VidCon and Cannes Lions are merging (and moving?)

0:00This week on the podcast, we talk about both Josh and I getting out of the house. Josh went to IAB. I went to the brand week in Atlanta. We talk about smells. We talk about scent a lot. We talk about can and Vidcon joining forces and we talk about Logan Paul and crime. Welcome to Creator Upload, your Creator Economy podcast. I'm Lauren Schnupper. And I'm Joshua Cohen. Josh, you were out in New York City. You took a phone call or two from like a bus, which is weird because you're like whispering. Tell the kids what you were doing outside of the attic basement, like your hovel. Let me tell you, the Port Authority public transportation system is incredible.

0:36Amazing. God bless the NJT. Love it. I know they get a lot of flack, but still. I mean, commuting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of passengers a day across state lines. I mean, interstate commerce and travel, Lauren, a thankless, a thankless job. A thankless job. Well, I was in New York City for the IAB inaugural creator fronts, which the IAB held this week alongside the IAB play fronts, which is all about gaming and the IAB podcast up front, which is obviously all about podcasts. first lauren can we talk about this like fronts onslaught i think that fronts has become basically the version of what gate is to scandals so is it the version of like plus is to subscription services yes exactly thank you on the ap test those are all alike yes thank you oh my god amazing and so like any scandal you just apply the word gate to the end of it I think like any event that's happening now, you just apply fronts to it, even though it wasn't like a traditional upfront where you have this dog and pony show of advertisers showcasing the new shows and formats and stars that are coming up on their network or cable television channel or digital platform to a room full of advertisers.

1:56It is still people basically selling you something. So I get it in that way. But I think it's just a sexy name. Question on the word gate, obviously, is from I feel like I feel like there's people on this podcast that wouldn't know that that's from Watergate, which is like a obviously was it's a negative thing. So I'm assuming is I wonder what front should we origin story? I'm just curious where the verbiage came from. Anyway, we can we can put that up with that in the lighter notes. Keep going. Just thinking about that. OK, go on. Lauren, that obviously came from the television upfronts where advertisers would spend a lot of their budget on these television networks up front.

2:30There you go. Thank you, Josh. There you go. Thank you. I think that's enough for now. Okay. Thank you. Go on. So you have the IB creator fronts, which, especially for an IB event, I thought was a banging event. They have lots of energy. Why especially IB? That seemed like a dig. That seemed like a backhanded compliment. It's not a dig. And I hope all the people at the IB can appreciate this. Well, you have the IB, which is the Interactive Advertising Bureau. It's a business organization that develops industry standards, conducts research and provides legal support for this digital advertising industry.

3:04And usually these kinds of events are maybe a little bit more policy focused, maybe more tech focused, maybe talking about strict industry standards. I'm saying they still have the importance of, but maybe not the energy of this creator ecosystem. Right. Where people are really excited about it. There's some creatives in the room, which probably usually doesn't happen all at other IAB events, where it's mostly tech-oriented people, policy-oriented people, and business-oriented people. And so bringing a little bit of creativity into the mix, I think, really amped up the energy level. And it was a great event.

3:40They had representatives from Meta, YouTube. I was on stage with Billy Parks at Fox, who's running Fox Creator Studios, along with Alice Ma, who's running Mad Realities. What were you doing on stage? I was just facilitating a fantastic conversation. I mean, as he does, as he's want to do. Tell us. About what Fox Creator Studios is doing and how Billy Parks is leading them into this creator ecosystem. And so it was you, Billy, and Alice? And Alice. And so Billy, we've had him on the show. We talked about how Fox Creator Studios is working with creators, co-creating this IP, and then distributing it through these creator channels.

4:22And then perhaps outside of these creator channels as well, if there's pickup by like Roku or even not Fox properties like Netflix or Hulu and more. and also how Fox has this 100-year history of helping creators develop their programming. They have an ardent and passionate fan base across their other Fox properties, and they have this sales team that they can implement to sell your products alongside Baywatch and whatever other shows are on the Fox network. And Alice was there to talk about what it's like working with Fox Creator Studios. Right, because she has a deal with them. Right, right. She has a deal with them where they created the show Picky Eaters, and this is interesting because it's from scratch.

5:02this one. It wasn't on the pre-existing creator channel, but they obviously utilized all these other mad realities properties or some of them to push into this picky eaters Instagram channel. And they have celebrities that get paired with chefs to create food that maybe they thought they wouldn't like before, but now hopefully they will like after. And it's doing well. It's getting millions of views per episode. And they're distributing it where? on different kinds of realities. Mostly on Instagram through a channel that they just created. It's a fresh channel they just created for this property.

5:36Oh, it's a new channel. Wow, that's impressive. It's getting millions of views per installment too. Very cool. So Lauren, just zooming out a bit, at the IB creator fronts, which I think you can think of again for our listeners, is not this traditional dog and pony show where people are talking about what programs they're producing, but more people showcasing their capabilities and how they're integrating into this new creator ecosystem, especially for an audience of advertisers, marketers, and other kinds of buyers. So some interesting data points came out of this too. If you look at the IAB's data and the trajectory of spend in this ecosystem, in 2021, it was$13.9 billion, they predicted, that was being spent in the creator economy.

6:20$29.5 billion in 2024,$37 billion in 2025, and a projected $44 billion in 2026. So that's more than doubled in three years. It's growing at about four times faster than the ad industry overall. And for context, IB just raised its full year 2026 US ad forecast to 12.3 % increase. So creators are already outgrowing this hot market. And then the IB also went to ad buyers in the ecosystem and found that 48 % of ad buyers now call creators a must-buy, ranking it just behind paid search and social. So this, what you and I and a lot of our listeners know of as this fringe kind of bet in this advertising marketplace and ecosystem is becoming, obviously, this core component of a brand spend and how these advertisers are reaching their audiences.

7:19And we all know this, but it feels different when you have this kind of data behind it. Yeah. And I mean, I also feel like, you know, the way I work with, I work with a lot of traditional media companies that don't really have, they might do movies, TV, documentary, all the things, but they like have no ability to do like digital first IP podcasts, you know, you know, whatever, any, any sort of, you know, again, digital first kind of production. and it's not about, you know, my whole thing, it's not about traditional media, creator economy, whatever, it's all media. They're all folks on the wheel, legs on the stool.

7:49So for this, it's the same thing applies for advertising. Ultimately, you have to go where the eyeballs are, right? And so as we all know, the eyeballs are increasingly, you know, with creators. And so obviously that has to be a part of your spend. It's not the entire spend. And there's so many different elements to marketing and building a brand and converting. And Lauren, I wasn't the only creator upload co-host to get out in the world this week. No, we're not. We were not. Definitely not. You got out of the house too? I did, yes. In Atlanta, I went to Brand Week. And I found myself at two different cocktail parties on one night.

8:21And like, I had one drink, Josh. And I mean, the next day, yesterday, I was a disaster. Like, it's literally like where, somebody needs to, can we talk, IAB, speaking of IB, somebody's surface that, I've heard a thing about, there's some sort of pill you can take before and after you have like one drink so you don't feel like garbage the next day. I just want to throw that out to the ether. Internet, you're listening to me surface me those ads. Anyway, the point is, it's where all the brands and marketers and brand builders kind of come together to talk about all the things. And yesterday, I went to a really, really interesting panel, kind of relevant to what you were talking about, about different places where brands should be spending their money and advertising.

9:00And it was all about scent. So the co-founder of Red Antler, her name is Emily Hayward, is a dear old friend of mine. And she, there is a brand building company that they did Allbirds and Casper and many other things. Lauren, did you say scent? Yes, I did say scent. Like your sense of smell scent? Like smell, like things you smell. Okay. So there was a panel which was with Emily Hayward, who's the co-founder and CEO of Red Antler. Red Antler is a famous sort of like well-known brand building agency. She's a dear old friend of mine. But they built like Allbirds and Casper in terms of like their branding and marketing and stuff.

9:34Really, really brilliant. I've actually had the opportunity to work with them and fascinating how the use of creative and sort of art and science in the work that they do. And on the panel with her was the CEO of Osmo. His name is Alex, I'm going to mess this up, Wilczysko. And Osmo is a company that they built AI to basically bring sense to life, like sense smells to life. So and Red Antler did the branding for this company. and what the reason i'm bringing up it's it was super fascinating first of all the process by which to sort of make a new scent when that could be a perfume but obviously that's the obvious you know place for but it could be a shampoo scent it could be the scent in a cleaner like anything um was typically the minimum amount of time is three months but typically anywhere from like like six to 18 months to build a scent like it's a huge sort of process well they basically built this AI where they put this prompt in and you want this to feel like love on a summer day and like you're opening your eyes for the first time.

10:40Literally, this is what he's saying. Put this in and then the AI will say, this is the formula by which you need to build a scent to create that feeling. And he's telling us this and then they send or put her out of the room, like they give you a sample of a scent and he reads the prompt that this scent was based on and it was amazing and it felt like it was more like a room set you would do but it was like like something like i said like a dewy morning early kind of thing point is is that they were talking about the different ways that brands can be using scents and how you know this is a new kind of untapped category that brands are not necessarily like using and how everybody's like often like there's a big trend right now to honestly do like in-person events and have physical products even if you're not a physical that's not your your your main product is not a physical product and so she was talking about emily was talking about like in the 80s or 90s when she got a madonna album and the album came and it supposedly had the smell of madonna right and like you know how this was such a cassette there also did a lot of talk about scent is like how it's you know into your neuro like totally it's one of the it's it's it's a one of the five senses josh i think that's what you're gonna say yes totally it is one of the five senses and it's supposedly one of the most like deeply embedded into your neurocathlete where it can spawn memories from correct like hardcore memories and like all this sort of stuff and she was just talking about it as this really interesting category that like brands were not really like you know and how it could be really differentiating and stuff and she was even talking about her own company which is like a again like a brand building kind of services company they actually built a scent for what they want to you know their brand to stand um stand for and it was sort of like a garden in space is how she described it which i was like i kind of get it and so heretofore this was just not accessible to anybody because the period for developing these kinds of scents was just way too long and cumbersome.

12:37Expensive, cumbersome. It was just, it was just not a thing. It was, it was, it was incredibly laborious. And, you know, and the guy was made sure to say that, you know, they're, they're, it's taking a very little energy, the AI that they built, like, you know, he was trying to like, you know, he just got ahead of that one. But if you go to the website, it's really, really, we turned the science of scent into a platform for creativity. It was, it was really, really interesting. And so she was saying, is this going to spawn, like everything's going to come with a Ascent in 18 to 24 months? I mean, who knows?

13:06You know, I think that's I mean, because she was saying again, like, so they built Ascent. She and her co-founder said a sat down and was like and they did this sort of exercise. Like, what does Ascent look like in terms of how they want to build their brand? It's basically she was saying every brand. And I thought this was actually a really, you know, great nugget. It's like every brand should think about how do you want your consumer to feel right? Like every brand should answer that question in whatever you're sort of selling. and so a scent is a really great way to evoke that feeling i don't know i was like so i've so bought in i was like this totally makes sense okay so her company made a sentence she's like we're you wouldn't think a services company is going to do that but she's like we'll probably give it as like gifts to new clients like you know she's like i have a dream to pump it very slightly into the air and in her like office and she was saying that she went to like a new client's office and it was like a financial services kind of thing and she's like i can't describe it any the other way but i walked in and it just smelled like money in the best possible way like it just smelled like wealth and you know what i mean like you just you know what that means you know what i mean so lauren obvious low-hanging fruit for our ecosystem or all these creators that have merged they could like spritz a little bit of their scent on it send it out so you want to smell like money get this mr beast yeah hoodie and also it smells like money too yeah or it smells like feastables i don't know you know what i mean like right yes like something like that like it's it's just i don't know like I just like I feel like there's so first of all I'm gonna be real like I'm not really excited about panels most of the time I don't really learn anything that interesting I just think this juncture it's just like be authentic I got it you know I'm sure your panel with Billy and Alice was amazing and I want to learn a million things but um like I never thought about scent you know what I mean like this and like all the different applications for it and I just think that was really cool I think this is a really interesting untapped area that brands could be exploring.

14:57It reminds me also, like, back in the day, if you know the story about Away Luggage, which was like the first kind of like of its kind in terms of this new type of luggage. And they were having, I listened to like the How I Built This 100 years ago, and they were having all these production issues getting their luggage to sort of, you know, to people. And so what did they do in the meantime? They created this coffee table book about like, I don't know, travel. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but it was a really big differentiator. It's like, why is this luggage company sending me like a really cool coffee table book and so i just think it's a really interesting way for brands to think it's like you have your main core thing but what's an interesting other thing you can kind of do or express what you want because i think the coffee table book i could be totally wrong but i feel like it was a kind of a travel thing or like a world thing it's like well you want to travel and you need this luggage to do that you know what i mean i am excited for the first brands to come out with this in in anywhere i guess from like for the 24 months and then for the thought pieces and thinkfluencers to talk about how we're too inundated with scents in about like 24 to 36 months and then for some brands to come out with like we're scent free yeah and that's a differentiator yeah such is the cycle of life such is the cycle of life okay moving on a huge announcement i think is a huge announcement today you know them, you love them.

16:15Can and VidCon are joining forces. So for those that aren't aware, VidCon and Can are actually owned by the same parent company, which is called Informa. So VidCon, a little history, was started by Hank and John Green 120 years ago. They are the Vlogbrothers. It was this like baby like fan convention in Los Angeles, something like 16, 17 years ago. In 2018, VidCon was sold to Paramount, which was seen as this really big deal at the time, right? Paramount, of course, Viacom slash Paramount, they own Nickelodeon and MTV and all these things. And so it sort of seemed like this amazing opportunity for those brands to get into the space.

16:52And the truth of the matter is, is that when it got into the organization that was Paramount, I mean, as much as I love this, I think it's safe to say that the conference suffered, like it didn't get the support it needed. They didn't really sell against it. It kind of like wasn't able to keep up with the times. And what ended up happening is all these little baby conferences started popping up. So VidCon... I think, Lauren, there was, though, like the first couple of years after Paramount bought VidCon, there were some early signs of potential synergies that could have really blown up, but it would have taken a much more refined strategy across the whole entire Paramount ecosystem, which is like no one thought of or was willing to, or they didn't think it was worthwhile to develop and explore.

17:35For instance, MTV was having these web shows at the time like jake paul and tana mojo were getting married on one of those web shows so there was a they were weaving that through the vidcon experience as well yeah i mean i think the on paper the sale made a ton of sense it could have been incredible but what the ultimately what happened is like frankly like in the last couple of years like vidcon was like in a corner and nobody was servicing it and so it didn't have didn't get the resources to sort of like build and grow and adapt. And brands were not showing up for it because the Viacom teams were not really selling against it.

18:12So the conference suffered. And as a result, all these like, not as a result necessarily, but also simultaneously, all these baby conferences kind of started popping up, everything from OpenSauce to VidSummit to all these different ones. And it really kind of took away a bit of the, not steam, what's the word I'm looking for, agravitas, the importance. So VidCon was, you know, started, I think it's really important to note that VidCon was started when like being a creator meant kind of one thing, right? Like you were a vlogger, you were a specific kind of person. There wasn't, if you liked a creator, all your friends liked the same creator.

18:44Now it's much more fractured. And so there's 10 ,000 types of creators. And it's really hard to have one overarching conference to kind of service all of those. So all that was happening in the background. Then in 2024, VidCon is sold to Informa. Informa is a more of a proper sort of event company. And they also happen to own Can, CanLion. And just a little bit of background on Informa, they're this massive British conglomerate and the world's largest operator of B2B events. They bought CanLion in 2024 for an estimated 1.2 billion pounds or$1.6 billion. They also own other events like VidCon now.

19:24GDC, which is the Game Developers Conference, which is a huge conference for game developers and creators too now in Europe. They own other events like the China Beauty Expo, World of Concrete, Monaco Yacht Show. Great. The Fort Lauderdale Boat Show. They're getting both ends of the spectrum there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a lot more. So this huge multinational organization that seems to be very good at producing. Yeah, and I think that everybody, myself included, was very excited. So just full disclosure, So the company that's the bank that represented VidCon in the sale is a bank called Oakland's De Silva Phillips, of which I am a strategic advisor.

20:01So I was aware that sort of these conversations were sort of going on. And I was really excited by the idea of it because it was going to be instead of being inside of like a media company, it was going to be inside of an event company that knows how to produce events and sort of, you know, really like capitalize on it. But the biggest sort of issue is been that like, so, OK, great, we've got CanLion and we've got VidCon under the same roof. Cannes and VidCon have been in the same weekend for the last several years. So you've got the perpetual dilemma of like, are you going to go to Cannes? Are you going to go to VidCon?

20:29And everybody's been very frustrated in the industry that these two events have been happening around the same time. And you can make arguments as to why you should go to either. I know many people that go to both, which is bananas, trying to make it to south of France as to Anaheim within the same week is pretty crazy. So yesterday, the reason I bring this up is there was a big announcement that VidCon slash Lions creators are now one. They've launched this premier global platform that connects the cultural and commercial forces shaping the creator economy. Together, the two powerhouse brands will gather all of the audiences that power the creator economy to celebrate digital culture, develop the next generation of creators, build relationships, drive business, and shape what's next.

21:12So what's huge about this, this is the big one, is that in 2027, VidCon will transition away from Anaheim with VidCon slash Lions creators debuting as part of the North American event Insight to Impact taking place in Nashville in the fall of 2027. Insight to Impact will decode the insights, strategy, culture, trend, storytelling, and creativity that leads to impact and results. They go on to say, together, our new creator economy offering will create seamless connections between speakers, creators, brands, platforms, and the wider marketing industry celebrating digital culture while striving business impact.

21:50So Insight to Impact is a brand new festival. It's created by Informa. It's debuting this year in Denver in October. And next year, it'll obviously be in Nashville as well. And meant to be this kind of marketing conference that brings together consumers, marketing leaders, and now creators next year and more. And just to be clear, much like VidCon, fans will also be at the Insight to Impact Festival in Nashville in 2027. So I'm curious what you think about this. There's been a lot of chatter and buzz about this over the last 24 hours since this is not even since this has come out. And one of the things that somebody posted, actually, I think I can say it because it's fine.

22:27Leah Haberman, who's been on our podcast several times, sort of posted about this, like kind of not understanding why it would be in Nashville because like L.A. is sort of the epicenter of creators. And, you know, how does this make sense to move it to move these kinds of conventions to cities like Denver and Nashville? And I totally think this makes a ton of sense. So, first of all, I think this is a situation where one plus one is so much greater than two. I think that it's I think it's sort of showing the evolution of what I was talking about previously is like these conferences have sort of become more niche.

22:58And I feel like this is going to be kind of a smaller, more targeted, more thoughtful version of a conference for for VidCon. And I think having it in a Nashville is really smart. And it kind of like speaks to like the Vid Summit of it all, which, of course, is in Dallas in a couple of weeks, which is to say that like, and this is no shade on Nashville, but doing these conferences in more centralized kind of second tier cities, I think is really smart because it's less expensive. Getting to Anaheim is really difficult. You know what I mean? And Anaheim itself is like, I would say, a second tier city, but it's effectively Los Angeles.

23:32And there are a ton of creators that come to like a VidSummit because there's a ton of creators that don't live in Los Angeles. And even if you do live in Los Angeles, do you know how much it is to fly to Dallas from Los Angeles? It's about$89. Like it's really cheap to do that. And I think Nashville is also really central. So you're talking about people can come in from Europe. People can come in from L.A. They can kind of get from anywhere in the country, in other countries, to sort of meet up in this sort of centralized location. And I think Nashville is a hot city. It's got a lot going on.

24:00It's got a ton of entertainment. I actually like am obsessed with this choice. I think it's really interesting. And I think the way, you know, for a long time, VidCon kind of was like capitalized on the Disney of it all. Like obviously Nashville and that location, they're going to capitalize on the sort of cowboy culture of it all. And I think it's just really, it's really, I am obsessed with this choice. And I think it actually, I was very worried about VidCon and like what was next for it. And also like, what were they going to do with this whole like Cannes versus VidCon thing? And I think they're sort of acknowledging it.

24:31They're like, this wasn't working. You know what, guys, we're coming together and we're going to build something bigger and better. And I think this is going to be huge. I'm super stoked about this. What do you I mean, do you think do you what do you think about moving from like this effectively Los Angeles? Do you think that like that's a big mistake because that is this epicenter of creators? No, well, it wasn't Los Angeles. It was Anaheim. That's one. It's probably easier to get some types of individuals, executives, brands, marketers, creators, and more to fly to New York than go out to Anaheim, if we're being honest.

25:01I mean, truly. But also, let's just look at this from a business perspective. So I know there's still going to be some kind of fan component at Insight to Impact when it is in Nashville. But if you just look at the ticket prices. So if you look at the ticket prices from 2025, a multi-day community track ticket, the lowest tier was$175. A multi-day creator track ticket was like$300. A multi-day pro pass, so for the business track, you're thinking like executives, brands, VCs, and more was$1 ,100. Those are way more lucrative, obviously. and having put on events like we at TubeFilter produced Social Media Week Los Angeles for several years, several years ago.

25:47And we never tried to push community track tickets. It was a different kind of event. I get it, but you're always trying to push the highest value ticket on your consumer. And we were just trying to get businesses there because they were willing and had more money to dole out for the event that would have a direct impact on its bottom line. So partnering with an event like Insight to Impact that is a more professional event is, I think, going to dramatically increase the opportunity for them to extract value from VidCon in terms of ticket sales for business executives. I mean, I think the other thing that, you know, and sure, I can speak to tickets and all this sort of stuff is this notion that, you know, the majority of creators are in Los Angeles.

26:28And the truth of the matter is the majority of creators are everywhere. You might have like a little bit more of a concentration in Los Angeles, but I'll speak to, you know, again, VidSummit, which is in Dallas. There's a huge creator community in Texas. There's a huge creator community in every single state. I mean, it's no longer, you don't have to be in LA. And if anything, moves like this are going to indicate to people like, I don't need to be in California, like the most expensive state in the country. You know what I mean? I remember, so there are these two creators, Chad and V, who started in L.A.

27:00They were not from L.A. They moved to L.A. and lived there for like three, four years to kind of like learn and meet a bunch of people. And then they moved their entire operation to Las Vegas, bought two houses, one of which was their sort of house to live in, one was their house to sort of shoot in. and they brought out a few kind of production people said hey come live in las vegas no state tax here way cheaper and they built this huge conglomerate of spy ninjas like you don't i'm not saying that like los angeles doesn't have value because it does and there is an inherent all it will always be kind of the center i think of creativity but more and more people are realizing like you don't have to be there like you just don't have to and the cost of living and cost of being there is so incredibly high that this open i mean it's no it's no coincidence It's like Nashville is where I know half a dozen or more people, exacts just anecdotally, from Los Angeles who have moved to Nashville.

27:49Totally. It is a city where people are going. And this makes, I'm obsessed with this choice. I really am. This also speaks to the fact that creators used to be this fringe cultural thing where if you were into it, like you said, Lauren, you were kind of into everybody. And now creators doesn't represent monoculture. No. They're part of every specific component of culture where you see that in these other creator events that are happening, like VidSummit, which is kind of like a trade conference for creators. And like DreamCon, which is created by RDC World, which is an anime slash creator slash cosplay conference for not just creators, but everybody.

28:29And so this latest move with VidCon, I think basically the people that are running the event had a hard look in the mirror and said, like, what do we want to be when we grow up? Yeah. And our vision for what this could have been or what this was going to look like in Anaheim isn't the way the wind is blowing. And we got to head in the direction that's going to make the most sense for how the world works now. So I think it's really interesting that they're having creators be this add on to this other type of business event. I think, like you said, one plus one is going to equal more than two here.