Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Today's episode is a warm up for the can Lion Festival, which is all about brands, brands, brands, and of course schmoos, schmooz, schmootz. It unfolds from June sixteenth to June twentieth by the Seaside in can France. Variety will be there in force.
I'm going to try to squeeze out some bonus Strictly Business episodes from all of the gab fests that Variety is facilitating. To set the table. Here, we have a discussion about the state of brand deal making for influencers and social media creators. These are the hottest properties in marketing and advertising right now, ask any CMO. The first conversation is with Angelie Hernandez and Jirell Thompson of advertising
giant Havas. The two discuss their innovative Havas Play venture that connects brands with online gaming communities and social media creators its next level audience targeting. Hernandez is VP and Portfolio lead for Havas Play. Thompson is VP of Gaming for Havas Play. This interview was recorded on stage at Variety's Entertainment Marketing Summit in Hollywood in April. The havas Play pair are followed by a conversation with talent manager
shab Ozma. Ozma is CEO and founder of Art Collective, a talent management firm that specializes in experts who build social media businesses rooted in their skills. She gives us the talents I view of where the heat is in the marketplace for creators. So stick around. That's all coming up after this break, and we're back with a conversation with havas Play executives Angelie Hernandez and Jirell Thompson.
Let's start with sort of the thirty thousand foot view and talk about what Hobbs Play is and what specifically in the area of marketing and branding and fan connections really where you plug in uniquely, because an, it's a very interesting story and you're really starting to come out and talk about it now.
So yeah, for sure. So we are a specialized vision of Havas Media Network, and we really live and breathe and focus on building brand consumer experiences at the intersection of entertainment culture and connecting the brand to that audio or whoever we're trying to speak to in a way that's incredibly authentic h and also in a way that the brand has the equity to even play in that space.
Pun intended.
So, and we really.
Really truly embody authenticity and really drive home to all our brands and our clients that that is that is key, and you really have to you have to have the equity to play in that space, in that intersection of culture and have something to say and contribute to that to that space.
And obviously, I know a big part of how of us play is really understanding and having you know, a mainstream the world's marketer understand that if you want to reach gen Z, you better know gaming. Like it's just those two things are are those those lines are absolutely you know crossing now and you just and it. And it's a hard thing for pet people that are in traditional Hollywood, traditional TV and film. It's a hard thing
to kind of really wrap your head around. But Jarelle, I know you've spent a lot of time in this community and especially especially that gen Z and what's coming after Just how can you talk about just what you found that is so important to reach people through that combination of gaming and social media creators that you are really focused on.
Yeah, and when we think of again like showing up meaningful and making sure that brands are connected to audiences in ways that make sense to the community. When we think of gen Z one gen Z, when we think of like their behaviors and gaming, it's a major part
of their day. When we think of like their entire like media consumption, gaming is a big part of them, but aside from just playing video games, it's all about the media, Like when we look at the last of us, like gaming is taking over different aspects of pop culture. So we think of how do you talk to gen Z?
Part of that is really understanding how are you talking to them through gaming as a medium, and how are you talking to them in not only a meaningful way, but in a way that provides tangible value and in a way that's authentic.
Are you focused on like in game placements activity, so when people are actually actively playing or esports where people are watching other that kind of gaming, where's the real focus for you? In terms of that brand connection that you're talking about.
No, that's actually a great question, and I think a misconception today is that like gaming, the whole gaming ecosystem is just the gameplay. There's people watching Twitch creators. When you look at the likes of like a Kai Sinot, like he's transcended the likes of just playing video games on Twitch, but he's a celebrity you see is show speed is showing up in China.
He's like an ambassador for them.
There's ways that you can align with content, like you can partner with the likes of like an ign or like different sites. There's also in game and game is also really big. You see, there's a major partnership between Disney and Epic Games. They're going to see Disney IP and Disney characters in Fortnite for the foreseeable future as they try and turn that into the Disney Digital Parks of the future.
So in terms by Disney is a very big push. Can I ask you, is there a premium over watching any sports or watching something on Twitch if you can reach somebody while they're engaged in gameplay.
Yeah, in game is actually a very compelling space to reach gamers, and I think that's why you see a lot of brands really tapping into and really leaning into the space and creating these custom environments and with the likes of like a Fortnite, a Roadblocks or a Minecraft.
To reach them.
And on that note too, I had mentioned about how we are also really focused on ensuring that our brands have the equity to play in that space.
And so for from an indus game stick out like a sore thumb r.
So from an in game perspective, as a brand, you have to be incredibly cautious that you're not interrupting their experience, interrupting their game or even I mean, you can show up as a brand, you have no equity to be there, and the gamers like why why are they here? And then that in and itself interrupts they're gaming like their their play. Uh, and so the gamers already turned off by it.
Right, not the kind of brand association exactly. How do social media creators kind of plug into this, because as I understand, they can almost become ambassadors for games that and communities that then create their own little mini ecosystems.
Yeah, I'll take from a from a really macro perspective, I think Drel mentioned this before. You have gaming creators now that you know they don't do They don't just play, right, It's not that people are going to them to watch their twitch streams.
Now.
Their twitch streams are inclusive of so many other interests. Again a game. We've been saying this for years. Gamers aren't a monolith, right. They just don't play games like they love music. They're at that center of fashion and music and other trends. And so you have these followers, and they've created this fandom that their followers look to
them for all of their content. You have celebrities coming into their streams like Kevin Hart that just you know, sit in the house all day and it's hours and hours of content that are compelling because they have galvanized this community around them that want to follow them and want to pay attention.
I got to believe though, in all of this, there are brand safety issues. How do you knew that you knew that question was coming. How do you weigh who to partner with? Do you do you sometimes have to take flyers and then just monitor how things are going.
Yeah, I think a lot of that has to do with wet have os play. We have a really in depth process where we vet through creators. We have a lot of systems in place where you like, do a lot of digging. We make sure that we're connecting the
right brand to the right creators. How we're doing our due diligence, sit ensure that like brand safe or if they're they're relevant for the brand, because honestly, there are some you know, some brands might make sense for certain creators who maybe a little bit edgy, might be a little bit rescuae, but for some they're like for financial brands that we work with, we need to make sure that like we honestly match with everyone who is the most brand safe and you know, makes sense and it's
for the right audience.
Yeah, and obviously anything can happen. Creators are their own sort of boss, right.
You have to warn your clients. Okay, sometimes you might have to take a deeper.
Yes, Oh, the education always has to happen at the beginning, at the middle, at the end. It's constant education. But you know it's we hold hands and we get through it together. But a lot of that process that we sort of employ upfront minimizes that. But again, you always have to be prepared anything can happen from a macro perspective in culture and anything that incentivized as a creator just to say something, say they're POV that may not align with brand, and so you know, you take care of it.
In that regard to and to Angie's point, I think we're at a more mature phase in the creator economy. I think again in this in twenty twenty five, a lot of creators understand the importance of them being brand safe entities to help represent these brands. And not only are they just creators, They're not just me the streamer.
They're representing the brands like on behalf of them as a business partner, and there's a certain level of decorum and a certain way that they need to carry themselves that is important for not only them, but also for the clients that they represent.
Do you have a, for instance, for me, of a brand that really had an effective, an effective placement or an effective partnership that moved the needle for them all the way down to selling whatever goods or services they were trying to market.
We had a very interesting one.
This is for major tire company in partnership with a major film studio, bloom Drive right, Yeah, So we were promoting a film so think Fast and the Furious, but less emphasis on family and more connected to a really popular video game. Yeah, and they were up against head winds from Barbenheimer basically, and they were very nervous about galvanizing the gamer community to come and check out the movie again considering all of the different, you know, challenges
they were up against. So they what they tasked us with was coming up with a really immersive plan tapping into basically the star of the film to do content to really reach out to gamers and really talk to them and get them excited, and to type them up about the film.
And honestly, like it.
Was such a huge success in getting the gaming the gamers excited. We had people on streams Twitch saying I saw the movie two and three times and it resulted in twelve years time spent with all of the video content that we did. And you think like a decade worth of time spent watching the videos and we only did about six videos.
So you must have loved that report sending in that report here we gave you with plage. But given that so much of this activity, if not almost every bit of it, is digital, you can really track right down. You can probably track the activity right down to did they go into the showroom and buy the truck or by the tires or it's got to be really enlightening and really fascinating.
Yeah, there was a lot of back end measurement that we had that allowed us to see like where like some of the regions that you know, we're viewing the content the most. And I think as we went on throughout the campaign, we started to learn and we started to iterate, and it allowed us to tailor the content more so that we were garnering more engagement and becoming smarter towards the end of it.
What was the time I'm framed for this was this? Was this play out over weeks? Over months?
Yeah, it was eight weeks. That's a lot.
One thing I know as we're wrapping up here, I know very important to use women, both women gaming women creators and and just in the last couple of months, I've been to conferences and events and seeing that like social media has become a entrepreneurial engine for women and women that would not you wouldn't think might not be in a position to launch a company, but so many things are coming out of kitchens and living rooms and garages,
and it's just it's just fascinating. What are you finding is about brands that want to reach young women And how is this Like how is this boon that social media has created for people to do direct to consumer marketing? Like how how has that changed the game for big brands that want to reach those people.
Yeah, actually we were talking about this the other day. Now, creators more than ever, have a lot of power. They have a lot of buying power within their followers, right, you can gavanize their followers to purchase.
But they also have a lot.
More control over their careers. They have a lot more control over where they even make money. Right, and they don't necessarily have to have a brand partnership, right, they can make money on their own. There are all these
platforms now that allow them to do that. You also have companies, whether they're brands or even social platforms that turn to them because now not only are they experts in their what their audience likes to see and hear and talk about, they're also experts on the platform themselves. Like the creators know how to use TikTok and Instagram, they know the algorithm, they know they're tapped into their content so so much that they understand what's going to
move the needle. And so now it's almost like their resume is gigantic, right, And so that gives them the power to say, you know what, your brand doesn't align with my values. Your brand doesn't probably speak to my audience, and so they have a lot more power to sort.
Of say no, not sort of say no.
And so it's something to contend with, but nothing that that is a detriment. I think it actually it benefits us, It benefits brands because then you really know that once you pick a creator and that creator picks you back, that's probably going to be the start of a beautiful relationship that we would want to continue, right, It's not a flash in the pan.
We always want brands.
To continue that relationship with the creators that they choose.
All little mini marketers on their own by definition of what they do. Here in our waning seconds, what are you excited about, whether something in gaming or a functionality or a capability coming to havos play, what's exciting?
We're super excited about our gaming capabilities.
I think, as Ang alluded to earlier, again, what we
pride ourselves on and haas is about being meaningful. And I made a comment earlier this month about like, there's so many entryways for brands and clients to enter into gaming, and you need a spirit guide to help you find you know where those appropriate entry points are and to match you with some of the appropriate tactics so that you're showing up authentically, you're providing tangible value because gamers are a very discerning audience and they smell bullshit from
a mile away, So you need someone who is an expert, who is also very immersed and well versed in the community to help guide these clients and to help match them with you know, what are the right opportunities and where the right points where we can like match you with your business goals and also show up cool and relevant brand.
Thank you both for being here and sharing all this.
Thank you so much, guys.
Thank you.
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with shab Ozma of Art Collective after this break. And we're back now we'll hear from our second guest. Shab Ozma is founder and CEO of Art Collective. She has a diverse background in talent management, unscripted TV production and brand management. All of those skills come together in her role leading the company that is part talent agency and part content development hub. For the long list of social media creators and expert
influencers on her roster. Here she talks about how deals get done, how creators weigh brand opportunities, and why some social media superstars are turning down offers for traditional TV. Shab Ozma, CEO and founder of ARC Collective, a talent management and entertainment company, Thanks so much for joining me.
Thank you so much for having me.
The entertainment industry becomes even more and more interested and intertwined with the incredible metastasizing world of influencers and social media creators, people who are really making a living on non traditional media channels. It's one of the biggest things that is growing and in influencing the entertainment space, and it is certainly capturing attention in Hollywood at a time when everybody is looking at alternative ways to reach audience,
you know, less costly ways to produce content. There's just a lot of trends that are converging. Where are you seeing the opportunities for not only revenue generating opportunities, but image burnishing and career burnishing opportunities.
Yeah, so we really are focused a lot right now on ownership. You know, there's a time and a place for traditional television, but that is breaking, it's gridlocked, and digital natives are creating content that is just as well produced as we know, as we've seen on television, and they can take bigger swings podcasts for example, and other longer form content or blurring the lines between what is
digital media and what is fit for TV. And we have been really supporting our clients in owning what they're creating because in traditional media that just isn't possible. When you're on unscripted talent like moletum my clients, they're on networks that own the shows that they're creating and all the merchandising that goes along with that. When you're creating content on a digital platform, you get to own that
content and monetize it in many different ways. And that's why not every influencer is really looking to be in traditional entertainment traditional TV that going that route because they understand the power that they hold within their creator community. And so for us, we're really nurturing that in many ways, we really have found there's a flywheel that our talent
and sort of isn't the nucleus. The nucleus of this flywheel, which is podcasts and streaming, end courses and live events, publishing, consumer products, all the things that they get to retain ownership in because it's their content and they own the content.
Let me ask you of a hypothetical. You have a client that is really making waves in a particular space, a sector, genre, and you know that call comes in for a television deal with a you know, with a for an amount, an upfront amount that you that your client may have never seen that much money before. How does that conversation go when you're trying to decide what's best for the long term and the ownership and all the things you just mentioned.
And we get those all the time and at the end of the day, but it's not taking away from what they currently have own and have built. Then they're happy to be I mean, we have clients who would love to be on the on the major networks, cable networks, Netflix, streaming platforms like that, and we are finding that it's a hybrid. We feel like there's the opportunity for them to be on those platforms because it is widening the aperture and they're getting in front of an audience that
maybe isn't as familiar with them. And so as long as we can carve out the things that are pre existing that they currently have ownership in, and this is from that, and we get that all the time, and we're able to the networks. Now they understand the power that these influencers have and they're willing to negotiate in a greater terms that they may not have before because typically in the past you're casting unknowns in the unscripted space.
These are now known entities that have a massive platform that the streaming platforms and cable networks want to tap into. And so it gives the talent on the influencers side a lot more leverage than ever before. We don't really represent influencers at my company. It's experts who have a real focused area of expertise, and then they have influence, whether that's through publishing, whether that's through television, whether that's
through social media. And then you know what's happening now more and more is you're seeing brands because right now, as you said, our industry is in a really interesting place right now, brands more than ever, they're more interested in the influence than they are the platform. And so the day and age where you it's all about what TV credits you had, and we would hype major network,
you know, ABC, NBC network. Right now it's like it's more about what their present with their social with their platform is where the greatest influence, where the influence is coming from the most. So is this case, if it's social media, it's more relevant than ever before than a major network show. And that's where we have to kind of toe the line and we really strategize with our clients and go, Okay, what is your goal, what is your north star?
And then we were back from there.
It doesn't make sense for you to go and do something on major network if you're going to have to give up your rights, or if you're going to have to take away time from where you're really making your revenue, unless you're trying to get to a certain audience that you're not currently capturing.
We've heard a lot in the last year or so about the incredible focus on engagement and that in social media for celebrities or others. It does it's not about now having fifty million followers. Although that's nice, but like if you can prove that you have one million followers but the most rabid, dedicated followers in a space. So to measure that engagement, what are the things you look at?
Or you hit an oil head by the way, I mean, it's it's wild people think the larger the following you have, the more deals you're going to get, and that's actually not true. It is about you know, there is a real focus right now on what we would call micro influencers and the range of what that falls under a from an audience, you know, it could be near from
one hundred thousand. We've had brands who have wanted clients that have less than one hundred thousand, and then we you know, but I think the interesting thing there to your point is it's the audience. Who is the audience? And so if we have a client, as an example, who has a big platform on YouTube and he's in the trades, and the reason why we have big box retailers and brands, it's because he has a very focused audience.
It's the exact audience they want to get, they want to get to, and it's only half a million subscribers versus clients of mind have millions of impressions and aren't getting the same interest in these big box with retos because the audience is so broad and it's not specific
enough for them. And so the way that they can chell it with engagement is they're seeing the comments, they're seeing how many times the content's being shared, the kinds of questions, they're seeing, what's resconating, what content is trending more than others.
Are we talking five figure, six figures seven.
The mid six figure deals multi year though, Like so you're talking about this coming in yearly multi years. And these are brands that are being integrated both sort of covertly, you know, sort of because especially when it's a retailer, they can there's so many products that can be integrated within the content. And my client's because they're experts, they're very, very very discerning with what they'll agree to because they
cannot risk their reputation as an expert. So you know that they've already vetted out the product because they're putting their name basically on it by integrating it within the content. And so brands more than ever are looking for really organic integrations. You can't do that on TV.
Multi year deals. That sounds like recurring revenue. That's the holy grail when you are doing a brand deal with a big brand, a fortune five hundred brand, in terms of owning that content. Is that shifting it all the paradigm for social media creators or is it? Or do you find that for your creators, it's just that's a line in the sand, like they have to own it, even if it has an integration with company X. No,
we get very creative with the deals. I mean, there are definitely deals with it it's co owned or the brand owns it because they've paid for it and they have it within it for a certain term. We rarely do in perpetuity, but we just we've had many brands come extend terms because the content is just so rich and the talent's still free in that category, and so they're going to go ahead and agree to do another year and a lot of times are getting paid just
to repurpose that content. That talent's not even having to do any more work for it. The value is so there for the brand to keep that content fresh and out there in the public. So we've had many brands negotiate to have that right to extend the option, but it's rarely ever that that they've been paid for that, you know, they have to pay for it in order to have that attention we've been talking about brands. Are
there other options for generating revenue for creators? Are you seeing any kind of meaningful subscription business or any any other ways to bring you know, to bring revenue in through the door.
Yeah, I mean right now, what we're really seeing is the courses business big business. Probably see it everywhere on social media now everyone says, comment this word and we will send you something directly to you, and then it's a thing to go and sort of download and get into.
Courses a big area of opportunity that we right now are doubling down on at our company because our clients are experts and they really have their own version of their masterclass that they can teach that may not that may not be reflected right now on a platform like that, and so we're really seeing that that's an area of opportunity. The other big thing right now is that we are having our clients who've never been on TV producing their own content getting brands to fund it, and so they
get to really control the narrative. They get to control the creative and we are self distributing through various platforms like YouTube and licensing. Also these streaming channels doing licensing deals. So you own the content, brand funded and then you distribute it to all the various streaming channels because they're looking for content and if it's premium and it fits the narrative of what the platform is looking for.
We've had a lot of success.
We did it most recently with a talk show that we just produced with one of our former HTV clients and so meaning she was formerly from HTV and we have which.
Can I ask when you say streaming channels do you mean fast channels? Do you mean like healthy others?
It's Hulu, Roku, Disney Plus, Amazon, Samsung TV plus to be free v.
So they give you like a modest license fee, but you own the content. You own the content. Wow, that's got to be Do you see that as growing?
Yes? And it's interesting even the networks now we're looking for the kind of they're open to funded content in the time that they never were before. It's partially funded. Then there's like different deals. So we had a co ownership, but we are getting things fully funded and getting it distributed through various platforms without getting a details.
There is a big YouTube.
Channel created around a character that has done incredibly well, was acquired by a big company, and then now that company, who still contains continues to produce that content on YouTube, has done a deal with another big streaming platform, and that streaming platform paid a lot of money to produce this content on that platform.
Meanwhile, what they.
Continue to produce on YouTube is done at a fraction of the price. And what will be very telling is the audience, which is younger children. Are they really going to watch more of the premium version of it that's living on the streaming platform versus the stuff that's on for a fraction of the cost on YouTube, And is the premium is am We're going to continue to want
to spend that kind of money. But it's interesting that they even got involved with you too, because they all want a piece of that business.
We could talk another hour about all of the changes, but shab I thank you so much for giving me your view from somebody in the trenches doing this deal making. This is arming me with a lot of good talking points for can Lyon and I deeply appreciate your time.
Thank you so much for having me appreciate it.
Thanks for listening.
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