Visa CMO on What Actually Works in Marketing Today

0:00Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy.

0:04Jasmine Enberg: I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. When have you ever had good food at a conference? At the Scalable Summit. Exactly. I don't know if you know this about me, but I am terrified of outer space. What? Did you block all Apollo content? No, I watched it. I could not stop watching it. I'm obsessed with it, but terrified with it at the same time. Here's to Scalable Summit 2027. The sequel. The sequel, yeah. Maybe earlier.

0:37Hi, Jasmine. Hi, Kaya. And hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into our weekly show about the creator economy. It's always so nice to be in person and in studio.

0:48Jasmine Enberg: We did it. We did it. Our first Scalable Summit. It's behind us. What was your favorite part? Oh, my gosh. I think this was months of hard work. So seeing it all just like come together was really exciting. I mean, obviously the people, right? Like most importantly, we wanted to curate a great event. The people in the room are so important from the speakers to the actual attendees. And just like the energy, like we were so blown away. People were so happy all day. It felt like a party. It did not feel like work. It just like everyone was like buzzing and the energy was so good and the weather was amazing.

1:22I mean, like nothing major went wrong.

1:23Jasmine Enberg: Nothing major that That we know of. I know. We haven't done our debrief yet. But that is a testament to the Lighthouse team. The only thing that happened, though, is that we ran out of lanyards. Yes. But that's because we were expecting about 250 people and over 400 ended up showing up. Like checking in, not registering, but actually being there. But the Lighthouse team had that handled, too, because they had extras and they were able to dip into those. But everything we cared about went so smoothly. like people loved the food, which was really important to us because food at conferences can be so hit or miss.

1:56Jasmine Enberg: It's always so bad. When have you ever had good food at a conference? At the Scalable Summit. Exactly. We got really good feedback on the content, which is important. And people were connecting and chatting, which is what we really wanted to happen. It got so loud at one point, though, that I had to tell people to move the conversations outside. But I think, again, that just shows how much people were excited to be there and talking to each other. So it was great. Yes. And such a big thank you to our speakers. We had such an incredible lineup from across the creator economy, right? Like we had traditional media, we had social platforms.

2:27I loved kicking off the day with Twitch CEO Dan Clancy. He was honestly the best

2:31Jasmine Enberg: person to start the day with. It was a great way to kick off. And what I appreciate about Dan is that he's the rare CEO who speaks his mind and actually isn't afraid to give a real take on something and not just kind of stick to these scripted talking points. He's not afraid to name drop competitors, a few examples. He said that he doesn't think there's real community on TikTok. He also called AI overhyped, which is the opposite of what every major tech CEO is saying right now. We also dove into clipping with him, which we definitely wanted to talk about because how much is too much when it comes to clipping?

3:02The industry has been really divided, but we also wanted to get his take on kind of the paid armies of clippers and what he thinks about all that.

3:08Jasmine Enberg: Well, speaking of Dan Clancy, speaking his mind, I think one of the things that stood out to me was when he said that the social platforms are going to start, quote, toning back on clipping once it starts affecting their bottom line. And I don't think a lot of people have really connected the dots there, but it makes a lot of sense. If people are paying armies of clippers to clip and distribute their content, I mean, that's basically marketing and the social platforms aren't directly monetizing that content and they're not going to let that fly for long. And that's, you know, what Clancy was pointing out, that they want people to pay for ads to market their shows or products or whatever it is.

3:43Jasmine Enberg: And I think it's very similar to what we're seeing happen now in influencer marketing. I mean, for so many years, the social platforms basically let brands and creators partner on their platforms. They didn't play a big role in it. I mean, of course, they had like a few different programs here and there. But for the most part, it was happening, you know, outside of their control. And they certainly weren't taking a cut of spending. And now you're seeing everyone from meta to YouTube to TikTok really pushing creator ads so that they can also, make money off of this activity. And then in Meta's Q1 earnings call recently, the company said that partnership ads now have a$10 billion revenue run rate.

4:21Jasmine Enberg: So clearly it's working. When I asked Arthur Leopold, the CEO and co-founder of Argentio about this later in the day during the influencer marketing session, and he said something very similar to what Clancy was talking about. And he said that the social platforms aren't incentivized to show short form content with a sponsor, meaning as a brand, you have to boost that content as a paid ad in order to break through the noise and make sure you're reaching audiences. Yeah. And I think what's so interesting about Twitch is that it's the rare platform that is not reliant on advertising. I mean, they definitely want to grow their advertising business and their parent company is Amazon, which has also been growing its ad business.

4:57So it's a key priority. But Dan said on stage that about two thirds to three fourths of their revenue comes from their viewers. So paid subscriptions to streamers, for example, So that is notable because he kind of called out Instagram in particular because they recently announced that accounts that primarily aggregate and reupload creators' content will no longer be eligible for recommendations in the app. And he took this as potentially a crackdown on something. Cloted a lot of other people. Yeah. So Tessa Lyons, who's the VP of product at Instagram, had a different framing when her and I sat down in the afternoon for a fireside chat.

5:30And she said that the goal of this, you know, change is that Instagram wants, quote, the people who are doing the creative work to get the value of that distribution rather than aggregators or others. So obviously this makes sense. Two things can be true. Right. Exactly. But also in that conversation, I mean, she said long form content is going to make a comeback on Instagram as it pushes into smart TVs. Which is something we predicted. Yes. Yeah. But they hadn't talked about that until this point. And, you know, they know that Reels is just not going to be enough of a drive. I mean, we've heard this from platform executives from YouTube to Instagram that people are watching reels and shorts on TV screens.

6:04We don't personally do that, but I think it's an acknowledgment. Like they know that short form videos, even if a percentage of people are watching them, it's not going to be enough to draw people to TV screens. We also talked about some of the downsides of reels, you know, how it's getting harder for creators to reach their actual followings. If you tuned into last week's episode, Tan France had some choice words about this saying, you know, he doesn't actually have 4 million followers on Instagram. He has as many followers as Instagram decides he wants. But this is something that Tessa said Instagram needs to do a better job of balancing.

6:34I mean, obviously, Reels has helped creators grow and reach new audiences, and that's important. But, like, if they can't continue to reach those audiences or their loyal fans, like, that's a problem for creators. So another thing that is on Instagram's radar.

6:46Jasmine Enberg: So I also asked Marissa Hammons, who's the global head of creator marketing and community, about whether or not we could see TikTok bring back a TV app. Now, of course, that Instagram has one. She told us that it wasn't on the roadmap, but quote, never say never. So maybe we'll see something there at some point. I mean, I think it makes a ton of sense for them at this point. Like, obviously, their original TV. And they used to have one. Yeah, it didn't work out. But again, the moment is different now. They're also pushing really heavily into micro dramas. Like, yes, it's short form content, but it's serialized and it's scripted and it makes more sense for TV than, you know, normal lo-fi, quirky video clips that TikTok has.

7:23Jasmine Enberg: So speaking of that session, one piece of feedback that we got from Jim Lauterbeck was that... Shout out to Jim. Shout out to Jim. He always speaks his mind, which I enjoy. Was that Dan Clancy took a swipe at TikTok during his session, and then it didn't come up in the conversation with Marissa that happened right afterwards. Okay. So I was in the green room while you were talking to Dan Clancy. So I didn't actually hear that comment until after my conversation with Marissa. But I do agree that it was a missed opportunity. At the same time, though, I do have to wonder how much value the audience would have necessarily gotten out of it.

7:59Jasmine Enberg: It could have made for a great headline, pitting these two executives against each other. But TikTok execs always stick so heavily to their talking points. They're some of the hardest executives to interview because they rarely give you anything more than the party line. And I think her response would probably just have been, well, we disagree, which is fair. Especially considering community is in her title. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And to the point about TikTok execs sticking to their talking points, I mean, they do their job very well. I mean, that's what they're supposed to do. But it does, you know, sometimes make for more challenging, challenging conversation.

8:34Jasmine Enberg: Of course, our job is to push and to try to get an answer, but it doesn't always work. Anyway, I think it's probably more valuable for the audience to learn about how TikTok thinks about its app, about content, about monetization. And there were some really good nuggets in there, especially about how TikTok is thinking more about premium content. So what Marissa said is that premium doesn't necessarily mean long form, which is really interesting because I think a lot of people associate premium content with long form. Also doesn't necessarily mean highly produced, which is very TikTok of her to say.

9:05Jasmine Enberg: also has to be original content, but she did admit that it has to have a story arc, which does kind of lean more into the production value type side of things, meaning it has to be a little bit better produced than, you know, some of the very lo-fi short form trending content that most people associate TikTok with. Probably also a little bit longer than clips to have a story arc, you know, you probably need more than like six seconds, right? But for context, you already brought up briefly the comment that Clancy made. We've got to read the quote. Okay. Quote, how many people did you think met their partner by leaving comments on TikTok?

9:41Anyone? I personally think it's zero. Wow. I really liked your comment. Want to get together sometime? I think that'd be a little creepy.

9:48Jasmine Enberg: Dan Clancy, CEO of Twitch. It's amazing. I mean, it's such a good quote. And, you know, it's such a fair point that Jim Lauterbach made, also a fair point that Clancy was making. Although I do have to say that Elon Musk reportedly met Grimes on Twitter. People meet in the DMs. In the DMs, that's true. Yeah, so it's a little bit different. Fair, fair. And I think it's a fair point because we do hear tech executives throw around the word community all the time. And most of the time, what they're talking about is audience. And those are two very different things. I do think, though, when you're comparing TikTok to other social platforms like Instagram or Facebook, there is more of a community feeling.

10:25Jasmine Enberg: And, you know, You know, Marissa was talking about some of the communities that they have, like BookTok, of course, is a really famous one. But it's still probably not as strong as in live streaming where people are like interacting and engaging with each other. So fair points all around and a lesson learned for next time. Totally. I think the value of having these executives is to like ask the question, see how they respond, and also to get a pulse from what is important to TikTok, what's important to YouTube, right? We had all the major platforms represented and there's value in that to the audience of like, how are they thinking about things?

10:55I think it's hard. You know, things are moving so quickly. Like the day went by in like two minutes for me, like the entire day. I was like, wait, how are we already at the closing remarks? What's happening? And I also didn't get to listen to every session. So it's definitely something we'll think about when we're kind of planning. But we did so much prep. I've never prepped more for anything than this event. And, you know, just for a little bit of behind the scenes, like we put all of our questions into one massive document and at the top had like the themes. Because I think, you know, you have all these different groups.

11:23and how do we connect the dots for the audience, right? Like what Twitch is focused on is different than TikTok or YouTube or sports or influencer marketing, but like what are some of the themes? And obviously we don't want to ask the same set of questions to each person. That's boring, right? But we want to get at some of the same themes and like connect the dots. And have a through line for people

11:39Jasmine Enberg: so they can have takeaways. And so many people did, which was really great. Those were fun to be reading on LinkedIn. Totally, we've been deep in our feeds getting through everything. So no, but I mean, it was so much fun. It felt like our wedding. I know. It really did. Especially because we ate lunch downstairs in a private room with a sweetheart table. Oh, my God. We have to shout out Michelle Curtis from the Whaler Group, who is just like an events genius. We could not have done it without her. No. And the whole Lighthouse team. I also don't know what I'm going to do with myself now, not talking to her every single day.

12:09I know. We're just stuck. You and me now. I know. But the whole team at the Lighthouse, I mean, like, obviously, this was our, you know, we're hosting this event. We're so excited about it. But just having people around you that are equally as excited and bought in.

12:21Jasmine Enberg: And care as much as you do. Every detail. I mean, it was just so like credit to our business partner at the Lighthouse and the whole team on the ground. But Michelle set up like a sweetheart table for us, like in a side room so that we could just like eat really quickly. Because obviously we wanted to talk to everyone there and say hi, but we were like, we need to eat. But it was very funny. We were like, this is literally like our wedding. I know. It also felt, though, that we had a team around us. Which is so important. So important. Like, I love working with you every day, but it's so nice to have the support.

12:48Jasmine Enberg: I know. It's amazing. Well, here's to Scalable Summit 2027. The sequel. The sequel, yes. Maybe earlier. That was coined by John Goss, which is a great name for it. But anyway, what is next for us? Everybody has been like, well, now you can relax. Not the case. Absolutely not. Probably not anytime soon. Yeah, we are not going to be on a vacation probably anytime soon. But we are flying to the south of France to the Cannes Film Festival next, which we are so excited about. The team reached out to us to be part of their first ever Creator Economy Summit. it. It's really an acknowledgement of the organizers realizing that the creator economy has become such a force in entertainment.

13:24For some context, so that my French accent is going to be really bad here, but I'll try. So the Marché du Fiume. I don't know. I thought it was pretty good. Okay, thanks.

13:31Jasmine Enberg: I took French in like fifth grade. I took it for like five years and I can say two sentences. Bonjour. So anyway, the Marché du Fiume is the film market iconic that takes place alongside the Canfield Festival every year. And this event is part of that. So we were very honored to get the call from them. Yeah. And we'll be taking the stage with Meta to talk a little bit more about how the company fits in with the convergence of the movie industry and the creator economy. I don't think people necessarily associate Meta with the film industry. So I am very curious to hear how they're positioning that and what their role is there.

14:04Jasmine Enberg: Are they bringing movies to the Smart TV app? We're going to find out. Are they going to be producing movies? Who knows? Anyway, I don't think so, but we'll see. And then we'll close out the conference with some predictions and our analysis. So we're super excited to be there. I also really want to go see some of the films because we didn't get to see any when we were at Sundance. I know. So we'll hopefully get into one screening. I've been told that we have to bring our best black tie or we will be. Yes, we will not be allowed. You did not tell me that. I know. I just found this out. I am leaving tomorrow morning and I haven't packed.

14:29Thank God. Okay. And then literally two days later, I'm heading to the podcast show in London, which I had never heard of, but it's been around for a few years and it's gotten a lot of buzz this year, a major podcasting conference. And I'm really excited to take the stage with Piers Morgan, of all people, alongside Max Cutler, who's the founder of Pave Studios. He's a podcasting expert. Previously, he sold a company to Spotify. And then I'm also moderating a session with Patreon the next day.

14:52Jasmine Enberg: So it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. I am so curious to hear your takeaways from your conversation with Piers Morgan. I'm so excited. Talk about Candid. I know, seriously. I also just like have no idea really what he's been up to recently. Like everybody knows his name and he's always kind of in the news cycle in some way. But like, I just want to hear more about his business and what he's doing. Yes, he's building his independent media company. He just hired the ex-president of MSNBC, which now is called MSN Now. So I'm very excited to hear more about what's happening with him. So we will certainly have takeaways.

15:22Jasmine Enberg: And then we are heading back to the south of France. So I'm flying back to LA. Which is amazing. I mean, can we talk about how, of all the places in the world, to have to go back to back? A hundred percent. And also none of this is a complaint. Like, I love all of this. We love all of it. But this time, we'll be going for Cannes Lions. And we're so excited that Scalable is a media partner with Cannes Lions, which is actually bringing you this episode today. So I have been going to Cannes Lions since 2022. Back then, there was barely any talk of creators. I mean, of course, there were some creators on the ground.

15:54Jasmine Enberg: They were brought there by the platforms. You think about YouTube, for example, as well as ad agencies. But I took a look at what I wrote as my takeaways that year from my conversations with the social platforms. Can you guess what was number one? At least from metaverse. Yeah. It was high time for the metaverse. Okay. And so when I went to their activation that year, they put me in VR glasses. And I don't know if you know this about me, but I am terrified of outer space. What? I'm like, I'm fascinated by the moon. Fascinated by planets and stars. Did you block all Apollo content? that? No, I watched it.

16:31Jasmine Enberg: I could not stop watching it because I'm obsessed with it, but terrified with it at the same time. I cried when they landed in the ocean. So you don't want to go to space with Katy Perry. I do not want to go to space with Katy Perry, but I kind of went to space already through this VR headset. And yeah, so they literally put me on a spaceship and I could see the earth below me and like the moon or whatever else was there. and I was physically shaking because it felt so real. And I had my purse, purse like right next to me. But in the experience I was having, it looked like it was like on the edge of the spaceship and I kept being afraid that it was gonna fall off into like space.

17:09Jasmine Enberg: It's like when you're dreaming and you feel like you're falling. And so I kept like clutching for it like this. And my colleague at the time was like, are you okay? But I was so embarrassed. I couldn't say anything. So I just continued with the whole thing. It's like someone putting like a headset on you and being like, oh, spiders everywhere. You don't like it? Okay, well, that's terrifying. That was 2022. That will not be happening again this year. What else happened that year? Oh, Instagram was pushing Reels. They had a big activation that year. And AR was a really big focus for Snap. But anyway.

17:38Jasmine Enberg: Still is. Still is. Still is. Okay. Some things don't change. Yeah, some things don't change. But a lot has changed since then. And CanLions, of course, now has its own creator track, its own creator programming. It's getting a new, better location on the beach this year. And since we're media partners, look out for this scalable logo. I'm so excited to see Out in the Wild. It's so fun. Even being like working largely in the digital space, this is why we did a scalable magazine for our event. Like there is just something about kind of the tangible, the analog events, the in-person, all of that.

18:07So I went to Cannes Lions for the first time in 2023. And similarly, there was some talk about creators, but they were not center stage like they are now. You know, it's always such a productive event with the who's who attending. In case you have no idea what we're talking about, I have never heard of Cannes Lions. It's the annual International Festival of Creativity where marketing brands, agencies, companies, and creators from all around the world come to meet in the south of France every June. And it's also where the world's best creative marketing work gets awarded. So there's a whole award ceremony that's a huge part of this.

18:37And it's where the whole industry comes to do business and build brands. And Lions Creators is really the home of all of that for this year's festival. Like you mentioned, there will be a brand new space on the beach, which I am so excited to see. Adobe is a partner on that. There will be talks, workshops, insight, and speaking from top global talent and marketing leaders, a content studio, editing suite, and a ton of meeting spaces. So all of those things are very necessary.

19:01Jasmine Enberg: We're so excited to see all of this come to life this summer. It's also so soon. So soon. It's going to be here before we know it. It's from June 22nd to June 26th. We'll be there all week. We will. And you can get more information and apply for your Lions Creators Pass at canlions.com. So in the middle of our Scalable Summit, we sat down with Visa CMO Frank Cooper, who was one of our speakers. And it was so fun to use one of the podcast studios on site here, which was great. Frank Cooper is such a legend in the marketing world. He's been the CMO of PepsiCo, BlackRock, and BuzzFeed, and now, of course, Visa.

19:32Jasmine Enberg: And he's had a front row seat to how much marketing has changed. Visa sits at this really interesting intersection. They're expanding their influencer marketing efforts, but they're also rolling out financial products for creators, including a new debit card for TikTok Live creators in the UK. And during the Scalable Summit, Frank told us that Visa's investments in creators have actually doubled in the past year, and he also said that he hopes to double them again. We also spoke to him about why the CFO has to be the best friend of the CMO, why he considers creators to be more than just talent, as well as Visa's upcoming partnership with FIFA for the World Cup.

20:06Hi, Frank. Welcome to Scalable. Thank you for having me. Great to be here with you both.

20:11Jasmine Enberg: We're so excited to have you here, especially during the Scalable Summit. I gotta tell you, this is incredible. It's the first, it's the inaugural Scalable Summit, and I didn't know what to expect, but the energy here is amazing. The people are great. You know, it's a space, but what makes the place are the people who come together. And you guys really convene an interesting group of people around topics that I find fascinating. So I've been scooping it all up since the morning. Well, thank you so much. We so appreciate you being here and being a part of it. So, Frank, you have built a long career in marketing, including over a decade at PepsiCo, where you were most recently CMO.

20:45Jasmine Enberg: Since 2022, you've been CMO of Visa, and you've also had CMO roles at BlackRock and BuzzFeed. So quite the resume set the stage for us. What have been the biggest shifts that you've seen in the marketing space during that time? Oh, my God. Easy questions. How much time do you have? You know, look, it's probably one of the most difficult questions because, you know, marketing, if you could, the old days when people who watch Mad Men, which is a great show and you're fascinated by the 30-second spot, it is so far away from that today. It's hard to imagine. And so, number one, you still have to be a great storyteller.

21:21That has not changed. But the way in which you tell stories has changed. In fact, with every new medium, there's been a new form of narrative. Every new medium. This happened from the history of time, right? You get the printing press. You get a novel. You get a motion picture camera. You get the feature film. You get TV. You get sitcoms. You get social media. You get micro dramas. So every new medium creates this new form of narrative. But you still have to be a great storyteller, and the basics of story have not changed. But you also have to be a precision marketer, bringing in data and understanding how data can inform you so you can tell better stories.

21:54But you also have to design experiences. You have to create expectations. You have to build memories. You have to build relationships. All those things are necessary to be a great marketer today. Great storytelling, designing great experiences, creating expectations, building memories, building relationships. And so the big shift is really around the complexity of art and science coming together in a way that you can orchestrate that across different consumer segments.

22:24Jasmine Enberg: Right. So you have to be able to connect the dots between them all. And that can be really challenging. It's both challenging and it's not how people are trained. Because we just came out of an era of specialization. And people were like, OK, yeah, you know, I'm good at performance marketing, which I hate the term. The term is like the worst term ever created. Like, what, other marketing is not performance-based? You know, all of it performs. But bottom-of-the-funnel marketing, you know, big storytelling, you know, used to be separate. All of it's converging now. So I think that's one of the big things.

22:52Second big thing is who controls the distribution. When you had mass distribution, it was easier. I won't say easy. Nothing is ever easy, but it was easier. But now who controls the distribution? How do ideas spread? You know, it's hard for a brand to just pay money and then have that spread in a way that people believe it. And you influence their perceptions, their emotions and their behaviors. Really hard to do. So here come the creators. And if you can leverage creators well, you know, not just the marketing channel, but as a business infrastructure, then that's a whole nother realm of how you communicate with customers.

23:28And by the way, this is not like something that came out as a surprise because trust in large institutions have been declining for about the past 30 years across everything, whether it's business, nonprofit, governmental, all of it's been declining. And people started having trust in really strangers. People were in their network. And creators to me and influencers are part of that shift.

23:52Jasmine Enberg: When did creators and influencers first get on your radar as a tactic to be investing in? I saw the early signs of it when I was at Pepsi. So I did a deal with Nicki Minaj. You might not think of Nicki Minaj as a creator. She counts. But what she did early on, the seeds of it, you start to see things like her inviting the Barbies in for participation. You could see her having more of a conversation with them. And what became clear is that the trust that she had with her base was the asset that she was selling, more so than an individual piece of music. And so she could carry that trust anywhere.

24:31I saw it early with Beyonce, did a deal with her also. Beyonce was building community. And so I thought that was interesting. And then we started moving in more to that second era of just more formalized creators coming out of the hobby era to where the platform started to get more mature. And working with the Lilly Sings and others where they had influence in certain verticals. And so it moved to BuzzFeed and it became really clear. certain verticals like food and tasty and things like that became clear, try guys and entertainment. And so you started seeing specialization. I tried to create something, I think it's, I can't remember when this was 2012 or something like that.

25:13I called it the Creators League. And the whole idea was build this place, much like the lighthouse here, but not quite as elaborate as this, where creators can come in and have community and can share, but also can develop things together, it turned into something else. But that was probably at least 10 years ago we're trying to do that. So I saw the early seeds of it back then, but it's evolved into something different now, clearly.

25:37Jasmine Enberg: 10 years ago is early. I mean, we started today talking about some of the data on creator ad spending. It was estimated in 2016 to be about$900 million in the U.S. and this year going all the way up to$44 billion. So definitely a lot of growth during that time. I'm not expecting you to give me exact figures, but how have your investments in creator marketing changed since you've been at Visa? Yeah. So we now look at the media budget and we take a certain percentage of that media budget and look at it and allocate that toward the creator economy as a whole. And so some of it goes toward individual creators.

26:19Some of it goes toward the platforms that support creators. Some of it goes toward the products that we're creating that help creators become more scaled and more competent and more capable. And so we've taken a percentage of that budget. And I think it's now at a point where it's significant. I'd say three years ago, it was more experimental. Now it's a significant part of our budget.

26:44Jasmine Enberg: I mean, that's already very sophisticated to have, you know, that all in sort of one part of the budget and looking at the creator economy holistically. We don't see that at many brands where it's all still very, very siloed. I think for us, the advantage of Visa is that we didn't look at creators purely as a marketing channel. That was one thing we looked at for sure, but we looked at them as small businesses. And we said, well, how do we serve a lot of small businesses? How do we serve small businesses? And this is, by the way, the fastest growing segment of any business right now. So, well, we serve small businesses by giving them infrastructure, by giving them knowledge, by giving them access to the tools that would help them scale.

27:23And creators, we felt the same way about it. They just had special needs. Oftentimes, it's a one-person shop that's trying to scale. They're not going to hire a finance team. So can you build financial infrastructure around them? They might be using their personal business account, their personal account for business, right? And so how do you allow them to transition to a business account? They probably have the number one problem for all entrepreneurs in general, but creators specifically, is cash flow. So how do you help them manage cash flow? And so those are the things that we started focusing on.

27:55And for us, we're like, hey, we do this all the time with businesses. if you thought a creator is not as just talent or a marketing channel, we could actually help them scale. And so that's partly why we had that separate category from this idea of let's engage the talent to help them spread ideas that we have. Yeah. I mean, like you said, you sit at such an interesting intersection because, yes, it's influencer marketing, but then also creators can be your customers and use your products and you're building tools for them. 100%. One of the new ones is the new TikTok live debit card. So it's just in the UK, but tell us a little bit about that and why you wanted to do that partnership.

28:33So I love this card because it speaks to exactly what we're talking about. So if you're a creator and people decide to treat you like a business, let me say small business, oftentimes a business will pay you net 90. Basically, you have to wait 90 days to get paid. And for big companies that are paying this out, that sounds reasonable to me. For a small business, a one-person shop, that can become existential. And so getting paid faster is not just a perk. It actually becomes growth capital for you because if I got that money earlier, I could then reinvest it in travel or equipment or partnerships.

29:11And so getting paid quickly, that's built into the TikTok card. So think of it as like a Visa debit card that has what we call Visa Direct Rails in it. And with Visa Direct Rails, you can get paid in 30 minutes. And so I think it's life-changing in that regard. The second thing is that it really recognizes how creators get paid. Their income is irregular. It comes from different sources. And so but recognizing that and tapping into those streams as a form of credit, so to speak, I think was also critical. And then this TikTok, you know, so being on the TikTok platform and having that connection and converting, you know, coins and diamonds into fiat currency, I think is really a fantastic opportunity for creators.

29:57So I'm really excited about that card. Could we see it come to the U.S.? I don't know. I hope so. Yeah. I hope so. I think it's inevitable that you're going to see more creator cards pop up. The need is there. And, you know, depending on what stat you look at,$185 billion for the greater economy, it's going to at least double by 2030. Some people will say it's$500 billion by 2030. Whatever number you choose, there's no segment that large that growing at, what, 20 % CAGR, you know, that is allowing kind of personal accounts to serve as business accounts that have no financial infrastructure around it, that don't meet the needs of those entrepreneurs.

30:37And so I think that gap is going to get filled, and I hope we fill it.

30:40Jasmine Enberg: Could you see it coming to other revenue streams or platforms? I mean, TikTok Live, of course, you know, it's hard to make a sustainable living off of live shopping. But there's also, you know, other cash flow challenges related to other types of revenue. Yeah. I think, you know, you remember years ago, everyone was talking about the gig economy or the creator economy. The issues are really similar when you think about it. It's like, hey, you know, I actually have a stream of income that's somewhat irregular. it doesn't it may come in the form of a 1099 you know or it comes in in forms that don't get recognized frequently by large banks and so I think there's an opportunity for credit card companies payment networks banks in general to fill that gap and so yes I think that it will recognize multiple revenue streams what I love about the creator especially on the social media creator side is that we could talk about their reach for the audience and their connection to the audience.

31:37And that's a great thing. But then they also, in many cases, they're developing products behind that. So now they got a product stream that's creating a separate stream of revenue. And if you can recognize that as a legitimate business and you can start to evaluate the risk associated with that type of business, which I think you can, by the way, then it becomes really interesting. You'll see different types of loans come out and credit will look different for them. And advancing money against their revenue streams will become, I think, a different and awesome opportunity.

32:09Jasmine Enberg: Tell us a little bit about evaluating that risk, because the way you said that made it sound like that was a controversial idea. Well, I mean, it's controversial in the sense that traditionally, when risk gets evaluated in terms of revenue, people want to see the steady revenue stream from traditional sources. That's just traditionally how it's been evaluated. Over time, you're starting to see underwriting that actually encompasses a wider range. But this is new. We haven't seen this before. How do you distinguish if you are, whether you're a bank, a payment network, a lending company, how do you distinguish a creator who's standing something up as a hobby versus a creator that is actually building a real business?

32:49How do you distinguish it? Do you look at the numbers of followers? Do you look at the engagement? What's the threshold that crosses? How long does the revenue stream have to be consistent for you to say that I believe that this revenue stream will continue? When does the fallout happen? How quickly can it fallout? It's a lot of questions that you would have. But it can be evaluated. I think it's less mysterious today because we've seen it enough times now, particularly for creators who scale, who cross a certain level of scale. There's enough consistency in outcomes where I think it can be evaluated.

33:23So a lot of marketers also are finding it hard to know if they're spending their dollars wisely. And we also hear a lot that CMOs are increasingly working more now with CFOs and the C-suite to kind of ensure that these investments are driving real business results. So how closely are you working kind of with the rest of the C-suite? And has that changed over time too? You know, it's changed over time in the sense that I think marketers have become more precise in articulating what a return on investment looks like. there was definitely a time where marketers would say, you know, the world of marketing is unique.

33:59You can't understand it, members of C-suite, you know, and I'm going to talk in a language that actually makes no sense to you. So like, you know, I'm going to tell you about, you know, brand love and equity and things like that. And you'll kind of get it, but you'll never be fully convinced. And so I feel like one of the most foundational jobs of a CMO today is translating what we do in marketing into financial terms that non-marketers can understand within the firm. And the CFO has to be your best friend in that regard. And so we spent a lot of time with our finance partners in Visa talking through, so what are the things that actually matter to you?

34:39And what will be some signals that you would believe in? And how can we prove that with other methodologies? So we went through that piece of it. I met with our business partners and And, you know, when I first came on board, a lot of people were saying, yeah, yeah, we love marketing. We love brand. The number one reason clients want to do work with Visa is the power of our brand. And trust, we're at the very highest levels of it. But no one knows how to translate that into financial terms. And so we created something called profitable consumer behaviors that instead of moving these marketing metrics for our business partners, let's identify what are the consumer behaviors that we all agree would be profitable if we can move it a bit.

35:17You know, if I can get someone to load in a card into a digital wallet where it becomes a default card for them and we can show that that usage becomes increases by X percentage, would you take that as a return on the investment? And most would say yes. And so then instead of talking about purchase intent, I'm going to talk about a wallet load. And everyone can understand that. And so those are kind of some of the shifts we made. It's just a translation layer, profitable consumer behaviors, and thinking about what are the things, the outcomes that really matter. In our world, it's payment volume, it's share of wallet.

35:57And so we're going to translate everything back from that.

36:01Jasmine Enberg: And are those the same metrics and outcomes that you use to determine the success of your influencer marketing efforts as well? 100%. If influencer marketing is not moving that, I won't do it. The good news is, though, you then have to ask the question, okay, so what drives payment volume and share of wallet? Right. Well, preference, different levels of preference, loyalty, advocacy, et cetera. Then what drives that? Well, we think product superiority, cultural relevance, trust, usage. And the good news about influencers. And the reason that term is problematic on some level because it's like, I don't know, anybody can fall into the category of influencer.

36:37A celebrity can be an influencer. A non-celebrity can be an influencer. is somebody who can influence people's behaviors or shape their perceptions.

36:44Jasmine Enberg: It also has a little bit of a negative connotation. Yeah, that's why we rebranded a little bit to creator. I advocate for justice for the word influencer, though, because isn't that what everybody's looking for? It's influence in some degree. Creators can influence you to make a purchase or to kind of shape your opinion of something. Yeah, and I think there are a bunch of people who can influence that. And so you could take a business leader who just happens to be charismatic and persuasive and influences others, would we call that person an influencer? Maybe, if you want. If you dropped them into IG or TikTok or LinkedIn, we would say, okay, influencer.

37:24Right. But what if they went to another channel and had equal influence in terms of the number of people? So I love the concept, and I'm 100 % a buyer of the concept of it. But to answer your question, the influence has to shape someone's perception or shift their behavior in a way that it moves something that matters to us it's got to move people's perception they have to either think our product is better they have to trust us more they have to think we're more relevant but ultimately they have to prefer us and on the brand side you know all brands really are about shaping choice right under under uncertainty and so like if it's if it's really the sum of all your beliefs that shape choice, then I need that influencer, that creator to help shape people's choice.

38:07If it doesn't do that, I can't draw the line to an outcome that really matters to the business. And so I need to draw that line. If someone says to me, this is the coolest creator man you've ever seen. You got to rub him next to that creator because the halo effect is going to be incredible for you. And if it stopped there, I won't do it.

38:25Jasmine Enberg: I won't do it. But if you said to me, Like, hey, that's the coolest creator in the world. I'd ask the question, so what is that going to do for me? They say, well, you guys lack relevance with this consumer segment. This person can help transfer that relevance and trust to you because that person's values are consistent with your brand values. I got to see that connection. Otherwise, for me, I won't do it. Rubrik is the security and AI operations company built for what happens after an attack hits, not just the moments before. AI has turned the threat landscape into quicksand, moving too fast for any human to fully predict.

39:01That's why an agentic cyber resilience platform matters. Automated recovery, clean data, a business that keeps moving no matter what hits. One platform, not a patchwork of stitched together tools and gaps. Don't wait for the next attack. Secure and accelerate your business at Rubric.com. Again, Rubric.com. so trust is obviously important across brands but it's very important in financial services because you have to have that trust with kind of your customers um obviously creators can bring that but then there's also risks with working with creators right we've seen it so how do you think about kind of which creators you work with vetting them and you know now we also see amazing creators who then get canceled later right like there's so many it's a tough thing it's a tough been true even with celebrities it's the same thing and uh you know i've i won't even go through the history of the many many times that i went to i've had i've had to deal with those things um what i've learned though is this is is is two things um one do the best screening you can understand um who the person is what they're about two you have to have a little bit of thick skin because something is going to go wrong or something a celebrity's going to say something that you don't want to say or they might even use a product that they shouldn't be using But have a little bit of thick skin because if you look at it from the fan perspective, the consumer perspective, it's not that deep to them in most cases.

40:26Jasmine Enberg: Do you mean like using a competitor's product? Is that what you are referring to? Yeah, it happens. And so you have to make a decision. So if I see you using a competitor's product and it will get surfaced, someone's going to surface it. For sure. What do you do? Whether it's a celebrity, an influencer, a creator, whoever it is. two things are really important. One, is it a real collaboration? You know, are we actually trying to create something that is meaningful for that creator and meaningful for us? Because when you do that, it feels right to the audience and their fan base. If you don't do that, all people will talk about is like, how big was the check?

41:04You know, and I'm glad you got paid, you know, celebrity, creator, but we see no value in it for the brand. But when you collaborate together, But there's kind of mutual value in it. So to me, that's a big piece of it, like the collaborations side of it. But the second thing that we try to do, and we don't always get this right, rather than go celebrity by celebrity, creator by creator, try to build platforms that allow multiple celebrities to come on to or multiple creators to come on to. Give an example. If you say, hey, we are now doing a series of episodic shows, and we're going to call it...

41:40The Visa micro drama. Yeah, the Visa Microdome, we're going to call it. And it's set in Mission Rock in San Francisco and all that, right? And so we invite various creators in. If one creator goes left, it's easier for us to digest that. It's easier for the public to digest it. When you have a cast, kind of. Exactly right. Same thing in music. You know, if I have an artist accelerator where I'm helping artists get to the next level, I may have an artist who comes on that who says something incredibly crazy, wears the wrong hat. Sits in the wrong room, says the wrong things at the wrong time, but it won't kill the platform.

42:17And in fact, the idea becomes bigger than any individual artist. And so I think rising above that for us is important. And then where I started on this whole thing, which is if you think about creators in particular as small businesses and not just marketing channels, then the relationship also is very different. And so it's no longer about that celebrity endorsing your product. It's about the business that that person has or the business that the creator has. And so it doesn't solve all the problems. And I've said all this stuff as if it's an easy play. But in the world of financial services, compliance is real.

42:56It's very different from the non-regulated businesses. But we've built a really great relationship with the compliance department and the legal department to understand risk. I was a best friend. Compliance department, also a best friend. I'm telling you, this is where I think many people get it wrong. They think, hey, your best friend should be the creative side. And yes, you should have that piece of it. But nothing gets through unscathed unless you have a great relationship with a CFO, a great relationship with legal and compliance. And that doesn't mean like you say, hey, tell me what I can do and can't do.

43:30But to have an open dialogue so people understand that these things, There's a spectrum of it's not a binary thing. There's a spectrum of risk that happens whenever you do these things. And so as long as you understand that spectrum and where you are on that spectrum and you're willing to respond if things go wrong, then you're OK. And so I feel like we've built that relationship of trust internally with both legal and with finance.

43:53Jasmine Enberg: So keeping on the topic of trust, it's also lacking when it comes to AI. I mean, even as we're seeing more people turn to AI chatbots for shopping recommendations and so many other things, right? They're still concerned about data security as well as they're just skeptical of the recommendations and the answers that they're getting. What role do you think creators play in this new sort of shopping environment? So I think creators are going to lead the way in agentic commerce. Tell us more. So if you look at especially one person, two person creator shop. Hello. No. Exactly. Exactly. They're unlikely to go out and hire a whole financial team.

44:37Unlikely to. But you can get a finance agent up and running pretty easily. Are you going to see that? We need a finance. Yes. The hunt for partnerships is a painful process. You can actually have an agent start to search out and weed out those who are likely prospects so that you take away some of that pain. But more importantly, this whole idea of B2AI, where we have B2C and B2B, but business agent-to-agent commerce is going to happen. Creators have to be aware of that. And I'd have to understand, so how do you distinguish yourself in a world where agents want to talk to agents? I think to me, maybe I'm overly optimistic about this.

45:19I think we're going to see a creative renaissance come out of this because what it does is forces you as a creator to think about what is it that I can deliver that's special that can't be replicated easily by an agent. So things like that are hyper personal, you know, things that are tangible, like the analog world is going to continue to explode. I think we're going to go, it's going to be a barbell culture. You're going to have hyper digital and hyper analog, but the things that are tangible, the being physically present. So IRL is going to go, go even, even further.

45:52Jasmine Enberg: We made a print scale magazine today. I love it. By the way, I kept it because I'm just telling you that, you know, human evolution hasn't, hasn't grown so far where our ability to touch things doesn't matter. Your ability to touch it and what that does to your brain has not changed. And so I think you're going to see more of that happen. But I think agent-based commerce in this world will accelerate. And I think the creators that are going to do well in it will understand how they deliver something special. Again, we moved from the hobby era. We moved through where the algorithms kind of controlled the world.

46:30We're now thinking of creators of small businesses. The next phase, I believe, is going to be creators in the agentic commerce world. and how do you navigate that? And if they look at it not as a threat, but as an opportunity to be true to their creative selves, I think you're going to see, I think we'll see a cultural renaissance come through this.

46:48Jasmine Enberg: I don't think that's overly optimistic in the sense that creators are so used to having to adapt and change over and over again. And I think we're already seeing so many of them starting to adapt to this AI era. Other thing that we've been seeing in the research too is as trust is lacking in AI recommendations, like social proof really matters. And so if you're looking for, you know, a new pair of shoes to buy, ChatGPT might recommend something to you, but you're going to want to check. And the places that people are checking are with creators or user reviews. These, you know, chatbots are also using a lot of creator and user-generated content to make their recommendations.

47:22Jasmine Enberg: So all of that to me says that creators are probably going to be much more important in sort of AI shopping than anybody ever predicted. I agree with that 100%. And this is a big plug for Visa, but I do think— We'll take it. But I do think that the infrastructure will matter a lot there, too, because, you know, to have trust in an agentic world, people want to know about identity. Are you the person behind the agent? And they want to know about authorization. Does that agent have the authority to do this transaction? They want to know about liability. What happens if something goes wrong? That's all within the visa world in terms of what we do over and over and over.

48:02And we've applied AI for 30 years now. in those arenas. All right, let's end on sports. So Visa ended a 30-year NFL sponsorship in March, though you're still planning to invest in partnerships with teams, players, and creators. You're also sponsoring the FIFA World Cup, which everyone has been buzzing about. It's the next big kind of sports event. But what can you tell us about kind of your plans for FIFA and how creators fit in? Yeah, I mean, so on the first one, the NFL, I love the NFL and, you know, the executives there, Roger Goodell and team, they've been great. And we've had a long-term partnership with them.

48:34and it's a fantastic sport. We will continue investing in it just from a different angle. And so if we take it from the fan perspective and we ask the question, so what matters the most to the fan? You know, at least from our analysis is that they care about the team first in football, the players second. And, you know, we think that if we can build teams and players and media partnerships, we can actually create some really interesting stories and experiences and memories. And so we're incredibly excited about the opportunity that lies ahead for our connection to American football. Go to global football, FIFA, FIFA World Cup.

49:17Yeah, different kind of football. They would call it the real football, right? It's going to be the biggest World Cup in history. Everyone knows that. We'll probably see about 6 billion viewers overall. We have 104 games across 16 cities and 48 teams. Crazy, insane. but what I've learned over the years on global football on soccer is that the fandom is like something we know if we don't get it as Americans you can't

49:45Jasmine Enberg: fully get it I lived in Argentina though for a while so I get it so Argentina so when I was in Qatar you know when I went by the Argentina section for the Argentina Brazil game yeah I couldn't believe before the match even started the noise level was at like a fever pitch. I was like, no one could sustain that. They sustained it the entire game. They even do that with local games. I used to go to ones in Buenos Aires with Boca versus River Plate and it was crazy. And it was hours before the game, after the game. And so it leads you to this question. And so for us, again, so how can you add value to the fan experience?

50:20So as a sponsor, you could say, again, I just want to rub up a side something and maybe I get a halo effect. I think those days are over to me. So to me, you should ask two questions. Can I add value to the fan experience or can I add value to the athlete experience? And I think what you'll see and what we'll do for FIFA Men's World Cup is we're adding value to both. It's fandom first for us, though. We are all about the fan first and how can we expand access, opportunity, connection among the fan base, but also for athletes. We're trying to expand their capability. You know, in the Olympics, you know, we in Paris, we had over 100 athletes come to Paris months before the Olympics started to learn how to become better in social media.

51:07You know, how do you post? You know, how do you how do you scale? How do you interact? You know, how can you build a team around you? Gave them financial literacy lessons. And so so for us building adding value to the fan experience and adding value to the athlete experience is what it's all about. So, but I got to tell you, this for me is one of the most exciting World Cups. I've been to many World Cups, but this one is not only is it in North America, it is going to be the most intensely exciting tournament I think that we've seen in a long time. And hopefully the USA will get through a couple of rounds and maybe go all the way.

51:41We'll see. Can we do like a very fast rapid fire? Let's do it. What is AI good and bad at? I think AI is great at two things, automating processes that are routine. and it's great at taking past information, aggregating that information and coming out with some insights and conclusions based on that. What it's bad at is two things, the discontinuities that make real innovation happen. Real innovation for me always has something that's emergent that you didn't see coming. I can guarantee you no one saw rock and roll coming out of classical music. right it was a process of discontinuities that came from that you know from from blues to jazz to soul to rock and roll but you can you can layer that on top of anything the other thing it's not good at is it can't replicate the analog world personal interaction tangible things and that's why i think we are going to see this culture where it's hyper digital and hyper analog what is

52:40Jasmine Enberg: the last thing that social media or a creator influenced you to buy so i love music as you in case you can't tell. It influenced me to buy a guitar that I probably didn't need. I have a lot of guitars. Do you play it? Yeah, yeah. Oh, great. I have a lot of guitars, but I probably didn't need another one. What is one thing that the creator economy needs to stop doing? The creator economy and creators specifically need to stop thinking of themselves as just talent and think of themselves as businesses. Those who actually want to scale, you have to make that shift into thinking of yourself as a business.

53:15Jasmine Enberg: What is the number one thing a small business needs to be successful? A great team, both internally and externally. Thank you so much, Frank, for joining us. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you back here next Thursday. Well, not in the studio, unfortunately, but we'll see you in your ears and on your screens.