The Creator Economy Roundtable with Brandon B, Kim Larson (YouTube) and Kenny Gold (Deloitte Digital)

0:00Hi, everyone. It's Jim. I'm here with Matt Spiegel, EVP of True Audience Growth Strategy at TransUnion. Matt, you've spent your career helping marketers understand people through data, and that's harder and more important now than ever. It really is, Jim. There's really just so much information out there, and unfortunately, it's often disconnected. Marketers typically see fragments, maybe a purchase here or a click there, but what they really need is clarity, true full picture of who their customers are, and ultimately how to reach them. Well, tell me how your solution strategy comes in and helps CMOs and their teams bring clarity to chaos.

0:33Well, Jim, we ultimately do that with a 360 view of the customer. And so it's about ultimately combining data, truly trusted data, identity resolution, which is a deep analytical problem and measurement that actually helps understand performance. So ultimately we work hard to help marketers move faster, to deepen their insights and to ultimately make every dollar work harder. We believe strongly that when you truly understand your audience, you can build a real brand and real relationships with customers that last. Where were you when I was a CMO? I don't know how to answer that. Learn more at transunion.com slash clarity.

1:06That's transunion.com slash clarity. What if the smartest marketing play is not to move forward, but to zoom out? Deloitte believes the most powerful move a CMO can make is to look beyond the next step and see the broader perspective. That's what the Deloitte CMO program is for, a place to gain fresh perspective and connect with leaders who've stood where you stand. Together, Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture so your next move isn't just fast, but right. Learn more about the CMO program at cmo.deloitte.com. Hi, everyone. It's Jim. I have Matt Spiegel of TransUnion with me. Matt, I want to start with, what do you love about your job?

1:42Yeah, it's a great question, Jim. You know what? I love the fact that I get to be out at events and conferences and working with clients to really think about how marketers solve problems that matter at scale. The job of a marketer is as challenging as ever, and we get to do some interesting things to make their job easier. When you work with a client, where do you get the most satisfaction? You know what? I think seeing ideas come to reality. We ultimately are an enable of great marketing. So we don't do creative. We don't do media planning. We provide the data, the identity insights, the measurement tools that make great marketing possible.

2:11So when we get to see the end product, sometimes later, it's really cool to see. Well, super to have you here. Super to be a partner. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you, Jim. So if you want to turn data into understanding and understanding into growth, visit transunion.com slash clarity. The first brand you remember as a young guy making an impact on you, the first time you realized, oh, that's something that's meaningful to me. Probably would be Lego for me. I'm a bit obsessed since as young as I can remember. I think it was probably one of the first toy sets I was given was a Lego set. We get to make so many videos for Lego and we keep building new structures.

2:46And it's like one of the funnest activities we get. What's your favorite collection now? Probably the Harry Potter set. We're a big Harry Potter nerds at the studio. You've got to meet my older daughter. She'll be obsessed. We've got a train set that goes around the studio and it goes in through the wall for a tunnel and then comes out through the other side. It's fun. It's great. This is what happens when you give a child adult money. Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling and authentic, profit naturally follows.

3:20Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges, along with how they try to build a full, healthy, and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders. So here we go. We had a whirlwind five days in Cannes last week, and we're bringing you the first of many live in-person episodes recorded as part of the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity.

3:56And to kick it off, we're diving into a topic that was part of many conversations in the South of France, the creator economy. Creators and the space they've created have become one of the most transformative forces in marketing. It's reshaping how brands connect with people, how content is made and consumed, and how influence is earned. To help me unpack it all, I got three powerhouse guests. First, Kenny Gold, Managing Director, Head of Social at Deloitte Digital, a sharp thinker on how brands and creators can thrive together. Then we've got Kim Larson, Managing Director and Head of the YouTube Creators at Google.

4:28She's leading the charge on one of the most influential platforms in the world. And finally, Brandon B., a wildly talented creator who's pushing the boundaries of storytelling and digital creativity. We're going to talk strategy, authenticity, audience building, and where this entire ecosystem is headed with a little advice sprinkled in. So tune in as we come to you live from the Deloitte apartment at Cannes Lions. Hey, you three. Welcome to the CMO podcast. So we're in Cannes. We're in the second day. We're just chatting about before we start recording. So what's your impression this year? Anything knock you over, move you, inspire you, or is it just too damn overwhelming?

5:05I know we've said this before. The tipping point is here. I actually think this is the year. I think creators are the story. I think they are the top reason to be here. I think the brands see it. I think the agencies see it. Certainly, as someone who's representing a platform, we see it. It's integrated into the Palais programming. There's curriculum. There's a dedicated creator space on the rooftop. So it's everywhere, and brands are taking notice. So, Brandon, your third year in Cannes, do you agree with that? It's a tipping point. I completely agree. First year I came to Cannes, I was one of maybe a couple of creators that came out here.

5:40I saw how many brands were here, I was like, hey, this feels like a real big opportunity. Surely this is going to evolve into something much bigger. And by three, it is insane. I think this is just the perfect, I guess, Venn diagram between creators getting to not only come out here to work with brands, but also work and meet with other creators. And it's just such an incredible opportunity for not only us to meet brands, but also just learn from the CMOs and the marketers about what they want and how we can better provide value. Give us the consultant's perspective. I would say 85 % agree. The tipping point is here.

6:17The topic is at the top of everyone's mind, but I still am not 100 % sure we're framing it and talking about it the right way. And that's the part that stands out to me where we're doing it the advertising way. We're not doing it the business driving way. And the beauty of the creator economy and creators in general, are they're not just an advertising vehicle. They're a business growth vehicle. They're a business transformation vehicle. And it's not just a topic for CMOs. It's a full organizational topic. And I think we're doing an incredible service for creators by having this platform here and having those conversations.

6:58But in a few ways, we're doing a little bit of a disservice by not having it be that broader conversation. Let's talk about that. I mean, the creator economy, right? It's not new. First time it was talked about was the 90s. Were you born? No? No. No, not even close. Just about, 99. Okay. All right. A little smidge. So it's not new, but it is now, I think, tipping. I'd like you all to talk very fundamentally about how do you define it in 2025 versus the 90s? And why is it growing so fast right now? Of course, it's evident here, but that's just a metaphor, what's happening in the marketplace, the way the money is moving, the way people are valuing it.

7:37But we're still, I think, kind of in the early days. So how do you define it? Let's start with you, Brandon. How do you define it? And why do you think it's massively growing? I think if I was to use one word to define the creator economy in 2025, it would be integration. I think previously from this year, when we looked at creator and brands collaboration, it was brands using creators almost as a billboard and that's it. And I think the attitude towards creators has really evolved and brands understanding the value of partnering with creators long-term and actually establishing their brand as a part of the creator's brand and both vice versa.

8:14And I think that's how brands can benefit off of the parasocial relationships that creators and audiences have built up over decades now at this point. And we're seeing some of the most incredible partnerships coming off the back of it. So was it transactional, you think, in the early days? I think it was highly transactional. I think integrated is the right word. I think about it in concentric circles. So you have creators at the center, and there is a degree of polish, professionalism, agility, and I'd say business acumen in this creator group that we're talking about that is very different than where we were 10 years ago.

8:51I think the next concentric circle is the platforms. You know, for someone like YouTube, creators have always been at the center. But I think for other platforms, creators are becoming more and more important. And then you have this very vibrant third-party ecosystem that we don't talk enough about. It is the consultants. It's the agencies, influencer marketing groups. It's the talent managers. There are so many talent agencies and managers here and service providers. Like, so that ecosystem is growing and thriving. And then you have fans and the communities. And so it's like each one of those builds on each other.

9:25And that's how I define it. There's something so interesting. The community was the last thing you brought up, Kim. And we talk about the creator economy all the time, but really... Without the community. Without the community, it's nothing. And I think a lot of... I'm going to use the word consumer, but let's talk more broadly about communities and fans and people. There's this desire, this pining for trust and for connection. and what makes vibrant communities even more vibrant is that interconnectivity. You talk about integration. The integration between what the creator makes and how the community consumes it and how they engage with one another is where the magic lives in the creator economy.

10:04Someone who makes content just to put out into the world, they're artists, but they're not necessarily creators. And I think that trust is what is at the core in our recent research that we've been doing, whether it's our digital media trend survey or our state of social research that we're doing. The creators are thriving because of a trusting relationship between the person and the creator. And I think that's really what's at the heart of this. Culture is born from the middle out, from communities out, not brands down. And I think there's a little bit of a disconnect when you take an advertising vent.

10:38It's not about the brands down. It's about culture from the middle out. So that's what makes the creator economy so special. What do you think is the biggest misconception about the creator economy? In personal experience on the creator side, that becoming and building a creator audience or essentially a creator based business is easy. And it's something that anyone can do. I have a team of 30 of some of the hardest working people I've ever met in my life and some of those creative people I haven't met in my life. And we are here because of that pot of a good chunk of luck, but also just everyone's hardcore dedication, love, passion and just pure grind to the art.

11:11We're now in a world where the most desired job in the world for kids under 16 is to become a creator, not an astronaut, not a singer. And with that comes a lot of saturation. So that means our jobs as creators overnight has come drastically harder. And we suddenly need to really level up our production quality and our abilities to make content that we know our audiences will love. So I think a very easy misconception is because content feels rough around the edges and authentic, I think that's sometimes misplaced as, oh, anyone could go and do that. When actually any creator I've ever met kind of performing at a high level is one of the craziest geniuses I've ever met in my life, not just within the creator sphere, but across the entire business world of anyone I've ever met.

11:58Jim, if you went and visited his studio in London, it would blow you away. It would absolutely blow you away. And I think that there are writers' rooms, there are casts of editors globally, locally. The content calendar, like that planning, this is not a fly-by-night thing. Today I'm going to wake up and figure out what I'm going to talk about. Most sophisticated creators have content calendars three to six months out. And so I think one of the misconceptions is that brands think, yeah, I can work with a creator. I'm going to fit them in here. You know, it's going to be they're really agile and they're really nimble.

12:31Well, he has breaks in his content calendar that he can fit in brands. That's not his primary job. And so the professionalism and you have to adjust your ways of working in order to fit in with his schedule. Yeah, we've got strategists in the team. We work directly with brands. We don't want to just receive a brief and then regurgitate what they've told us to spit out. Our goal is to partner with a brand, understand their wider macro OKRs, KPIs, and establish how we can help them solve some of their sticking points. One of my favorite things in the studio, we've just built a brainstorm room. I did it behind the brainstorm room, nothing corporate in there, no tables, no chairs.

13:09It's fake grass floor, floral walls, big murals on the side of like greenery outside, swings coming down from the ceilings, a waterfall and just whiteboard walls. How do we build a room where we can get our creatives as creative as possible and come up with some of the best ideas ever? So how do you surround the culture of your group? Honestly, fun. I am doing what I do today because I love it and I'm obsessed. And I think you cannot achieve as a creator unless you are absolutely obsessed and adore what you do. I'm really excited about my generation of creators that are about to emerge now and are emerging because we were the first generation of creators that grew up watching YouTube content.

13:48So when I was 10 years old, I would sit there watching YouTube and I'd go, I want to be a YouTube creator when I was older. Whereas first generation of YouTube, they didn't have that aspiration to look up to when they were younger. It was just TV or film. So YouTube was kind of a stepping stone for them a little bit. Whereas for me, the final goal has always been YouTube. And once I've now established this YouTube presence, it's not a stepping stone to get somewhere else. It's now to build this empire with YouTube and on YouTube. What's so cool is how many creators look up to him. The army of creators that look up to Brandon B and see what he's built is, you know, you are now setting sort of the pace, pace setter for what, what's possible.

14:26There's something so interesting about how you described your creative process that stands out to me. You've created a sandbox that you're allowed to play in and that the rules are the rules that system exists. And it's not about like any other advertising medium. It's not about a brand coming in and saying, do this. it is you can come and play by our rules and build this thing that's going to resonate with your audience or you can just light the money on fire and just tell us what to do and we can make it it won't resonate as much i love that you use the sandbox analogy i used it at my christmas party to the team at the end of the year and i said my role within this studio is to build the world's greatest stat sandbox and and what that entails is to bring in as much sand as possible economics Find the best tools possible, the computers, the cameras, and then go out and find the best sandcastle builders in the world.

15:18And just that's the flywheel of my job. And it's to support you guys as artists to create the best stories in the world.

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16:37Now, you all three of you have devoted your professional life, a big segment of yours, Kim, to this space, obviously your entire life, right? And you're the last part of your career, but the whole career you've had scenes of this. So talk about that. It's a big deal what you give your professional life to because it is your life, right? We all have an integrated life. Why have you made that choice? I mean, Jim, I can't think of anything more intellectually stimulating, creatively inspiring, and also economically like up and to the right. The dynamism that exists in this industry, every six months I have to check myself and you have to be completely curious because it's evolving and evolving and evolving.

17:20I feel like I'm part of the future. You know, I feel like I'm on with something that is going to be very, very sticky from a brand, from a marketing standpoint. And to get in on the ground floor and be able to push it through, it's like probably one of the things that I'll look back on in my career and say I was part of that and be really proud. It's humbling because we're just living off of the incredible talent and creativity that exists in this world of the creator economy. I built my first social media strategy in 2008. So think about the amount of platforms that have, I mean, you're 20 years old now, YouTube, but what's emerged since then?

17:57And what I think about and why this is just where I want to be, where I want to spend the rest of whatever this is doing, comes from the fact that technology will come in, where there's a lot of conversation around AI, agentic services. What does that mean to the creative process? The creator economy, what you do, Brandon, is so inherently human that technology will come in and help support it and drive it forward, but it will always remain human. And that's at the heart and soul of the creative process. And I think that there's just something really special. So Jim, if I can see something, maybe a little bit controversial, but go for it.

18:33I think the ads business was getting very, very rational. When you said the ads business, you're defining that as? I mean, like the precision around programmatic, the precision around measurement, to be able to press a button and to know exactly what you're going to get out of this campaign. And I don't mean any shade towards all of the hard work that brand marketers do to bring that to life. But this is an emotionally vibrant and expressive place where we're going to find new levels of creativity. Jumping even further, I don't understand why more people aren't going all in on YouTube right now.

19:10And I'd honestly love for anyone to be able to challenge me. But the way I see what's going on in the world is over the past two decades, YouTube has now established themselves as the number one thing people consume on their TVs. We've beaten the traditional streamers, the Netflix, the Primes, the Apple TVs. And of course, we've now dominated the social space as well. So we very clearly can see that YouTube is the future of media. It's the thing that all kids want to do as they're now growing up. and over the next decade there is the opportunity for brands to now plant their flag on this brand new platform brands and also broadcasters plant their flag and then own that media space the entire job for us as marketers is to captivate and capture attention and now there is an opportunity to not just think like creators but also think like broadcasters and create the shows of the future and that's what i'm really excited to build well you know according to the digital media trend survey, Gen Z is watching on average over six plus hours of online video and video programming a day.

20:15User generated content and social video is at the top of that group. And what we can tell and what we're starting to see is when a traditional medium like TV or movies has a creator in it, Gen Z is more likely to want to engage with that piece of content than if they weren't involved. The creators are the new Hollywood. YouTube is the walk of fame and the studio lots and everything in between. And it's just, it's here and we have to embrace it. I think why it hasn't necessarily gotten all the way to the top is brand marketers are holding on to the last vestiges of the control over the content that goes into market.

20:56It was, this is what we need to get done. Here's the brief. Go make it. It's going to live on TV and everyone will see it. They're holding on for dear life. They don't want to let go of it. YouTube was, is, and will continue to be the future. It's what we're currently doing at Studio B. We're working with brands to actually establish and build their own shows. They're creator-led. They live on the brand's channels. They have the opportunity to build what will then become the next generation of kids' favorite, what we would of called TV shows, but because we're on this fresh new platform where no one's doing it, we can't open field.

21:32And there's so few players actually running in, taking advantage. And we all know the first few to take big swings will be the ones that will win. You're closest to this, Kim. What's going on? Pretty fast moving. Pretty fast moving. So here, there's a little bit of a slight disconnect. As brands are getting into this space, I see a lot of one-off brand deals. And that's not healthy for the ecosystem. No creator wants to do a one and done. It's exhausting. I have to get to know the brand. Transactional. It's transactional. And that feedback loop doesn't come back. What creators want is the long-term partnership and the ability to work with a brand and get feedback on this campaign and get better.

22:14And they get better again. You know, not every campaign is going to hit. And so they need the grace to have that trust, work with a brand and say, okay, what did we learn from it? Let's try this next time. And I think that ability to partner in that kind of real candid dialogue and then be honest, the measurement loop isn't there. The attribution, the measurement loop needs to get a whole lot better in order for brands to feel confident in their spend. We need to stop treating it like it's just another media channel and that it fits into your MMM and it's going to just be that thing. And establish a true ROI benchmark that's going to be able to show that return both in real time and then also predictive.

22:59So that's a huge part of it. The other thing is creators and working with creators, partnering with them. We did our creator economy in 3D survey. And one of my favorite things I got out of it were creators want long-term partnerships and they want to be paid on time. Happens less often than you can get to. Less often than you think. And it's a big problem. But why the long-term partnership? Earlier on, I was saying how this isn't just a marketing channel. Creators can help with R &D. They can help with audience segmentation. They can help with internal comms, external comms. They can help with people insights.

23:30They know their audiences better than you could ever know their audiences. So I think that's where we're falling slightly short, is boxing this in to an advertising tactic. Well, we're already going here, but let's talk a bit about the brands. What brands do you feel or what companies are getting it? And what could we learn from them? For those out there listening who are intrigued by now and would maybe like to start to think about acting on this, what can we learn from the brands that are early adopters that you love working with, that you feel like it's a partnership, it's not a transaction?

24:04So what can you say, Kim? Well, Unilever's statement earlier about 50 % of their spend is going to come from creators and influencers, I think that it blew open the market to have an advertiser as trusted and as smart and respected. I've seen a change in receptivity of brands as I talk to them. I can name a couple of brands that I think are doing it really well, and they have an experimental mindset. They also have a desire to let creators be creators. So Crocs is a good example. And they're a good example because they figured out how to blend what they do sort of from a traditional media lens with creators.