Tatcha’s sports-themed influencer campaign, the arrival of “Demure Fall” and Roblox’s Charli XCX collaboration are some of this week’s creator economy headlines.
Welcome to Ad Age’s influencer marketing news roundup. Each week, we’ll be highlighting the latest developments at the intersection between brands and the creator economy, including new partnerships between brands and creators, notable new features across social media platforms and the growth of creator-led businesses. Sign up for our influencer marketing newsletter here.
Have tips or news to share about influencer marketing and the creator economy? Email Gillian Follett at [email protected].
Tatcha and Rickey Thompson, Jake Shane and more: The Paris Olympics are over, but skincare brand Tatcha kept the spirit of competition alive with a sports-themed campaign last week pitting two of its moisturizers against one another. Tatcha cast internet comedians Rickey Thompson and Jake Shane as coaches for “Team Dewy” and “Team Water,” respectively, and recruited beauty influencers Stephanie Valentine (aka “Glamzilla”) and Jackie Aina as players for the two teams. Creative agency Shadow was behind the “Major Moisture Matchup” video series and the campaign’s social strategy.
Google Chrome and Amelia Dimoldenberg: Dimoldenberg, host of the popular YouTube series “Chicken Shop Date,” was the latest guest to appear on Google Chrome’s “What’s in My Tabs” series. In the video, which has racked up more than 2 million views on YouTube, she briefly discussed how she transformed “Chicken Shop Date” from a written column into a video series and revealed she’s hunting for a new office space for her creative studio Dimz Inc.
Differin and Akilah, Avori Henderson and Katherine Pan: Galderma-owned acne brand Differin is zeroing in on Twitch for its new “Level Up” marketing push targeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha—and it’s teaming up with a group of Twitch streamers to help the brand to tap into that audience of young gamers. The three streamers—Akilah (aka @kilahmazing), Avori Henderson and Katherine Pa, better known by her username @katliente—have each shared TikTok videos connecting their struggles with acne to gaming terms or concepts, and the partnerships will later extend to Differin-sponsored streams on their Twitch channels. Differin is also leaning heavily into Twitch itself via brand takeovers on the platform’s homepage, video ads during streams and a “Differin Arcade” pop-up at the upcoming TwitchCon event in September.
Lancôme and Hannah Berner, Paige DeSorbo and more: Lancôme leveraged a similar strategy to CeraVe’s acclaimed “Michael CeraVe” campaign for its latest influencer push, partnering with a slew of influencers and assigning them different roles in an overarching narrative. In Lancôme’s case, the L’Oréal-owned brand centered its new campaign on a staged conversation between Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, co-hosts of the “Giggly Squad” podcast, in an Ulta Beauty store.
The two appeared in the background of a Lancôme-sponsored video from two beauty creators—Alexis Androulakis and Christina Basias, aka “the Lipstick Lesbians”—and then became the subjects of another sponsored video from TikTok lip reader Jackie Gonzalez, who interpreted their “gossip sesh” for her audience. The brand also sponsored Robyn DelMonte, aka “Girlbosstown,” to break down the campaign strategy in another, self-referential video. To complete the manufactured narrative, Berner and DeSorbo shared videos from the partnership of them applying Lancôme products while describing other scenarios where they caused drama, with captions that urged viewers to tune into the next episode of their podcast to learn more about the “Ulta Beauty drama.”
Roblox and Charli XCX: A viral TikTok dance to the song “Apple” from Charli XCX’s album “Brat” has been a core component of the “Brat Summer” craze on TikTok and beyond. Last week, both the “Apple” dance and the characteristic “Brat” shade of green jumped from social media to Roblox through a new partnership with Charli XCX. The collaboration focuses on the popular “Dress to Impress” sub-game within Roblox, bringing several “bratty” clothing items to the dress-up game.
Aritzia and Nara Smith: Smith is back in the influencer marketing headlines following her controversial Marc Jacobs collaboration, this time for a new partnership with fashion retailer Aritzia. The campaign similarly embraces the memes around Smith’s ability to create seemingly anything “from scratch,” including items from Aritzia’s “Sweetfleece” loungewear collection—though Artizia’s ads position Smith as a scientist at the “Aritzia Institue for Soft Science” rather than a home chef.
Snap rolls out ad platform updates: Snap last week announced a slew of updates to its advertising platform, including several improvements to its “Lean Gen suite”; enhancements to two of Snap’s takeover ad products, such as a new ability to run ads in the Story feed in specific states; and access to generative AI-powered creative tools advertisers can use to develop AR lenses, among other new features.
Threads tests new analytics tools: Meta unveiled several new Threads features that are currently being tested. Most notably, select brands and creators can now view post metrics such as the number of views, replies, reposts and quotes, and gain insight into their audience demographics, including age, gender and location. These tools are only available on the web version of Threads for now, but Meta is “exploring them for mobile,” according to a Threads post from Instagram head Adam Mosseri.
TikTok tries to woo new creators: TikTok is offering its current users financial incentives to invite other “eligible” creators not currently on TikTok to join the platform, according to in-app screenshots from Lia Haberman, a social media consultant who teaches social and influencer marketing at UCLA. For every eligible creator (which TikTok defines as those with at least 10,000 YouTube subscribers or 100,000 Instagram followers) a current creator refers to the platform, that creator can choose between a reward of a $100 Amazon gift card or $300 to put toward promoting their TikTok videos.
Day One Agency introduces a new creator offering: Creative agency Day One Agency last week announced the launch of its Creator Studio, a new program that draws on a group of in-house creators to help clients ideate and produce, write and edit social content. The studio’s inaugural class of six up-and-coming creators, who include Danielle Rivera and Sachin Kumar, were selected to help clients reach content niches “where Gen Z is kind of over-indexing and [the agency’s] clients really want to play,” such as comedy, anime, fashion and wellness, Erin Amend, Day One Agency’s senior VP of creators & casting, told Ad Age. The Creator Studio cohort has already begun producing videos for agency clients such as Chipotle.
Fanfix crosses $100 million in creator earnings: Fanfix, a content monetization platform for Gen Z creators, yesterday announced creators on the platform had collectively earned more than $100 million through monthly subscriptions, livestreams and tips from fans, among other revenue streams. The platform anticipates it will pay out another $100 million to the thousands of creators in its community in 2024 alone, with top creators on the platform currently generating upwards of $500,000 per month, according to a press release.
With autumn swiftly approaching, the “Brat Summer” phenomenon is quickly drawing to a close. Social media has already begun swiveling its attention to “Demure Fall,” a trend launched by beauty creator Jools Lebron and her series of TikTok videos describing how to be “very demure” and “very mindful” in various scenarios. Dozens of TikTok users, including @crikeybryan above, have shared videos about how they’re transitioning their wardrobes, home decor and other aspects of their lives to match the new social media season.
Despite the approaching end of “Brat Summer,” Charli XCX is still inking deals left and right with brands such as Laneige and the aforementioned Roblox. Her newest brand collaboration—a photoshoot with underwear and loungewear brand Skims—extended to Threads along with Instagram and TikTok, which are more typically associated with influencer marketing.
