The Rise of Creator Storefronts | Creator Upload

0:01Welcome to Creator Upload, your Creator Economy podcast. I'm Lauren Schnipper. And I'm Joshua Cohen. Lauren. Josh, you know what? I know you know this, but do you really know how sort of ahead of the curve I am? Do you know how like, just like I know a trend before a trend is a trend kind of a thing? Are you like aware of how, of that about me? Like that I just have an instinct about things? Whenever I bring you up in conversation, which is often, I'm like Lauren Schnipper. Weirdly often. Creepily often. Lauren Schnipper, incredibly prescient. yes just like a crystal ball of everything really yes um there's been several times on this show that i've talked about um probably at this point i would say one of my second favorite shows of course um nothing can compete with the summer i turn pretty that i'll try not to talk about during this show but like it's basically taken over my thoughts my dreams my life we'll move on team conrad um but dancing with the stars is and has been for many many years one of my favorite shows I am not, I'm not like, one of the things that I think has made it so I can work with talent and, you know, I've been in the room with many a famous people is that I've never been like a fangirl, right?

1:08Like I remember in like, I don't know, whatever, whenever Newcastle on the Block was big, you know, my best friend got tickets and I went and like, she was like losing her mind and people are crying. And I remember just looking around being like, what is wrong with people? Actually, the first time that happened to me is my first concert ever was the Michael Jackson concert with the glove. and I remember I literally a true story I remember I think I might have been like six or whatever and I yes I'm eating myself everybody calm down I know I look great um and so um I remember I do really remember a girl like screaming and crying nicely and I was like what is her problem like I've kind of just been this way always that being said I am a huge band girl dancing with the stars to the point where um your friend and mine Allie Berman is a big agent at um United Talent Agency UTA and she represents uh the queen charlie d 'amilio who was of course on dancing with stars a few years ago and i ran into her i believe at the streamies actually your event um right after charlie had won dancing the stars and i just was like oh my god i love charlie but i don't know it was so good and she's like maureen why didn't you call me like i could have gotten your tickets to the show like it didn't even i'm such a fan it didn't even occur to me that like i know people do you know what i mean like i know people well let me just tell you something about dancing with the stars they kind of um they're suddenly there's this whole thing going on the internet they're like dancing with the stars is suddenly cool and i'm and it's like why is that and so there was this really interesting article that came out on a uh on a website called her campus i recently actually met the um founder of her campus uh stephanie caplan lewis and wait but so hold on so hold on so this this is presuming that dancing with the stars wasn't cool before is it like peak coolness now well this is what i'm trying to tell you evident like to me dancing with stars has always been cool.

2:53Like, I think it is just like, I literally, I mean, it is my, I don't want, I had no, like when I was little, all I wanted to do was be an actress and be really famous and all those things. You know, as one gets older, like, you know, I, listen, I like being well-known and an expert in my field. I can't imagine what it's like to like, you know, be famous and not be able to walk down the street in paparazzi. I would trade it all in and do that and be the most famous person and be chased everywhere if I could be on Nancy with stars. like that is you have a moment alone you're writing fan fiction about you and juliana and derrick huff that's like your special place no it's more me and now i'm being partnered with mark ballas oh deep cut you don't even know what that means you don't even know what that means mark what's fascinating about juliana derrick huff the brother sister duo that are like dancing professionals derek is now the judge juliana is now the host they like are mormons from utah that whose parents like shipped them off to live in the UK with Mark Ballas, whose parents are massively successful ballroom dance pros.

3:51And they were like they grew up as like basically brothers and sisters with Mark Ballas in England. And they've been pros since they're like 10. And like it's they're only like they're in their like 30s. Meanwhile, they've been doing this for like 30 years and they're like them off for the purposes of learning how to dance from a professional. Basically, they were so good that they like ship them off and live in this. I mean, I don't know the details of their family. I think there was a divorce going and they were like, this is a good idea. Like, don't I don't want to pretend like you don't know the details of their family.

4:20But let's move on. The point is, a couple of years ago, it was kind of I don't want to say in a decline, but they had moved Dancing with the Stars from ABC to Disney Plus. It was streaming live on Disney Plus. This was like in 2021, I think season 31. And it was like it also like they had this big shake up. They had these old school hosts that they like kicked out. And then they had like Tyra Banks on for a year, which was the most awkward thing ever. So it was Tyra Banks and Alfonso Ribeiro, who I saw on Broadway in The Top Dance Kid 100 years ago. He won Dancing with the Stars a few years ago, several years ago now.

4:51And he's an incredible dancer. But it was so awkward. Tyra Banks, like you could you see the pecking order of like weird behind the scenes stuff because clearly in Tyra Banks' like contract, she got to walk out early as if she were on a contract. And then Alfonso Ribeiro would like awkwardly like dance to the stage. And it was so awkward and she had no business being on the show. So they got rid of her after a season or two. Julianne Hough and Alfonso now co-host genius pairing chef's kiss everything about it I love but basically what they did um a couple years ago is they had Charli D 'Amelio on it and Charli D 'Amelio brought the TikTokers and she obviously was known for dancing not ballroom at all and she was flawless I mean she was incredible she's now been on Broadway in a show called Ann Juliet dancing for a while now so she's like really like leaned into this sort of her real dancing career now.

5:40And so here we are today. And now they have Alex Earl on the show. They also added a one of the pros is like the little sister of one of the older pros, Riley Arnold, who has like a ton of TikTok followers. And what I think the culmination of this is next week, they're going to have an entire show like basically dedicated to TikTok. Charlie's going to come back. And they're doing it in what's also different this year is they're having they're doing a lot of one of the pros who's not dancing on the show this year, they're doing a live TikTok show, you know, during every episode, like behind the scenes and all this kind of stuff.

6:16And they have a companion podcast, which they never had before. They're just like blowing up. And it's like, this is like the 20th year they've done the show. This is not like a new show. But the producers a couple of years ago, and it's not unusual that they had, they always would have like a young, I remember I watched when Zendaya was on, you know, they always had like a young kind of former Disney or whatever kind of star. But Charlie was, I think, like the first real like kind of social media star and it's just blown up and now it's like this season um hold on where i just have the stats in front of me um this season's premiere won the night for the second year row but they had like they were up like you know they they were up um six percent in total viewers and they they won the night and they're just they're just like killing it i think that like what's troubling and if you've listened to this podcast before, you know, it was like the TikTok of it all.

7:07And we're in the midst of still like, is this still going to be around? Is it going to be sold? And I think that there's still serious national concern, security issues as it relates to this app. Like, I just think that we're now just all willingly ignoring the bipartisan legislation that was passed that we should ban this app because of major national security concerns. In the meantime, Dancing with the Stars is like, I'm gonna lean into this hardcore. And it's like, cool now. And it's like, it's blown up. And I'm just sort of saying, like, I've been here the whole time. And with or without TikTok, I will still be here.

7:41I think also, you know, there's been this like, you know, grudging sort of acceptance within the greater entertainment industry. They're like, oh, you need to have a big social media audience in order to kind of book a movie now and all this sort of stuff. And I think that like, that's tough for a lot of actors who like, don't necessarily want to do that and stuff. And I think that like, I think that's difficult. And And I think that's like not necessarily fair. And like, you know, it just is what it is. And I don't even know if it's true for like sort of regular TV and film. I think it kind of is.

8:11Well, I think you're proving the point with this that it is true, right? Like this is the new normal. I mean, it is true in the sense also this is also a voting show. So the judges, of course, do their scores. And then you like text or vote in, you know, your favorite contestants. And they go home based on the combination of the judge scores and judges scores and the audience scores. and so and it's like you know obviously folks have been leaning into you know these kinds of you know american idols of the world like and stuff we've been leaning into social a lot but i think what's unique about this too i think is how dance and tiktok are really sort of inextricably linked not ballroom per se but like charlie was a dancer like growing up her whole life and she went on there i mean she's told the story many times she went on there to just like do her silly little dances.

8:54And now you've got like, by the way, the whole Mormon wives, you've got a couple of those ladies on this year. They also started with like kind of dancing on TikTok. So it's, I think it's also just like the unique special bond between dancing and TikTok. That's also like, you know, that you can't, you can't kind of manufacture this. And like, I think like, you know, Dancing with the Stars is like, okay, we're going to like, they like almost like it's surprising it's taken this long, but they're really leaning into it. Like this, this year is like a full-fledged again next week is like a full episode dedicated to tiktok yeah you know what's interesting about this is just that link between this particular mainstream primetime television show and this huge social app is clear and defined and you can totally see the path whereas for instance ksi huge british youtuber just got cast to be a judge on britain's got talent for this next year which is cool they're trying to get into the youth they're trying to establish a link between their primetime television show and youth culture but it's not as clearly linked or defined yeah because it's just this personality that they're trying to bring the clout where with dancing with the stars it seems like this whole like ethos of of at least a huge part of what tiktok is now and a big part of the foundation it was built upon they're tapping into that, which seems like it's going pretty well.

10:19Well, it's just interesting not to bring it back to the summary, but like what I think the genius people, the young folks that are like in marketing and like coming up with a strategy that are that are like really pushing to these executives is like so again, summary term pretty team Conrad, team Jeremiah. The other day I see this it's going all over Hilton hotels. Hilton hotels were started by a guy named Conrad Hilton. And so there's this there's this chain of of Hilton like subset that are called like Conrad. And so they somebody that was genius on their social team did a whole video of it like we've always been team Conrad.

10:53And they did this whole and it's like chef's kiss. It's like when you like are able to organically glob on, attach, you know, put out social content and or strategy as it relates to your show that is organic that and it doesn't feel manufactured again. and it's not easy to do that. Like it's how do you, you know, it just happens to be that Comrade Hilton started the Hilton Hotel. It's just like, but it's like, again, to your point, like it's like dancing in TikTok is so organic. It's just, it is inextricably linked. And it's like, they're like, we're the dancing show. And I don't, you know, got talent, whatever X Factor, whatever he's on, KSI, like totally get it.

11:33But if they could find more of like, you know, when you find those, like you got to lean into those, even those kernels of like things in social that you can like go into. but it's sometimes it like backfires and it's gross. So like, you know, listen, I'm sorry, people. It's hard. It's not easy. But when it works, it's almost as if someone was going to design a primetime television network show right now that catered to Gen Z, Gen Alpha, people that are on social, they would create a dancing show and tie it to TikTok. Right. Yeah, exactly. Like it would make a lot of sense. But because I talked about a few weeks ago when I met the crisis sort of manager that helped the company astronomer, you know, do the reaction video, the Gwyneth Paltrow reaction video to the Coldplay, Chris Martin, you know, concert cam thing, whatever.

12:19We don't have to rehash the whole thing. But what I thought was very interesting, and again, sort of obvious, is when they released that video, they just put it, they didn't give it to Press first, right? They just released it on the astronomer kind of socials and LinkedIn page, and they waited for pressed to bring it up. And it's literally this cat and mouse game. Whereas if you give it to press first and then they push it, it just feels like inorganic. So to your point about like, so this feels so just the, the, the diamond in the rough moments on social that feel organic or that that's what that's almost like, like, I hate the word authenticity.

12:54Like people use that all the time, be authentic. It's not authentic. I think it's organic more that we want to look for. it's like what are organic moments that are just like make a lot of sense as it relates to the zeitgeist and what's going on online and that's the stuff that you want to really like put out there as a brand as a competition show as a you know what i mean a marketer it's like it's just all about being organic with social and i just listen again with or without tiktok your girl's gonna be watching dancing with the stars and um just a really it's a really exciting this is a really like soul splitting moment for you where you have you know two of your greatest passions one is how tiktok is a national security threat sure on one hand and then on the other side it's dwts it's all the way thank you for knowing this is a trying moment for you lord it's not just a trying moment for you though sure you know the the world at large is is having a similar king Solomon kind of choice to be made in the future.

13:58Thank you for making this biblical because it feels that way. Go on. So, you know, the U.S. seems to be inching closer to this deal where it will have its own TikTok app. At least it seems more like that given Trump's rhetoric about the deal. More recently, he says it's close. He says we're basically done. We're almost there. He's meeting with China to finalize it, etc. Just for a bit of context, like obviously there was bipartisan legislation passed that said that TikTok needed to be either sold or banned within like 270 days, but that the president could extend this. And Trump has extended this deadline, I think, four times now.

14:34Right. Four times for a divest or ban law that was put into place. And now... And backed up by the Supreme Court, like this is like ironclad in terms of this piece of legislation. I think his administration would not use that terminology, but sure. Sure. Sure. For another administration, yes, ironclad about what to do there. For Trump, you know, the guy does what he wants. I think we're ironclad in terms of like, there's no like this is deemed not unconstitutional. This is deemed this was a like there's so few things like there's there's so few things that are bipartisan pieces of legislation right now.

15:07And this is like it's like this and like banning phones in school are like the only things that like people seem to agree on. But go on. It's been announced in a variety of reports in the press that Larry Ellison and Oracle might be a big owner of this new TikTok app and provide a lot of the infrastructure for it, that they would then lease the algorithm from China, perhaps develop their own, that they would then lease this magical Chinese algorithm from China and ByteDance, but keep all of the data and the servers and everything that the U.S. was not really wanting China to get its hands on in terms of national security and privacy issues with American citizens, keep all that housed in the U.S.

15:47and have like a shield around it. Okay. So then this begs the question, if there is going to be a new US TikTok app. So this begs the question that if there is going to be a new US TikTok app, is this app going to be also adopted by the rest of the world? Is it going to be available in the rest of the world? Are people outside of the US going to be able to watch it? And one big country, Australia, is kind of contemplating that question right now. So this liberal Senator James Patterson in Australia suggested that if the deal actually goes through and the U.S. is able to develop its own TikTok app, that Australia should move to the U.S.

16:25version of the app as well. He said, quote, it would be an unfortunate thing if there was a safe version of TikTok in the United States, but the version of TikTok in Australia, which was still controlled by a foreign authoritarian government. That's what he told Murdoch Sky News, which is also interesting. Rupert Murdoch, famous Australian, also was reported wants to get a piece of this TikTok US deal and may be part of this investment consortium for the new US app. And so is Australia going to use the old TikTok? Will it use the new TikTok? Will other countries follow suit? Does America have the political clout and just appeal in other countries' eyes right now for them to abandon the regular TikTok and move to the new TikTok too?

17:07I think the answer is yes, but also I don't think it's about political clout. I think it's about like the bottom line is the united states is the most um you know this country the the is sort of the birthplace of the kind of creator influencer economy and whatever this country does i think the world will follow suit because number one this is where the money is right like this is where the majority of the brand deals happen this is majority this is where all the monetization happens like it is well known english-speaking countries in general but uh the U.S. specifically, is where the majority of the creator economy kind of market is.

17:43That's where the majority of the U.S. specifically is where the majority of the creator economy kind of economy lives. Definitely in terms of like quantitative creators, advertising dollars, brands that are active in the space, infrastructure and ecosystem of the platforms and more. The entire thing. And so like, you know, and so there's no competition as it relates. Like if you if you are of the mind that like the money always wins, economics always wins. It's not even a question if this is what if this is the app that is of use in this country, everybody else will follow, period. Like it's just it's not even a question.

18:15Like any major market that is really trying to compete in the space and make a real moves in the space will will have to necessarily follow suit as to what the U.S. is doing, period. And I imagine it will be a pretty clean transition as well. Like you were around a big platform when they tried to get people to sign on to another app. with Instagram and then IGTV. By the way, there was this very short-lived moment in time, maybe about 12 or 18 months, where the whole marketing campaigns for newfangled digital media apps were rotate your phone to the side so you could see in landscape mode. Yes, that was like the big thing.

18:55IGTV was like, and also as it relates to Quibi and all these things, it was like the big people was like, oh, look, you can rotate your, like the way you're, the orientation of the phone and the screen was like that was the big selling point and then like very quickly it was like well nobody like people don't really care they just want to watch the horizon had a whole app called go 90 which yes which was what it wanted you to do with your phone that wanted you to rotate it 90 degrees that was the whole app's name in any case whole thing was about the technology and like rotating and how you're gonna watch and it was like nobody cares what's the content yeah it's a whole thing yeah go on in any case you've seen an app try to transition people to another app.

19:34I think people are kind of worried about this now. They're hand-wringing about like, well, are a bunch of accounts going to go over and download this thing? I think 100 % yes. So here's two things. It's actually incredibly difficult to move people to a different app. That's actually, it's not easy. And IGTV is an example of that. Like they, I still remember sitting down with one of the IG team, one person on the IG team, and like we had already launched Facebook Watch, which wasn't a separate app, but it was like the initial launch of Facebook Watch did not go well. Like the strategy was not great.

20:03And so I remember them being like, yeah, this is gonna be a separate app. And I was like, this is I think this is a terrible idea. And like, I don't want to say I was right, except for the fact that I was completely right. It's actually a it wasn't compelling enough to like have people go elsewhere, why go elsewhere. And also, it's actually really hard to move people. Threads is a good example that went really well, but then there was a lot of kind of churn, people like dropping off. So like it can, there can be better, there's better launches than others, but it's not easy. The difference here is that if it like, and I think it's sort of unclear exactly how it's going to be executed.

20:34But if this, if one TikTok app is completely deprecated, then people will go and download the new one. Now, are you going to do you want to bet your bottom dollar that like IG and all these other like platforms are going to do hard marketing pushes and massive like efforts to get people just to like not do that and just stick with Instagram and give tons of incentives? A thousand percent. So there's going to be some churn. It's going to be a little bit messy. It's not going to be super clean. But if one app is completely not working, people are going to download the new one because TikTok is just that popular.

21:03So I think that's what's unique about the situation. You're literally removing potentially something and replacing it with something. And it might even be the thing where what they're going to do is they're going to say they're going to like likely. And we saw this when TikTok went, you know, went went dark for like a day. You went on TikTok and they just like had a pop up being like, call your senators. So what's going to happen is they're going to go under TikTok app and see like this is no longer working and it's going to seem more like an update. And it's instead it's going to be like a download something else.

21:32So that there's one thing TikTok has proven to be pretty like genius at is like those kind of bigger moments and marketing and pushes. So that's likely going to be what's going to happen. So it's going to be it's unlike other kind of transitions. And I think that it will be relatively seamless. But there's going to be all these there's going to be some churn and there's going to be other efforts to put to get people elsewhere. A little churn getting rid of inactive subscribers ain't a bad thing, too. All right. Next up, I want to talk about something that's old yet new. Not old, but like then they're done that.

22:00Creator curated store friends are coming to Conde Nast and Sephora. So what does that mean? So Sephora has recently announced that they are leaning more into affiliate links creator storefront. So effectively, they're going to have they launched a new venture called My Sephora, where you as a creator can curate your favorite products with Sephora. And when people go and check out, you get a piece of it, you get an affiliate link sort of commissioned from it. And the difference between something like this and a sort of third-party independent creator-curated storefront experience is that it's obviously seamlessly integrated into Sephora.

22:41So you don't have, in terms of the fulfillment and shipping and distribution of the products, it's effectively as if you're just ordering things on sephora.com and there's been a lot i say this as old as new again because i um you know have over the years looked at so many different kind of startups in the space that have been trying to um help you know independent folks creators like create these like really unique storefronts and basically positioning creators as like wholesale you know buyers of um to give so let me take a step back so historically commissions for affiliate links are pretty low, like between one and 4%.

23:20It separate, like conversely, if you were like target, right? And you're buying products and you're putting them on your shelves, you're going to get upwards of 10, 20, even maybe 30 % of commission, right? Because you're going to get a wholesale sort of, you're going to buy it for wholesale and you're going to get that much larger percentage. So there's a lot of folks out there that have sort of been saying like creators are effectively that shelf and target, right? And they should be able to kind of get the products for wholesale pricing and get those larger percentages. And so there's been a lot of sort of efforts around that to different startups out there that have sort of like pushed this kind of new experience and thought about how you should think about creators.

23:57And but one of the issues and some of them have been able to seamlessly integrate with sort of, you know, different stores, because one of the issues is shipping and fulfillment. So you order the product. Am I supposed to like keep inventory? Right. Like have which is like costly. Right. I've got to have a warehouse, all these things. So the ideal is that you're like directly going straight to the website of the, you know, the product and then they are fulfilling that order, shipping it and getting it out to the customer. And so what makes it, you know, amazing and it sort of feels like I can't believe how long this has taken for Sephora because they have been so leaned into working with creators for a long time is like it's all integrated.

24:33Right. Like, again, it's just essentially what they've created is like an experience that's like an offshoot of the website where it's just like you can now create your little like Josh, you know, skincare store from Sephora. And when I ordered that, you're going to get a cut of it and it's going to go straight to the Sephora kind of fulfillment distribution center and everybody's happy. Similarly, Condé Nast is getting into this. They've launched a new app called Vet. And so it's going to launch in early 2026 and it's going to allow creators the tools to set up boutique e-commerce destinations.

25:07This I'm curious about because this feels like it's going to be more of that like it's not obviously Condé Nast is the publisher behind publications like Vogue and things like that. So they don't have their own products. So it's probably going to be more of like connecting with those distribution center. It's not that this is a new concept. It's just that now stores are sort of integrating this into their experience from day one. And Lauren, Condé Nast and Sephora aren't the only ones that are getting into this creator storefront game. Best Buy launched creator storefronts recently. So did Dick's Sporting Goods?

25:38All of them trying to access the power of these creators in this creator economy and do it in a way that makes the most sense to these individual storefronts and brands that have a lot of inventory that creators can then choose from. And really be a destination for these creators for a lot of their different products. My only kind of like concern with this is, is does anybody want this? I mean, creator shopping and these kinds of storefronts are a component of this booming industry. LTK alone said that in 2024, it was on pace to drive$5 billion in sales through its platform. Storefronts aren't the whole thing that LTK does, but it's a component of it.

26:16So I think all of these other types of brands and retailers are seeing that this has been a successful component of other people's businesses. They got to get on it on their own. But my sentiment towards this is, it just feels like this feels like frothy right now and kind of like Lincoln bio sites were for creators five, six years ago. We're like everybody's trying to do this thing because they want to attach to it because they see this potential future where people are going to just go to all these creator storefronts at any given time and shop through that. I don't think it's going to be as big as anybody actually thinks it is.

26:54I think it will be a nice to have for these different brands and a way for them to access different touch points with creators. And if they do a deal with creator, they can have their own branded storefront that the creator can send their audience to. But I don't think it's going to be like this huge commercial revenue generator. Well, I think it's like it I think, you know, I'm really obsessed lately with just like leaning in hard to look the niches of the creator economy as it relates to sort of the whole thing, because everything's gotten so big. Because the question you kind of brought up, LTK, it's like, how is this going to affect companies like LTK, ShopMy, where it's more of like, you can put any link on there, but you're probably going to get those smaller percentages.