Why Cirque du Soleil is launching its own influencer network

Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group is looking to expand beyond the circus tent with the launch of an internal influencer network to help pair brands with its roster of talent. The company—which owns the Blue Man Group, VStar Entertainment and several other live entertainment properties in addition to Cirque du Soleil—today announced the rollout of the “Cirque du Soleil Artist Influencer Network,” a platform that facilitates partnerships between brands and the 1,500-plus artists currently on Cirque’s talent roster. These “artists” include both on-stage performers as well as behind-the-scenes talents, such as stage technicians, costume designers and other creatives. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Cirque’s influencer network will serve a dual purpose for the company—extending its reach beyond the company’s owned social channels to the collective 35 million followers of its inaugural group of artists; and creating additional opportunities for brands to partner with the entertainment company beyond sponsoring its live shows, Christopher Bower, head of global brand and social at Cirque, told Ad Age. “People love to understand the behind-the-scenes aspect of what we do, but for quite some time, we were really protective of that and we were positioning the show [itself] as our celebrity; as our star,” he said. “But over the last couple of years, with new management, we’ve been able to open people’s eyes to what happens behind the tent, if you will, and see what goes into the creation of our shows and how artists are perfecting their routines on a daily basis.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mizuki Shinagawa (@mizukishina) Having spent five years at creative and influencer marketing agency Fullscreen (which has since been absorbed into Warner Bros. Discovery’s Ad Sales Division), Bower saw “a huge opportunity here for us to lean into our artists” as influencers after joining Cirque last October. Though the outbreak of the pandemic had already spurred the company to develop a team focused on helping artists create social media content that Cirque would then share to its own social channels, Bower sought to elevate that system into a formalized influencer network, he said. Cirque has witnessed “tremendous social growth” following the launch of that team, which internally is referred to as the “artist-generated content team,” Bower said, adding that the company has since amassed a collective 14 million followers across its social accounts. The artist influencer network will function similarly to a typical influencer marketing agency, matching brand partners to Cirque’s artist roster based on factors such as the size of the artist’s following, the makeup of their audience and the niche their content falls into, Bower said. Though artists will effectively be representing Cirque in addition to the brand partner sponsoring their social content, Bower and his team will still prioritize allowing the artists to “take the creative brief and put their own spin on it, to some extent,” he said. “First and foremost, it's about delivering what the brand partner needs, but it needs to be done through the voice and the vision and the creativity of our artists,” Bower said. “For some of our artists, the ability to partner with brands doesn’t come along very often. But now we can bring that capability to our artists and help them to grow.” Beyond serving as a matchmaker between brands and artists, Cirque’s influencer network will also offer education and training opportunities to the company’s artists, he said. The company will invite its platform partners and external influencers to teach the artists skills such as how to engage with fans on social media and how to navigate the algorithms of different social platforms, giving the program an added layer of “professional growth for [Cirque’s] employees,” he said. The artists will also be compensated for these brand partnerships on top of their salaries, Bower said. “We’re certainly recognizing that they've built these social followings and are engaging with their fans, and if we're bringing brand partners in to create content with those artists, those artists have to be paid. That’s important.” Some of the network’s artists include Sophia Singleton-Scott, a trampolinist with nearly 9,500 Instagram followers, and extreme ice skater Johanny Velasquez, who has 14,000 followers on Instagram. Both artists said in an email that they're excited by the influencer network’s potential to help them grow their social media followings and reach new audiences beyond Cirque's shows. “Connecting and inspiring is everything in this industry,” Velasquez said in the email. “Now, we get to take it to the next level–from performing in front of thousands to performing in front of millions!” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sophia Singleton (@sophiasingleton) Though Cirque is headquartered in Canada, the company’s artists hail from 85 different countries and its dozens of shows are typically scattered across the globe at any given time, Bower said. For brands, the influencer network will allow them to either reach that global audience or hone in on a specific country or city—for example, Cirque is currently in talks with brands based in Spain about how they can partner with artists ahead of the upcoming tour of its “Alegría” show in the country, he said. Cirque counts brands such as Mastercard, Air Canada, MGM Resorts International (and newly, Liquid Death) among its current partners for the company’s live shows, and it will look to extend these partnerships to its influencer network while also courting new brands to sponsor its artists’ social content, Bower said. “The live entertainment part is always going to be core to who we are,” he said. “But now, it’s also about ‘How do we build a number of other things around that to round out that experience for our brand partners?’”

Why Cirque du Soleil is launching its own influencer network

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