Rare Beauty’s mental health fundraising event, Snapchat's new creator-focused mystery series and Meta’s launch of celebrity lookalike AI influencers 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].
Snapchat, Tony Talks, Sofie Dossi and Ezee: Just in time for spooky season, Snapchat debuted an interactive mystery series called “Phantom House” starring three of the platform’s top creators—Tony Talks, whose real name is Antonio Baldwin; Sofie Dossi; and Yanyan De Jesus, aka Ezee. Snapchat users are able to participate in the weekly series—the first episode of which premiered Sunday—by helping the trio of creators search for clues and solve puzzles. Snapchat will also host a “Phantom House” activation sponsored by Disney+ and Maybelline at Advertising Week New York.
Maybelline New York, Paramount and Isabel Clancy: Maybelline isn’t only focusing on the mystery genre this month. On Friday, the makeup brand premiered the finale of its TikTok series “My SuperStay 16,” a play on MTV’s reality TV series “My Super Sweet 16,” which documented teenagers planning their over-the-top 16th birthday parties. The parody series starred creator Isabel Clancy as “Amberly” and conspicuously wove Maybelline products throughout its episodes. Paramount, which owns MTV, also participated in creating the series.
Maybelline’s series reflects a larger trend of brands creating reality TV parodies on TikTok, such as Neutrogena’s “Hydro House” and NYX Cosmetics’ “Blind to Brows.”
Ford and Full Squad Gaming: Ford Motor Company is continuing to lean into the gaming and esports space via a new partnership with Full Squad Gaming, a group of gaming creators under the umbrella of professional esports organization NRG. The automaker built the “Ford Gamer Van” for the creators to use for a road trip from Los Angeles to TwitchCon in Las Vegas next week. Each of the four stops on the trip will include a “gaming challenge,” and Ford plans to share content from the creators’ journey to its Instagram account.
Meta unveils its Kendall Jenner chatbot: After announcing it would be creating several AI-powered chatbots modeled after celebrities such as Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg, Meta has unveiled a video showcasing its AI character Billie, who looks eerily similar to Kendall Jenner. The Instagram account for the bot currently has over 100,000 followers. Creator Jules Terpak yesterday shared a TikTok video documenting her conversation with Billie and pointing out that Billie’s account features several “influencer-like” photos also generated by AI.
More: Meta’s new AI chatbots spark brand interest and caution
TikTok launches a “Direct Post” feature: TikTok on Tuesday rolled out “Direct Post,” a new tool allowing users to upload video content to their TikTok accounts via third-party platforms using an API. The platforms TikTok is initially partnering with include its sister app CapCut, Adobe and Twitch.
Instagram courts Gen Z with a slate of new features: Instagram announced four new features at its “Instagram University” event in New York on Friday, which the platform’s VP and co-head of product Ashley Yuki said are designed to appeal to Gen Z users seeking more authentic content on Instagram. These include a new tool allowing users to attach a voice recording or brief video to their Notes posts, as well as the ability for users to create different close-friend groups that they can choose to share content with, rather than having all of their followers view all of their posts.
Cole Hauser launches cowboy-inspired coffee brand: Hauser, an actor who plays Rip Wheeler on Paramount’s neo-Western series “Yellowstone,” launched “Free Rein Coffee Company” yesterday. The launch of the brand—which is positioned as inspired by “the hard-working cowboys that [Hauser] grew up around on and off set” and “the untamed Western landscape”—comes as the SAG-AFTRA strike enters its third month and continues to keep many actors out of work.
Rare Beauty—one of the most popular makeup brands among Gen Z—last week held an event to support the Rare Impact Fund, the brand’s fundraising arm for mental health initiatives. More than 350 guests attended the event, including beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira, who took her followers behind the scenes of the fundraising event in a TikTok video. The event included an auction; speeches from the brand’s founder Selena Gomez and her “Only Murders in the Building” co-star Martin Short; and performances from R&B singer H.E.R. and DJ Marshmello.
Recent Datacenter news: Selena Gomez, master marketer
Threads appears to be leaning into its reputation as a “less toxic” alternative to rival platform X, formerly Twitter, by actively discouraging users from posting harmful content that could violate the platform’s community guidelines. Social media consultant Matt Navarra yesterday shared two images of pop-up messages from Threads urging users to “[keep] Threads a supportive place” and “rethink posting things that contain content similar to others that have been reported” before uploading a post. As Navarra captioned the post, “Threads doesn’t want to become [T]witter,” which this week has been battling an influx of misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war.
