Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime giveaway, Sweetgreen’s Atlanta-exclusive collab and Xbox’s Times Square BTS concert 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].
Xbox and BTS’ Jung Kook: Tickets to see the wildly popular K-pop group BTS can be hard to come by. So, last Thursday, Xbox helped some of the boy band’s diehard fans see one of their favorite artists perform—for free. The Microsoft-owned gaming brand teamed up with Jeon Jung-kook, also known as Jung Kook, to organize a surprise performance in Times Square, which Xbox also livestreamed on its Twitch account. The partnership also included a giveaway for a BTS-branded Xbox console and controller.
Sweetgreen and Teyana Taylor: Sweetgreen, meanwhile, narrowed the scope of its latest influencer partnership to focus on a single city. The restaurant chain teamed up with actress and singer Teyana Taylor on an extremely limited-edition “Teyana Taylor Plate,” which was sold exclusively in Sweetgreen’s Atlanta locations from last Thursday through Sunday.
UGG and Telfar: The footwear brand last week launched a collection in partnership with luxury fashion brand Telfar, and turned to a fleet of creators, including rappers Yung Miami and Lil’ Kim and actors Morris Chestnut and Mickey Rourke, to promote it. UGG highlighted the new line of boots, slippers and purses with a glossy photoshoot featuring these creator partners.
Rewind: Telfar has clear messaging and an inclusive social strategy
For UGG, the creator-centric campaign is just the latest in a recent slew of partnerships that have included Cardi B and Offset and Seth Rogen; it builds on UGG’s previous collaboration with Telfar in September 2020.
Instagram spotlights creators: In a bid to strengthen its relationship with its creator community, Instagram last week unveiled a new “Creators of Tomorrow” initiative, which will annually recognize creators for their “impact and cultural contributions” on the platform. Some of the 20 creators on the inaugural list include comedy creator Antonio Baldwin, also known as TonyTalks; actress Savanah Moss; and food critic Keith Lee—who all, ironically, have larger followings on TikTok than on Instagram.
YouTube gives creators ‘for you’ pages: After having launched its TikTok clone, YouTube Shorts, back in 2020, YouTube is taking another page out of the rival platform’s book. Starting Nov. 20, YouTube will introduce a “for you” section to the top of creators’ channels that will serve up a mix of content based on other videos the viewer has watched. Creators will be able to choose whether that “for you” content consists of Shorts, long-form videos or livestreams, and can also opt out of the feature entirely, according to a YouTube blog post.
Platforms test a new child safety initiative: A group of social platform companies, including Discord, Snap, Meta and Twitch, have teamed up with the Tech Coalition on an initiative to bolster child safety policies online. The new program, called Lantern, is designed to prevent and detect child sexual exploitation that spans across multiple platforms. Google and Roblox are also participating in the initial phase of the program.
Prime holds an international $1 billion giveaway: To celebrate the sale of their 1 billionth bottle of Prime, brand co-founders Logan Paul and KSI launched a Willy Wonka-esque contest that gave fans a chance to win a chunk of solid gold in the shape of the brand’s sports drink bottle. The duo locked two golden bottles, each worth $500,000, in boxes in New York and London, and gave fans 48 hours to correctly guess the codes to unlock those boxes. A young, unnamed boy successfully unlocked the London case, and Paul destroyed the New York gold bottle after no one cracked the code within the 48-hour window.
After TikTok last week announced it will be shutting down its Creator Fund monetization program on Dec. 16 in favor of its newer Creativity Program, a number of creators shared their thoughts on the end of the program. But because Creator Fund payouts had already been dwindling for many creators (and, for most, were never very high in the first place), many weren’t upset by the program’s end—as demonstrated by @Baldnewsnetwork’s satirical eulogy for the Creator Fund, complete with the hashtags #sad and #rip.
Brands are taking to Threads to share their Christmas lists after Smoothie King sparked the trend with the above post last week. Since then, a plethora of brands—from REI to Celsius to Otterbox—have offered up lists of their own sought-after holiday gifts.
More holiday news: Retailer lean into deals in their seasonal ads
