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đŸ”„ The battle to 'keep it real'

Plus: Amazon's latest podcast bet

Author

Oli Thomas
July 16, 2024

Welcome to #15 in this weekly labour of love
it really goes to show that reading 25+ publications a week, geeking out on media stuff, and banging the drum on LinkedIn can go a long way. The purpose has always been to connect the dots between new media and old media, to identify emerging trends, and to spot new opportunities. I’d love any feedback on the newsletter - what works/what doesn’t - just hit reply to this email. And of course please share with whoever else might find it useful 🙏 . 

Now back to business


It’s no secret that big brands are increasingly losing relevance with young audiences.

Brands that have taken decades to grow are losing audiences to individuals armed with nothing more than an iPhone, a mic, and the ability to entertain.

There’s a few reasons for this.

#1 People want authenticity. People don’t trust the establishment. And people don’t trust the big organisations behind the brands.

#2 People want community. You don’t get community with big branded content. You get community from being part of a fan base. You get community from sport. You get community from creators.

#3 People want relatable content. Unpolished, raw, the ups, the downs, the narrative arcs personified. Brands are powered by PR depts and spin doctors, with shareholders and regulators to appease; the polish is often layered on pretty thick.

So what to do? How to keep a brand real and relatable?

We’ve seen a few organisations giving it a go this week:

/ Nato invited 16 TikTok influencers to the summit in New York.

/ Shopping channel HSN launched a creator platform to directly recruit and incentivise influencers.

/ Sky commissioned an 80-part Kids series with YouTuber Jaime Amor.

Whether its Politics, Sports, Retail or TV, every large organisation is figuring out how best to leverage creators to reach the increasingly hard to reach.

Vamos 👍

Dax Shepard signs with Amazon

Let’s roll back to 2021 - people were still wearing Covid masks, twitter was still called twitter, we were all still blissfully unaware of “Hawk Tuah”.

And podcasts were booming.

Spotify was rolling out its new podcast strategy which included buying up all the big shows, one of which was Armchair Expert by Dax Shepard, for somewhere between $80M - $100M. The payback on this is questionable. Not least because it let the show go free 18 months later.

And so it begs the question - why has Wondery picked this up now for $80M? Bearing in mind this isn’t a Top 10 podcast. Its barely a Top 50 podcast.

The principal value is in the ad sales, as Wondery look to beef up their network and take big audiences away from their competitors. Then there is the distribution on Wondery+, the paid subscription service, which will get episodes ahead of public release. And finally there is the commitment to two new podcasts with Dax and his team, alongside rights to create video content.

At a higher level, there is the recognition that the platforms need the creators. And are increasingly willing to put down big money to tie these influential personalities into their ecosystem - as illustrated in the chart below.

Source: Evan Shapiro

Read more here

Nato invites TikTok stars to Washington

The biggest online battle of our times is trust, and how to ensure we can ‘keep it real’ when it comes to news content - both in terms of honesty and influence.

Across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, audiences pay more attention to news content from influencers than from journalists and news organisations. Its especially stark on TikTok - where 57% consume news content from influencers vs just 34% from news organisations.

That raises a whole load of issues around regulation, trust, and how to counter the rising ability of AI to present realistic deepfakes and visuals.

But equally, its important for organisations to establish a big presence across these platforms. And if you can’t beat them, invite them along and pay their expenses. Which is exactly what Nato did last week when it invited 16 TikTok creators along to the summit.

Source: TikTok/Dylan Page

Read more here

The Kingdom of Esports

The International Olympics Committee has announced the inaugural ‘Olympics Esports Games’ will take place in Saudi Arabia in 2025.

Quick reminder:

‘The Olympics’ = “international athletic contests that are held at separate winter and summer gatherings at four year intervals”

Merriam-Webster’s going to have to revisit this unless we’re to agree that esports counts as an athletic pursuit (in which case my son has been right all along, and we might as well pack up the garden).

Back to the games, and Saudi Arabia is an obvious choice given it already controls 40% of the global esports market and has pledged $38bn of investment into the industry by 2030.

This serves two fronts - (1) internally - it has a young population, with 70% of people under the age of 36 and a high proportion in to gaming, and, (2) externally - it helps diversify its economy (or ‘sportswash’ it, depending on your position
).

Read more here

Best of the Rest

GAMING: Linklaters launched its mid-year Interactive Entertainment report, with some good perspectives on the top trends across the industry right now.

CONTENT: Inside Out 2 is officially the highest grossing Pixar film of all time, at nearly $1.4Bn of revenue and climbing

STREAMING: Netflix is further pushing out its live streaming proposition with a Joe Rogan comedy special going out on August 3rd.

STREAMING: Paramount “really needs to make the transition to being tech-hybrid as a company” according to David Ellison, the chairman and CEO of ‘New Paramount’ once the Skydance merger gets approved. (Agreed, but this feels a bit like getting married and saying your partner should learn how to tie their shoes)

Pick of the posts

Sports leagues and clubs are seeing some great results on Roblox right now. They’re particularly well placed for it given the ready-made fan base and brand recognition, and the ability to lean on large YouTube channels to promote the games