Reneé Rapp's TikTok-inspired Sweetgreen salad bowl, Pinterest's new "Collage" feature and Rolex's partnership with 19-year-old tennis star Coco Gauff 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.
Have tips or news to share about influencer marketing and the creator economy? Email Gillian Follett at [email protected].
Coco Gauff and Rolex: In the weeks leading up to her historic win in the US Open women’s final on Saturday, 19-year-old pro tennis player Coco Gauff secured sponsorships from a number of brands, including New Balance, Barilla, Bose and UPS. But her most notable brand deal—on social media, at least—has been her partnership with Rolex.
The luxury watch designer named Gauff one of its “testimonees” (Rolex’s term for its brand ambassadors) prior to the tournament, and within 24 hours of Gauff’s victory, the tennis star had shared a Rolex-sponsored video to her Instagram that congratulated her on her win and placed her name beneath Rolex’s crown logo. Gauff also donned one of the brand’s watches as she posed with her trophy following the US Open, giving Rolex further exposure when she shared photos from that moment to Instagram.
Ice Spice and Dunkin’: Few artists have skyrocketed so quickly to fame as Isis Naija Gaston, professionally known as Ice Spice, who in roughly a year grew from a TikTok rapper to performing alongside Taylor Swift at Swift's wildly popular “Eras Tour.” Now, that fame is translating to high-profile brand deals, including her newest partnership with Dunkin’. The brand teamed up with Gaston to launch a new Ice Spice Munchkins drink on Tuesday and featured the rapper in a new ad also starring actor (and longtime Dunkin’ ambassador) Ben Affleck, who directed the spot. Dunkin’ views the partnership as a bid to reach Gaston’s largely Gen Z audience, according to Jill McVicar Nelson, the brand’s chief marketing officer.
Read more about the Dunkin’ campaign here
Reneé Rapp and Sweetgreen: Last June, artist and actress Reneé Rapp posted a TikTok of herself sharing her Sweetgreen order with her followers. As of yesterday, Rapp’s fans can now order the same salad bowl at the fast-casual restaurant. Sweetgreen announced the partnership with a photoshoot featuring Rapp dressed in one of the brand’s takeout bags and a receipt for the “Reneé Rapp Bowl.” Rapp took to TikTok to share a video featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the photoshoot interspersed with mentions of Sweetgreen in her past social media posts.
TikTok rolls out its e-commerce platform in the U.S.: TikTok launched its in-app shopping platform, TikTok Shop, on Tuesday, following months of piloting the program with both brands and creators. Through TikTok Shop, brands and merchants can tag products in videos and livestreams on TikTok that users can purchase directly through in-app storefronts; and creators can act as affiliates for these brands by promoting different items in their content and earning a commission on any sales their videos drive. Those commission rates are set by individual brands and merchants and start at 1%, according to a TikTok spokesperson.
Pinterest leans into AI and shoppability: Pinterest unveiled several new content formats and ad tools at its “Pinterest Presents” advertiser summit yesterday. These include a new “Collage” post format that allow users to isolate different items from photos on Pinterest and blend them together into a single scrapbook-like image—and all of these item cutouts will be shoppable. Pinterest has already begun testing this new post format and found Gen Z users engage with these collages at twice the rate of other Pinterest content, according to Sabrina Ellis, the platform’s chief product officer.
Ellis also revealed a new tool called “Pinterest Creative Studio” that enables advertisers to harness generative AI to create Pinterest ads. In the presentation, Pinterest showed the tool being used to add a slew of different backgrounds to a photo of a bottle of sunscreen by inputting a series of prompts. The focus of the new creative studio feature—which is still in early testing stages—is to enable advertisers to create the type of “lifestyle content” that sees higher click-through rates on Pinterest, Ellis said.
Meta expands its WhatsApp Channels feature: Meta yesterday announced the expansion of WhatsApp’s one-to-many messaging feature, WhatsApp Channels, to more than 150 countries after beginning to pilot the feature in June. The company announced it’s currently “welcoming thousands of organizations, sports teams, artists and thought leaders” to leverage Channels, with notable users at this point including MLB, Billboard and pop star Olivia Rodrigo. Channels effectively allow brands, media outlets, celebrities and others to share announcements and messages with channel members, and while those members can’t directly reply, they can engage using emoji reactions. Meta introduced a nearly identical feature on Instagram earlier this year with “Broadcast Channels.”
@ZillowGoneWild gets an HGTV series: The account @ZillowGoneWild has grown an audience of nearly 4 million across Instagram, TikTok and other platforms by sharing photos from home listings on real estate app Zillow, ranging from wacky house layouts and gaudy decor to awe-inspiring mansions. And this week, HGTV announced an upcoming “Zillow Gone Wild” TV series in collaboration with the creator behind the account, Samir Mezrahi, which will premiere in early 2024 and include nine episodes of touring through some of these quirky homes.
Prime releases a LA Dodgers-branded drink: Prime, the drink brand from YouTubers Logan Paul and Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji—better known as KSI—unveiled a limited-edition design for the brand’s Prime Hydration sports drink available only in Dodger Stadium and at “select LA retailers.” The new bottle design is an extension of the brand’s existing partnership with the baseball team as its official sports drink. Paul and Olatunji have aligned their brand with Spanish soccer league FC Barcelona and mixed martial arts organization UFC, among other sports organizations.
The Sidemen hold their annual soccer charity match: Speaking of YouTubers and sports, British YouTuber group the Sidemen (which Olatunji is also a part of) hosted their annual charity soccer event at London Stadium over the weekend. The livestream of this year’s charity match, which featured creators such as MrBeast and xQc, raised more than 2.4 million pounds (or roughly $2.9 million) for various charities and drew over 2.7 million viewers.
Going back to the US Open, the team behind the sporting event’s TikTok account truly understood their audience. Over the course of the tournament, the US Open account posted a number of chaotic, Gen-Z-oriented videos featuring the popular “Vine Boom” sound effect, unpredictable zoom-ins and meme references. The above recap video shows off this “unhinged” editing style, which many TikTok users noted with comments such as, “i love u social media manager” and “WHO IS RUNNING THIS ACCOUNT.”
For anyone looking to share their feedback and recommendations for Threads, now’s your chance. Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared a Threads post on Tuesday encouraging those who use the app “occasionally, but not as frequently as you might” to share their thoughts about Threads. Of the more than 4,300 replies to his post at this point, the most frequent suggestions included requests for the introduction of hashtags to the platform and other features such as trending topics and improved content discovery.
