expand.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, yeah. I should have asked this earlier, but I'll ask it now for the podcast. I know we're only four episodes in, but have we started looking for sponsorship opportunities? Have we locked some in already or kind of. What does that look like?

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, we've definitely locked some in. Of course we love our sponsors. We. I think the biggest thing right now is we're putting a lot into the production of the show. You know, it's.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

It's completely independent.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

It's completely independent.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

We don't have partners.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, we're spending our own money to hire videographers, you know, to do the food service to get people where they need to be assistance, set design, marketing. I mean, so much. And we want it to be something high quality so that if someone watches it five years from now, they're like, wow, this looks. This still looks really nice.

[Kameko McCoy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

So a sponsorship was something that was top of mind, just creating, like, we gotta get this money back. We have to make this back somehow or at least break even. You know, like Cam said, we locked in some sponsors. Hey, are we able to say who.

[Kameko McCoy]

The sponsors are or that is the ink still drying there?

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

The ink's still drying, yes. But we're also in talks with a lot of different people, so. And that also goes back to us selecting things that are in alignment with us and making sure that it makes sense.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

We can say though, that we booked a live performance of our podcast next year. What is it? September? Oh, yeah, September. Next year, we're doing a live performance of our podcast with the Lady Gang podcast. It's called Lady World. Yeah, so it's like a two or three day event with podcasters, comedians, musicians, all performing live. And that was before we even launched the first episode. So appreciate that they had that confidence in us to book us before we'd even launch the show. But yeah, yeah, nice. I'm excited.

[Kameko McCoy]

I think that is the perfect note to end on before our audio producer tells me that I've been yapping for too long. I appreciate you guys for. For coming onto the show and joining us. It's been a real pleasure.

[Cameron Speed Hamilton]

Thank you for having us.

[Lauren Speed Hamilton]

Yeah, this has been fun.

[Kameko McCoy]

Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of the Digitay Podcast. Thank you to everyone for listening. And please don't forget to share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. You can even rate us and leave us a comment on Apple Podcast Podcast. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Digiday Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.