Creator Economy Live

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In this episode of the Creator Economy Live podcast, Keith Bendes and Brendan Gahan are joined by Moritz Bartsch, Head of Creative Product Strategy and Operations at TikTok, to explore how brands can turn employees, customers, and existing advocates into powerful creator communities.

Moritz takes us behind the scenes of TikTok’s Custom Creator Networks, exploring the launch with Starbucks, the rise of employee-generated content, and how brands can build scalable creator programmes beyond traditional influencer partnerships. The conversation also covers employee compensation, brand advocacy, and what the future creator mix could look like.

Plus, Keith and Brendan unpack the latest creator economy headlines, including LinkedIn’s new creator features, Substack’s expansion into sponsorships, and the Kelly Clarkson mechanical bird controversy, before sharing their Creators and Brands of the Week.

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How do you manage 500 influencer partnerships a year while keeping performance and creativity at the forefront?

This week, Keith and Brendan are joined by Sarah Adam, Head of Partnerships, Social & AI at Wix, to explore how B2B influencer marketing is evolving. From identifying the right creators and measuring ROI to structuring payments and building successful influencer teams, Sarah shares practical insights from over six years at Wix.

Plus, the trio discuss the latest creator economy news, including YouTube's crackdown on clipping, OpenAI's growing creator ambitions, and their picks for Creator and Brand of the Week.

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Lowe’s has been pushing its creator strategy well beyond the traditional sponsored post. This week, Keith sits down with Jonathan Stanley, Head of Social Media and Influencer Marketing at Lowe’s, to unpack how the retailer is building long-term creator relationships, bringing creators into product innovation, and deciding where creators fit alongside sports partnerships, paid social and traditional media.

Jonathan takes us inside the Lowe’s Creator Program and its latest Into the Blue initiative, shares how physical stores are becoming part of the creator strategy, and discusses what could come next as creators move from media partners and sales drivers to having a real influence on the products brands sell.

Plus, Keith breaks down the latest creator economy news, including VidCon’s major overhaul, Meta One’s new subscription tiers, and new data showing shoppers increasingly want creator perspectives incorporated into AI-powered recommendations.

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Keith and Brendan welcome Jason Y. Lee, founder and CEO of Jubilee Media, the company behind viral series including Middle Ground, Surrounded, and Spectrum. What started as a nonprofit focused on human connection has grown into one of YouTube's most recognizable media brands, generating billions of views and nearly 11 million subscribers.

Jason shares the story behind Jubilee's rise, the key moments that fueled its growth, and why the company has succeeded by leaning into conversations most brands would rather avoid. The discussion also explores the blurred lines between creators and media companies, what brands can learn from great long-form content, the power of episodic storytelling, and how to balance provocative content with meaningful conversation.

Elsewhere, Keith and Brendan break down the growing creator presence at the US Open, Sephora's move into TikTok Shop, Amazon joining YouTube's affiliate program, TikTok's expanded comment features, and what the latest developments in Meta's youth safety settlement could mean for the creator economy.

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Keith and Brendan sit down with Pamela Stephens, who's spent over a decade shaping influencer and content strategy at 3M — the $25 billion company behind everyday staples like Post-it, Scotch, Command, and Scotch-Brite. Pamela shares how influencer marketing has evolved inside a massive, multi-brand organization and what it takes to get executives to invest in creator partnerships.

News catchup covers Meta's landmark $12.2 billion youth safety settlement (with new age verification, screen time caps, and curfew rules for under-18 users on Instagram and Facebook), YouTube's shift to counting a view the instant a video starts playing, and the platform's push to lock in top creators with exclusive deals.

Plus this week's Creator of the Week and Brand of the Week picks — including Germany's "Opa Werner," the ongoing Bricks & Minifigs LEGO drama, and a trio of brands (Lovesac, Callaway/Good Good Golf, and Neutrogena) that all learned the hard way what happens when you lose control of the narrative around your marketing.

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Keith and Brendan celebrate the 100th episode of the Creator Economy Live Podcast, looking back at some of the standout moments and conversations from the past 100 episodes.

They reflect on how the creator economy has evolved along the way - from changing brand-creator relationships and the professionalisation of influencer marketing to the trends shaping where the industry goes next.

The conversation also dives into how CPG brands are structuring their influencer teams, the rise of employee-generated content, and what both tell us about the next phase of the creator economy.

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Live from CEL East in New York, Keith and Brendan sit down with Sam Friedman, the NFL's Senior Director of Global Social & Creator Strategy, to unpack how the league builds its creator ecosystem — from player social support to platform partnerships and of course a nod to the Taylor Swift strategy. Sam breaks down last season's global activations, how creators complement broadcasts World Cup-style, and what's ahead for a record nine international games including Australia, Paris, and Rio.

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Keith and Brendan welcome Michael Kaye, global brand comms lead at Match Group, for a wide-ranging talk on dating apps and creator culture.

News catchup covers C3/Live Nation's new creator festival For You Fest (a TanaCon callback), Google Search Console's new "platform properties" tracking, and creators dominating World Cup coverage.

Guest discussion dives into Kaye's path into comms, how Match Group brands build creator partnerships, AI's impact on storytelling, and where brand comms is headed — plus some Taylor Swift wedding hot takes.

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Keith and Brendan fly solo this week for a no-guest catch-up. First: the Cannes debrief — fashion on the Riviera, celebrity sightings, and which announcements actually mattered vs. yacht-money cosplay. Then into industry news: TikTok's new Custom Creator Networks, Lowe's opening creator pitch applications and the DoorDash/T-Pain mixup gone viral.

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This episode was recorded Live at Cannes Lions where Keith and Brendan sat down with Davang Shah, VP of Marketing at LinkedIn, for a conversation on what it means that B2B finally has a seat at the world's biggest marketing festival. Davang - who cut his teeth at P&G, Ford, and Google before landing at LinkedIn - breaks down what changed internally that made LinkedIn go all-in on creators, and how the platform plans to protect the trust that built its audience in the first place. They also get into budget, buying behaviors, and Davang makes a bet on what's coming next in the creator space over the next 18 months.

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This week on Creator Economy Live, Keith Bendes and Brendan Gahan are joined by Jason Feifer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine, author of Build for Tomorrow, and one of the voices operating at the intersection of legacy media, the creator economy, and hands-on entrepreneurship.

In this episode, Jason gets into whether the creator/media exec/entrepreneur label even matters anymore, where legacy media still has a genuine edge over individual creators, and what separates the personal brands that last from the ones that burn out fast.

The conversation also covers time management when you're doing everything at once, and why the shifts in the creator economy that everyone's panicking about might actually be good news.

Plus the week's news: LinkedIn's creator marketplace, Instagram finally letting users reorder their grid, Google's new Search Profiles for creators, and the UK's planned social media ban for under-16s.

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How does a sponge become one of the most loved brands on social media? Brianna McDevitt, Influencer Marketing Lead at Scrub Daddy, joins Creator Economy Live to share how the brand's creator strategy has evolved over her three years there, why betting on up and coming creators before they get expensive pays off, and how one creator went from partner to actual product collaborator. Keith and Brendan also dig into the latest creator economy news, from Meta's new Forum app to YouTube's top fans feature and Roku's new creator hub.

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What does influencer marketing look like inside one of the fastest growing tech brands in the world? Kailyn Nunn, Head of Influencer Marketing at Canva, joins Creator Economy Live to share how the strategy has evolved across 5.5 years of hypergrowth, what brands are consistently getting wrong with creator investments, and the campaigns she is most proud of. Keith and Brendan also dig into the latest creator economy news, from Sponsored Snaps and private chat advertising to YouTube's creator-led upfronts slate.

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What makes a branded creator partnership actually resonate online? Patrick Benson, Social & Influencer Lead at P.F. Chang’s, joins Creator Economy Live to break down the thinking behind one of the brand’s recent standout TikTok collaborations. The conversation covers creator trust, trend-driven content, campaign planning, and the evolving role of influencer marketing inside major brands. Keith and Brendan also dive into the latest creator economy news — from Vine’s unexpected comeback to the explosion of full-time creators in the U.S.

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This week Keith and Brendan sit down with Dari Cohen, VP of Global Philanthropy at RevitaLash Cosmetics — a brand that has quietly donated $10 million to breast cancer research, stayed fiercely independent in a category where everything gets bought up, and built a creator strategy rooted in something most brands skip entirely: genuine purpose. Plus the week's news, including a $44 billion creator spend projection, YouTube quietly letting users kill Shorts, and two creators who built an Olive Garden compass and somehow got both a viral moment and a cease and desist out of it.

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B2B influencer marketing is entering a new era—and Fiona Turko is right at the center of it. Now leading Creator Partnerships at Gamma after her standout work at Zapier, Fiona joins us to break down how B2B is borrowing from the B2C playbook, why now is the inflection point, and what brands are getting right (and wrong).

We also dig into Zapier’s Outpost event, what she’s building at Gamma, and the creators and companies pushing the space forward. Plus, we cover the latest headlines—from platform accountability and AI creator tools to major brand launches and shifting monetisation strategies.

If you’re thinking about the future of influencer marketing beyond B2C, this one’s worth your time.

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In Episode 89 of Creator Economy Live, we sit down with one of the sharpest voices in modern branding and social strategy—Camille Moore, creator of The Art of the Brand.

Camille has built a loyal following by breaking down complex marketing ideas into clear, actionable insights—and in this episode, she shares how she went from getting started to becoming a go-to resource for marketers navigating TikTok and Instagram.

We dig into:

• Camille’s journey into content creation and podcasting
• The moment she knew her content was taking off
• Why some of today’s most common marketing advice is completely overrated
• The biggest misconceptions about the creator economy
• Her process for consistently creating high-impact content
• And the one piece of content she’d keep if everything else disappeared

Plus, we cover the latest headlines shaping the space—from YouTube’s AI-powered creator tools and TikTok’s newest ad formats to Meta’s push to win back creators—and wrap with our Creator and Brand of the Week.

If you're trying to sharpen your brand strategy or make sense of where social is headed next, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.

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In Episode 88 of Creator Economy Live, Keith sits down with Parker Butler—former Director of Digital Rapid Response for Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign and now Managing Partner at Luminary Strategies, a Gen Z-led agency born out of the viral Kamala HQ movement.

We dive into how political campaigns are leveraging creators, real-time content, and rapid-response social strategies to drive cultural relevance at scale—and what brands can learn from it. Parker shares behind-the-scenes insights from the Biden and Harris campaigns, key lessons from the 2024 election cycle, and why being reactive isn’t just possible for big organizations—it’s essential.

Plus, we break down the latest industry news, from Instagram testing links in captions to TikTok’s move into radio, and highlight the creators and brands shaping culture right now.

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We’re going “across the pond” for a special Manchester edition of Creator Economy Live, joined by Beatrice Mustocea, Creator & Public Figures Lead at TikTok UK.

With a career spanning Google, LinkedIn, and now TikTok, Beatrice breaks down how creator partnerships have evolved—and what it really takes to turn online influence into real-world impact. From building TikTok’s film and TV creator programme to working with studios and entertainment brands, she shares how the next generation of tastemakers is being shaped.

We also dive into the latest headlines—from Indonesia’s under-16 social media ban to new commerce-driven ad formats on X—and spotlight standout creators and brands making waves right now.

Plus:
🔥 What separates breakout creators from those who plateau
🎥 How entertainment brands are rethinking creator collaborations
📈 Overlooked growth opportunities on TikTok today

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Creator Economy Live is going global 🌍 — and in Episode 85, we’re crossing the pond to the UK ahead of our upcoming trip to Manchester.

Keith and Brendan sit down with Naomi Horan, marketing leader at Cloud Nine, the premium hair styling brand that’s built a powerful presence across retail, social, and the professional beauty community. Naomi shares how the brand approaches influencer partnerships, builds authentic creator relationships, and balances campaigns with long-term community.

In this episode, we cover:
✨ What makes Cloud Nine stand out in the competitive beauty space
✨ How brands should think about gifting vs paid partnerships
✨ The value of long-term creator ambassadors vs one-off campaigns
✨ Differences in creator performance across the UK, Europe, and Australia
✨ Where beauty influencer marketing is heading in 2026

Plus, Keith and Brendan break down the latest creator economy headlines and wrap up with Creator of the Week, Brand of the Week, and Follow picks. 🎙️

If you work in beauty, DTC, or creator-led marketing, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.