Alex Cooper on flipping "Call Her Daddy" into a media business and entering the creative agency space

0:10Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore. I'm Max Tani and the media editor at Semaphore. With me as always is our editor-in-chief Ben Smith. Ben, viewers of the show, listeners of the show know this is a special episode. Not only we're in the same place, obviously, but the backdrop is this beautiful location. It's really hot. We're here at Cannes because we're interviewing Alex Cooper in a few minutes. Yeah, what a get, right? Like one of the really iconic figures of this era of media, a huge creator, as they insist on calling themselves and people call them, but who's also trying to build a really big media business.

0:48Yeah. Ben, obviously, we have a lot that we want to get to with Alex. We want to talk about her career trajectory. We want to talk about the biggest moments from her show. Obviously, there's a lot going on with her and with her business. There have been some articles that have come out recently about what the state of her media company Unwell is. Leadership changes that they've been going through, some friction. And of course, we just want to get her to talk about what it's like to be a celebrity star interviewer interviewing the biggest guests in the world. Yeah, I think I have a business question, which really is.

1:17I'm a little skeptical of this model of a creator creating a media company around themselves, but with lots of other talent I think she's unusually ambitious unusually successful at this and that's kind of what I want to ask her about Well, we have to take a short break, but we'll be back with Alex Cooper, of course live on stage right after this

1:41Hi, I'm Joshua Spania VP of marketing at Google and you might assume I have all the answers when it comes to marketing. The truth, I'm just as curious to learn, discover the answers to everything as everyone else. We are living through a total reset of our marketing industry. The old maps don't work, which means we get to chart a new path forward. It's dynamic, it's fast-paced, and honestly, there's never been a more exciting time to be in marketing. That is why we've started a new podcast Frontier CMO. It's from Think With Google, and I promise it's not just a bunch of corporate waffle. I'm sitting down with people who really know what's going on.

2:25CMOs, creators, technologists, the lot. And we're having a proper, unfiltered chat about what's working, and quite frankly, what isn't. These are your notes from the Frontier. So do me a favor, search for Frontier CMO wherever you get your podcasts or watch us and subscribe on YouTube.

2:52Amazing. I feel like the last time you were up here, it was actually literally the hottest day in French history. Is it better today? I mean, it feels better. I feel like they figured out how to get me to not pass out as these little like side breeze fans. And I brought a handheld today. So hopefully I'm making sense by the end of this. We've got pretty good coverage. I feel like in terms of our fan spread up here, which is great. That is our goal here. Nobody pass out. Please stay hydrated. Thank you for doing this, Alex. You, I think, unlike many people in your position, love Canon and have been coming here for years.

3:25I think it's your fourth year here. As creators have moved from like a confusing fringe to the center. And I'm just curious, like how you've seen those changes around how people see you. Like how has your experience here changed? That's a really good question. I think it's two-pronged because on one hand, the industry, yes, has changed so significantly. So showing up in the beginning as a creator, I was eager to just make connections and learn from people and, if anything, probably be noticed and hopefully make a deal or something. And now, obviously, having a media company and also having the shift in the landscape where people are looking to, yes, creators, but also our media company, Unwell, to be like, what do we do right now?

4:10The entire industry feels like it's been disrupted. I do feel like we, in an amazing way, have an upper hand, not in the sense of we're taking over and it's completely shifting, but more in the concept of like, oh, people are actually respecting it in a way that it is now a two-way conversation and it's not just legacy holds the seat forever. So you have, I mean, we were talking about this extensively backstage. You're telling us about how involved you are in a lot of the partnership that you have with Google and like the creative involved in that in a way that was kind of shocking to me because I think a lot of people want to get to your level and then essentially so that they don't have to be involved in the advertising and marketing.

4:50You know, you've called yourself a marketer at heart. You worked in ad sales. I want to read this quote that you gave the Wall Street Journal recently. You said, Gen Z has grown up scrolling their feeds, but the reality is they're being bombarded by sometimes tone-deaf brands. What did you mean by that? I feel like everyone right now is looking at Gen Z like they're this enigma of like, how do we catch them? Like, shove them in the corner, try to get them to listen to what we're saying. Like, how do we reach them? And I believe then a lot of times the brand deals can feel forced and they can feel inauthentic.

5:23And I think what has made my company Unwell so unique is that has been in our DNA since day one, community building, understanding the audience. And so you can kind of suss out when something feels forced and not authentic to that brand or when something feels organic from the very beginning. And I think that consumers nowadays are so quick to call bullshit immediately. Like you have literally one second before they keep scrolling. And so the way it looks visually, the first word that is used in the second that you're consuming that content, it is so imperative to the success or the detriment of that brand deal.

6:00You have your colleague Joanne was just showing me the micro drama that you put out that struck me as like both very, very deeply integrated with Google and then also very much your voice. Just as an example of what you're just talking about, can you talk through that a little bit? So when we launched Unwell, we did not have a creative agency at Unwell. We had a podcast network. We had a television and film studio. We launched consumer products as one of our first new sectors. We started a charitable foundation. We had live events, but we didn't have a creative agency because that's just not who we were.

6:35As we started working with different brands, we started to recognize, wait a second, we keep having this middleman and we keep end up doing all of the creative because the creative agencies that we were working with didn't understand the audience that the brands coming to us were trying to appeal to better than Unwell itself. And that was the day that we were finally were like, why don't we just start a creative agency ourselves? Google was our first partner in that creative agency, which is still mind-blowing to say to this day because it's Google. And you're like, that's a pretty good first partnership.

7:06Okay, I'll take it. It's good to be Alex Cooper. It is good to be Alex Cooper sometimes. But I will say what has been so striking about the relationship with Google is they know their products better than anyone and they know where they're going better than anyone. But no one understands women and millennial and Gen Z women, I believe, as a media company, better than unwell right now. And so the meeting of our minds really worked together where Google trusted us to launch essentially campaigns for them. Our first campaign that we did, Get Lost for Google Pixel, came out last year in 2025. And it was one of their biggest advertising campaigns of that year.

7:44It did double the impressions they could have ever expected. It's been used in all of their research when they're like, this was a success story. And so I was like, okay, no pressure. We got to do it again. So when we went back to the drawing board of how can we do another Google Pixel ad that essentially breaks all expectations, we wanted to think of a format that is going to create a conversation that is not expected, but still will work with our audience, these Gen Z young women. And a micro drama was a format that immediately came to the drawing table when we came together with the creative.

8:22I think that when you think about a micro drama right now, people who are consuming vertical content, that is young Gen Z women, right? They want to be able to see high definition, great quality content, but also recognizing that we went to a Google and we're working with a brand. And a lot of times if you launch a campaign, you're thinking of one asset. And we recognize at Unwell, when we had our creative agency working on this, that a micro drama actually allows you to have a long format asset that could be uploaded. If you want long form onto YouTube, for example. And then you can cut that piece of content into 15 to 20 extra individual clips.

8:59And so part one, part two, part three. So you essentially have a 15 part campaign that is being rolled out and you're just getting that much more traction, that much more engagement. And so when we presented it to Google, they were like, yes, where do we sign up? This is perfect. Let's do it. And it just launched this week and it's been such a success and the watching, the engagement, and also the people and the conversation it's creating is exactly what we want to do. You're a person who reads the comments. Oh, I'm in the comments. I'm in the comments. It's so interesting to hear you get so incredibly granular with the details of this.

9:36I was struck by that when we were talking about it backstage. Could you ever see, right now, obviously, you're doing a lot of the creative for yourself and properties at Unwell. Could you see it expanding beyond that? Oh my God, no. Like I got to keep my secret sauce in on well, like we got to keep it right where it's supposed to be. I'm just saying like, it's your, like I was watching you talk and I was like, I forgot that I'm talking to Alex Cooper, the podcaster. I thought this was like a creative direct, you know, agency direct. Well, you are an agency director, obviously. No, I appreciate that.

10:02I will say that back in the beginning days of how I got started is Call Her Daddy, my podcast. And I really do attribute a lot of the success to yes, the authenticity and the conversation. It was polarizing and it was the right moment in podcasting. But I do believe it also was the marketing and the amount that went into the strategy behind the voice and the building of the community and the cut downs and the language that was used. And so I think that's always been a part of me. But now to get to expand and I've co-founded Unwell with my husband and to get to work with some of the most creative people I've ever worked with and hiring such incredible people, it's genuinely my biggest passion is to get to sit with a group of people every day and be like, how are we going to break the internet this week?

10:47How are we going to get people to engage? How are we going to get people to talk? And so I can't imagine myself ever not being in those rooms in that circular table being like, what's on the docket this week? It's a universe that favors talent, where it's fun to be an individual journalist, it's great to be a creator, and everybody wants to be that. And being an executive these days is a bit of a step down in a way, or at least some nights I think that. Ben says this as an executive himself having made this particular choice myself. Do you feel like there's a trade-off there? It's a pretty nice life to be a creator these days, and there's a lot of headaches that come with running a company.

11:24And I'm just curious if you could talk a little about that trade-off, that choice. I mean, I will say that I feel like I've never just been a host or a creator. I think that my main goal when I studied film and television at Boston University was to one day be a film director. So like being a host of a podcast, I was like, oh, this ended up working out. Like, wow, there's a lot of money in this and there's a lot of fandom in this. This is fun. But I think that I have always approached it almost like I look at Alex Cooper, the host, as I'm producing her. So I've always had this weird separation within myself where I've always edited my podcast.

11:59I've always been marketing it. I've always been doing the backend, which I completely recognize that there is a lot of talent in a beautiful way who gets to show up and sit in the seat and read the cards and hasn't been in the pre or post edit or process or prep. Who wrote your questions? I can't even read them. I wrote them. I did. So I, there you go. I transcribed them. So I think in a sense from the inception, I've never just been a creator. If anything, I probably feel the most confident behind the camera. And so I think when I was able to start this media company, it actually felt the most authentic to who I am because getting my hands dirty and actually getting into the weeds, of course, it's a lot more work, I will say, than just being a host.

12:43But I was an athlete. I love competition. I love getting my hands dirty. Well, you know, one of the things that goes along, obviously, with managing a company is you do kind of have to unfortunately become HR. Obviously, there was this Vanity Fair article that came out. You addressed it yesterday at the Wall Street Journal House. We're not going to get into the specifics of the article, but I am kind of curious, like, is there anything that you think that you want to change about the company? I think there's so much growth and change always when you have a startup. Like I always think about when I've met with other people who have had startups, you kind of talk about when your startup begins, it feels like you're literally flying the plane and you are putting the pieces together as you're flying the plane.

13:22Because again, certain divisions didn't exist when we started Unwell. Ideas can come about and then you need to go hire the division of that new sector that you're building out. And so I think change, yes, comes more with growth. I think the industry is changing so drastically that my goal is to keep my business moving as fast as the industry, which is going to require extreme leadership. I believe that this past year, I'm really proud. We have really honed in on the leaders at our company now being able to delegate to them and believe in them to basically own their individual divisions. When we first started unwell, there was about 10 plus people and we're like, all right, how are we doing this?

14:04Let's roll up our sleeves. Now I feel like we are actualizing it to the degree that each division has a full built out structure. So that's exciting. No, it's funny because I was actually thinking about I'm a day one employee at Semaphore. We're about four years old as a media company. And I think about, you know, when we started out, we were working out of essentially an apartment with one bathroom, you know, yeah, we had a shower in the bathroom, which Ben, I think, I don't know if you showered in there or not. I heard maybe you did at one, but it's just, but it is true that we are now a very, that we are a very different company and we have kind of grown a lot.

14:34And obviously there are growing pains that go along with. But even like you just said, like that's the beauty of it, right? To see the growth and the trajectory of where it started. And my husband and I, him having a film and television background, making YA movies for 20 plus years. And then me having the podcast background and us looking at each other, being like, look at the landscape of what is happening right now, we have the opportunity to create something greater together with our storytelling abilities than being individuals. And creating a media company together, we saw as, yes, it's going to be a lot of work, but the end result will actually be more gratifying than us as individuals in our own sectors.

15:13One of the, I think, crazy things about the media business that our friends in marketing have to deal with slightly less is how much you operate in public. And there's like, across media and TV and news, there's like a large commentariat that analyzes your every business move and your every HR thing. And I'm curious, like, how do you, and I think you are like top of that. There are people on TikTok making flow charts all the time about your business. How do you think about that? Do you consume it? Do you learn from it? Do you block it out? I think I do a little bit of both. I think that, again, having the recognition that I'm in a very unique position that a lot of business owners are not hosts and public figures and talent And also, so there's a lot of nuance that goes into my position and I recognize that.

15:58And so I also, I met Oprah yesterday and I was like, you're the blueprint. Like she did such an incredible job of building out her business in the capacity of yes, being forward facing, but also being behind the scenes, building something out. I think you kind of have to trust your gut. There's always going to be road bumps. But at the end of the day, I believe that what we are doing is so unique. and even coming to Cannes, I've never felt more inundated with people wanting to work with us. And so we have something really special. It's just about being really specific about who we work with and what we listen to and all the noise and how we take that, learn from it, grow from it.

16:37Yeah. Wait, we have to go back. You met Oprah yesterday. What did you guys talk about? What did she talk to you about? We have to hear about that. Well, I texted my mom. My mom's freaking out. She's like, what do you mean you met Oprah? I'm like, I'll tell you when I get back to the States, mom. She's like, what are you talking about? Finally impressed. Casual. I interviewed Gayle King the other week and the episode went so viral. And we started chatting about Gayle because obviously they're BFFs. And no, I just said to Oprah that like, as a woman in this industry, I recognize just how difficult it is.

17:12And she has been someone I've always looked up to as this extremely strong individual who has had a path forward that she has had her eye on since day one. And she's been resilient. And I think as a woman, it's important to have a woman to look up to. And so I just, I gave her all the flowers I possibly could. You're 31. And I think at the beginning of a potentially very, very long career like Oprah, how do you think about that? You could be easily doing this for 50 more years. Yeah. Oh my God. I hope I am. I think that when you genuinely love something and I always say like I'm so fortunate to have my you know passion become my purpose in life I don't think this is something that happened to me and I have a lot of empathy for when someone blew up on TikTok and they're like oh my god I was in college and I didn't even know this was going to happen and I didn't know if I wanted to go into this industry like that just wasn't the case for me I have been the young woman in my basement since day one, making content, stealing my dad's camera, trying to make content and movies and directing and producing.

18:15So I think this is like in my blood of who I am. My father was a sports television producer. My mom's a psychologist. I feel like I was able to take the beauty of them both and merge it together for my career. So I just don't see a world where I could ever not be doing this because it genuinely fuels me every single day. I was surprised to hear earlier that, you said that you were in the comments, you read stuff. I feel like whenever I watch, look at clips of myself or whatever that are circulating around there, I'm like, oh my God, wait, I do not want to hear what anybody has to say about me.

18:48I guess, how do you kind of keep strong mental health while you're in the comments section? That can be difficult, I can imagine. I don't know. I think I just have had, when you share a locker room with 20 plus women in college and you have an older brother. There's a lot of things that went into my life where I think you have to take everything with a grain of salt. I have very thick skin. I also am very confident in who I am. And I know as a woman, that can be sometimes off-putting, but I'm never going to change that. And so I think, yes, there's always going to be commentary, but I've always said a view is a view, whether it's a hate view or a like view, you can't differentiate.

19:23A view is a view. If people are talking, they're talking and we're making money. We'll be right back with more from Alex Cooper. We have to take a quick break.

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20:18So many people are watching Call Her Daddy. At this point, what share of Unwell is Call Her Daddy, and how do you think about that evolving? Well, what's really exciting is when we started Unwell, obviously, Call Her Daddy was a huge part of it. And today I can say what's very exciting is, of course, Call Her Daddy is a very big part of Unwell. But that is not 100 % contributing in any capacity to our revenue. The creative agency this year was going toe-to-toe with Call Her Daddy in revenue, which was mind-blowing to me. Our network has been, we have over 100 million followers across all platforms.

20:54And so the goal is not to just be in the Alex Cooper business. And I think this year that was actualized where I don't have to show up to an unwell event anymore. It actually can be 100 % based in the community we've built and the brand that we've built. The recognition is there without my name on it, which was really fulfilling because at the end of the day, yes, I love being a part of it. But I do think in order to sustain a media company, you cannot just have someone be the face of it. and God forbid that person doesn't want to do it anymore or they fall back, then it all dissipates and disappears.

21:27So the goal has been to actualize all the other sectors of our business and we've been able to do that successfully. There are a lot of competing talent-led networks that are really struggling to do that exact thing. Like that's kind of the story of that part of the industry right now. Super successful talent. And then not bringing in, then the revenue is certainly not, more than half other things. How do you think about that? How do you figure that out? Something I think that's very fascinating and understandably right now is I think there's such an oversaturation of creators in the industry.

21:56And so creators understandably, I think are trying to survive. And they're like, how can I go to the next level? And I think a lot of creators are like, maybe I should start a media company. And the issue is, I think, and the biggest misconception about that is a creator who has a large audience has a creator business. And that is so impressive in itself. but to actually create a successful media company, the audience needs to have loyalty to the platform, to the brand or to the community. And that is what we have built with Unwell. I kind of equate it to similar back in the MTV days where they were a cultural touchstone.

22:35When you thought of MTV, you thought of a bunch of different things, right? And so with Unwell, we now have film and television shows that are in the zeitgeist. We launched Love Overboard with Hulu and it had this huge moment where I wasn't even in it. It was just such a, in the culture and that's our main, I think, objective. When we have live events, we have thousands of women show up to events in Miami, in Chicago. And again, I don't need to be there. The people are showing up for the community and they have loyalty to the community and the feeling that unwell presents them. So whether you're consuming our consumer products, you're at our live events, you're consuming our television shows, our film, our podcast network, that feeling is a cultural integration that I think that understandably creators are having a hard time not just doing on their own because it takes a lot of work.

23:27So don't start a media company unless you really know what you're getting into. Well, and also I couldn't do this alone. Like I think there's a understandably a misconception because I am the face of Unwell. I am not even close to only the person who is doing all of this. I have a CMO. I have the president of the company. We have my husband who literally has brought this to fruition with his film and television background. We have people from Meta who work at a company, people who have come from Google, who have come from Netflix, who have come from Hulu, all these incredible places, Disney. And so we have real adults sitting and dictating each division that that is how we move this thing forward.

24:06It's not just Alex Cooper with a dream being like, let's throw a live event. It's like this is actual real work that takes place. So you are now as famous or if not more famous than many of the guests who come on your show. I'm kind of curious, how do you navigate, you know, maybe friends, even celebrity friends who may want to come on the show, but you may think like, oh, this may not be the right fit or this may not do super well. Well, I think the good thing is, and I really am so proud of staying true to what I wanted to build with Call Her Daddy is, yes, it is a safe space for women to come on and talk.