DoorDash’s social media Super Bowl campaign, Dunkin’s reunion with Charli D'Amelio and how TikTok creators are coping with the removal of Taylor Swift’s music from the platform 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].
Dunkin’, Charli D’Amelio and Ben Affleck: Ben Affleck has firmly rooted himself in internet culture through several meme-able images of the actor precariously balancing stacks of Dunkin’ coffees and doughnuts or just generally looking miserable. But in his newest partnership with Dunkin’, Affleck is looking to achieve a greater level of online fame as a pop star and influencer with the help of TikTok star Charli D’Amelio. In a TV spot that aired during the Grammy Awards on Sunday, Affleck says, “I can do that” after D’Amelio shows off some choreography for him, and later asks the influencer, “Who is TikTok?”
Dunkin’ later uploaded scenes from the ad that weren’t included in the Grammy TV spot to social media, including one in which D’Amelio refers to Affleck as “Jennifer Lopez’s husband” and another where Affleck tells her he’s “kind of an influencer [himself].” Though Dunkin’ has declined to reveal whether it will tie into a Super Bowl TV spot, the Grammy ad teases a sequel with text reading, “to be continued.”
Pepsi, Khaby Lame and Zach King: As part of PepsiCo’s extensive Super Bowl plans—which include TV spots for Starry and Mtn Dew—the food and beverage giant is teaming up with massively popular TikTok creators Zach King and Khaby Lame for a social media push leading up to the Big Game. King shared a video last week that used his digital editing skills to drink Pepsi Wild Cherry out of the Las Vegas Sphere and conjure a can of soda out of the massive structure. And Pepsi is sending Lame, who starred in State Farm’s Super Bowl campaign last year, to Las Vegas to share video content in the days leading up to the game.
DoorDash and Lonnie IIV: Sticking with the Super Bowl, DoorDash is tapping comedy creator Lonnie Marts, aka Lonnie IIV, as its social media “Dashspondent” throughout the Big Game. Marts, the son of the former NFL player of the same name, will “report on the entire experience” of DoorDash’s campaign to deliver products featured across all of the other TV spots airing during the Super Bowl to one lucky consumer, according to a press release.
Threads’ userbase hits an all-time high: In Meta’s quarterly conference call last week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads, the company’s clone of X (formerly Twitter), currently has “more people actively using it today than it did during its initial launch,” or roughly 130 million monthly active users. That’s an increase of 30 million over the 100 million monthly active Threads users Zuckerberg reported last quarter. Meta will continue introducing additional features to the platform and “scaling the community” throughout 2024, he added.
See also: Threads hits 130 million-plus users
TikTok loses Universal Music Group songs and encourages horizontal videos: Universal Music Group officially removed music from Taylor Swift, Adele, Bad Bunny, Drake and all other artists it represents from TikTok last week, driving some creators to share their own covers of songs from UMG’s catalog or come up with choreography for royalty-free music. At the same time, TikTok has also begun incentivizing creators to swap the platform’s characteristic vertical, short-form videos for horizontal videos that are over a minute long, promising creators “boosted views” on that landscape-mode content.
Cooking and lifestyle creator Emily Mariko first got on the internet’s radar when her salmon rice bowl recipe went viral back in 2021. Now, she’s back in the spotlight—this time, for the controversial $120 price tag on the new tote bags she’s selling. The comment sections of her TikTok videos promoting the bags are flooded with people calling the plain-looking totes “overpriced” and comparing them to cheaper alternatives from brands such as L.L. Bean and Williams-Sonoma. Despite the backlash, though, the totes have since sold out.
After Swift revealed during one of her acceptance speeches at the Grammy Awards that she would be releasing a new album, brands such as Duolingo quickly jumped at the chance to recreate the cover of the upcoming album using their mascots or products.
Read more: Brands enter their ‘Tortured Poets Department’ era
