How $1 Trillion in Ad Spend Is Shifting Toward Creators

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

0:38Today, we're diving into the remarkable story of Colin Rosenblum. Wow. Did you pay it to say that? That's crazy. That's very kind. It's crazy, but it's my favorite way to learn about a subject matter. I'm learning about so much more now that I can turn this research into like a seven minute podcast that I can listen to just when I'm walking. Did you tell it that I worked at the front desk of a hotel? Dude, the prompt is just make me a podcast about Colin from Colin and Samir. That's it. I may be biased, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm hooked. So if you guys haven't checked out Copilot, check it out.

1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to the Colin and Samir show. We're here in Cannes, south of France, at the Spotify Beach Recording Studio. We're going to explain why we're here. We're also going to give you our biggest takeaways from the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, the biggest week in the world of advertising. Let's get into it.

1:46I'll just say, one of the first things you learn when you come here, Samir, is that it's not Cannes. Yeah, it's very important. You know whose first year it is. I'll just say that. I mean, it's year two for me, and I've probably made that mistake. Still? Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Okay, so let's just, maybe people who are listening have heard of this. Or maybe they're like, why are all of my friends or favorite creators in the south of France all of a sudden? And let's be real. If you have heard of Cannes, you probably know about the film festival. Sure. When I tell people I'm coming here, they always go, oh, wow, you're going to the film festival?

2:17You're like, well, no. It's a little different. It's a little different. But let me tell you why it's significant. A lot of the reason why it's so significant is this is the festival for the advertising industry. Now, historically, this has been a festival to celebrate great ads. What happened was in 1954, Cannes Film Festival existed. And the group was like, hey, you know what? Why don't we, after the film festival, celebrate great ads? Because ads are like short films. So in 1954, they created the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. And it was just for TV ads. And after a while, that emerged or that evolved into being including print, outdoor, radio, direct marketing, PR, and digital.

3:09And it went from, hey, let's celebrate and let's award the best ad of the year to, hey, let's celebrate all types of advertising. Now, this still happens today where, like, somebody wins an award here for the best ad of the year. Last year, it was Michael Cera and CeraVe. Yeah. If you're unfamiliar with that one, I'm sure you did see it. But there were paparazzi photos that started to show up, right, with Michael Cera holding the, like, skincare brand CeraVe. And then the commercial came out. And that was sort of the talk of Cannes last year. This year, a lot of people have been talking about the Coca-Cola ad made with…

3:42It was made purely with VO3. Exactly. Made with AI. Yeah, I don't think that's up for an award because it was made so recently. But that's conversationally what you're hearing. Yeah, that's conversationally what you're hearing. So by the early 2010s, this wasn't just advertising. What happened was this festival became a lot about creativity in business. and right around 2013 like obviously if this is all about celebrating creativity media ad great ads in 2013 is when you start to see youtube facebook twitter and snapchat emerge on the beach here in camp and obviously that's significant because ad dollars are shifting over to these platforms.

4:28Whereas, you know, we used to see the networks of before, you know, the NBCs have been here, the agencies that broker those deals to get ads on NBC. Now, all of a sudden, the new networks are the social platforms. So in 2013, that's when you start to see YouTube emerge. And from 2016 on, basically pretty quickly, we started to see social platforms dominate. And now, like we came for our first year in 2024, that to me is when like the shift was incredibly clear. And now in 2025, what was last year, maybe 15 creators here at Cannes, this year feels like hundreds and it is hundreds. And the obvious reason we're here is because we all work in the ad industry.

5:16We are all, all of our shows, all of our content, all of our media is backed by advertising. We make branded content. We are here to have meetings. We're here to speak about our work and we're here to be a part of the biggest week in advertising. And the majority of the creators truly are brought out here by the platforms to be advocates for themselves and by proxy advocates for all creators and why you should be spending money as an advertiser with creators. Yeah. So a couple of stats, just because I am big on stats, but global ad spend in 2024 surpassed a trillion dollars. One trillion dollars.

5:59You said that like an evil villain. But like, dude,$1 trillion is crazy. And digital channels, so Facebook, YouTube, everything that's going on in digital, that makes up around 70 % of global ad spend with social media accounting for around 25%. So is digital then, is that$70 billion or is that$700 billion? $700 billion. Am I pushing the$700 billion? No,$700 billion. So social media accounts for$250 billion. And in the U.S., ad spend is roughly somewhere between$326 billion and$379 billion, representing 30 % of global ad spend. So I'm seeing these big, big numbers because as creators, as independent media companies, when we come here, like we were having this conversation last night with a couple of creators, revenue is like a grain of sand on the beach here in Cannes in terms of how much money is spent in the advertising industry.

7:09And what's happened, the energy is moving in the direction of we want to spend with creators. We think creators are our marketing. They're the more authentic voices of this world. And whereas we used to do a multi-million dollar deal with a celebrity, now we want to do that with a creator. When we used to spend money to sponsor the ads in between the Friends episode on TV. Now we want to sponsor the Dude Perfect video, right? And so, you know, the opportunity is pretty big for creators. And so coming here, it is a lot of, like, yeah, celebrating what we do, talking about what we do, but there's also a lot of one-on-one meetings.

7:43We've spent the week in one-on-one meetings, spent the week sitting on panels. We came here with our friends at Spotter, so have done a lot of, you know, conversations with them, attended a lot of dinners with them. And it's a pretty big marker of where the creator economy has come in terms of the advertising industry. And we are spending time with, like you said, people from the brands, people that control the marketing budgets, talking to them about creators, talking about some of our friends being like, I think this would be a really interesting person for you to work with. We're also meeting with people from the ad agencies.

8:16It's important to note that there are, this is a powerful time of year for ad agencies and they are powerful big companies, right? Because the brands have the money, but then the agencies really are the ones who decide with the brands where it goes, right? So they have these marketing budgets and they're distributing it. Well, the thing is there's a lot, like these companies have huge, huge marketing budgets, but they need to trust where to place these bets. They need someone to tell them where to place the bets. Now the agencies are one way, but I want to get into our three takeaways. Like the reason we wanted to give you this dispatch from CAN is to go from our experience here on the ground, let us tell you what the conversation is.

8:54And it's been really clear to me. It's not like, hey, can we muster up three things we're hearing? It's like, no, there are three things we're hearing at CAN right now. And the first has to do with what we just talked about of like, where do I know where to spend my money? And that is measurement. Now, let me explain that. Measurement is essentially this question of how do I measure, how big a creator is? How do I measure how big? What's my return on investment really? Is it, how do I know if, if the money I'm spending on behalf of my brand is worth it? Yeah. But that is so subjective. Like that's the important thing.

9:31Like measurement in the context of television has to do with Nielsen ratings, right? And so Nielsen rating, like a Nielsen rating of one means that it's 1 % of like the households that, that Nielsen is in, which is around 124 million, something like that. So like a Nielsen rating of one, I think represents around 1.2 million people watch a show. If you have a Nielsen rating of one, the Superbowl historically in the past has had a Nielsen rating of like 40 or 50 because like 50 million households, sorry, not people, households have it on. So, you know, Nielsen came in in 1923 to basically figure out how to measure how television was being viewed, right?

10:13To go to, to basically, so if I'm an advertiser, I'm like I bought an ad during this show how big's the show? how many people did I just reach? I'm going to take back worth it it's actually not about if the money that I'm spending is worth it it's about am I confidently getting in front of the audience that I think I'm getting in front of? is there any way that I can truly know and measurement is a storytelling vehicle to hopefully make brands confident that their advertising is getting in front of the audience they want to get in front of. 100%. Coca-Cola is like, I want to get in front of American households.

10:53And my boss is like, get me in front of American households. How are you going to do it? Let me tell you. And I turn and I go, we're going to buy the ad space during the Johnny Carson show. And I go, how many people is that going to reach? I'm just amazed. You went all the way back to Johnny Carson? You're not going to go like even Fallon or Kimmel? I'm thinking about the origins of this. And maybe I'm going way too far. Are you just feeling really super madman right now? Yeah, 100%. When you come to Cannes, I just feel like Don Drader. Not like The Office, Modern Family? You lost your mind? Oh, man.

11:25Let me cook for a second. The Flintstones or something? How far back are you going to go, man? The Flintstones is crazy. Yeah, something you would probably say. All right. Well, anyway, I just need to be able to turn to my boss and go, look, I can confidently make this$3 million or$5 million investment into this because we're going to reach 20 million households of Americans. This has a Nielsen rating of 20. Okay, so now we know the concept of measurement in the context of television. Measurement changed dramatically in media when Facebook came along, right? Or when Google Ads came along. Because then it became like, no, I can actually tell you exactly how many people you got in front of and exactly who you got in front of.

12:06And actually, I can just have you pay when I get you in front of those people. There's a new metric of measurement that you should trust now and that agencies and brands should be able to rely on that comes directly from these platforms. That's right. And so now Facebook, YouTube, these are different forms of media where it goes, I can put money into this platform and I can actually start to predict how much money I can get back. Whereas a television ad, you're like, yeah, I think I'm reaching a lot of Americans. I made a great ad. They want Coca-Cola. Sales are going up. All is well. But here it's like, oh, no, I sell a watch.

12:43I spend$10 ,000 a month on Facebook ads and I make$20 ,000 a month selling watches. It's a math equation to it. Like there's a cost per acquisition. It cost me$200 to acquire a customer for my$500 product, right? All these like very mathematical form of measurement came about in social platforms. It got so predictable. And there became so many how-to videos on YouTube of like, hey, here's how you do Facebook marketing. Here's how you spend this much money to make that much money. Yeah, yeah. And it almost became like an ATM for some people in some ways because they were able to solve that puzzle early on in the early Facebook days, right?

13:25Brands like Movement Watches or Warby Parker, they were able to crack the e-commerce code because it was a more measurable form of advertising. So now we fast forward to today. What I have noticed is we, Colin and Tamir, every other creator, YouTube creators, TikTok creators, Instagram creators, we live in this murky territory now. When marketers come to us and because we live on social, they see us as social marketing. So I go, okay, great. This is kind of like a Facebook ad. So there's like a direct link. I need people to click that link and make a purchase. And I'm judging you guys based on performance.

14:08So, hey, if we spend$20 ,000 with you on an integration in one of your podcast episodes, we expect to make what? Well, okay, this is a real thing. I had a real conversation with a brand recently where I asked them because they were like, we'd love to work with you guys, but we're very conversion focused. And I was like, okay, let me just ask you a question. If you spend$50 ,000 with us, what do you expect in return? And he was like, well, we'd probably expect$70 ,000 in return. I was like, so you want a 1.5x return on your ad spend with us. From people clicking the link in our description. Yeah.

14:39Now, they had. On a single video. They had also recently done a celebrity endorsement deal where they made your celebrity. And I said, what is your expectation of your return? I imagine that costs you millions of dollars. What's your expectation of direct return from conversions from that? It's like, oh, we don't have an expectation of conversions on that. That's a completely different thing. It's an endorsement. It's a commercial with a celebrity. Yeah, that's awareness, right? We're trying to get awareness and build positive sentiment around the brand. And I'm like, but you don't see us like that.

15:11You see us in the same way that you would see a Facebook ad. That's not how this works, in my opinion, right? And I actually don't think that's how this works in general. But all this to say, there is a kind of confusion right now and a question. The majority of the conversation we've had is like, how do I measure creators? Right. Like, how do I, is Dude Perfect one of the biggest shows on TV right now? Because more people watch it on connected TV. You know, people are watching it for long periods of time. So is, is, how does Dude Perfect stack up against ESPN? What's the Nielsen rating of SportsCenter versus Dude Perfect's overtime?

15:52And there's no real, there's no language yet to have someone who's buying the ad space on SportsCenter during ESPN tell their boss, actually, we should reallocate this money or spend this equivalent amount of money on Dude Perfect. Which is an issue for creators. That's an issue for Chris. That people at companies, at brands, as well as at agencies, don't have a language to explain to their boss why they should be spending money with Dude Perfect, even if they deeply believe that Dude Perfect would push the needle more than maybe a commercial on ESPN. Right. They need – what this industry needs that has billions and billions of dollars, they need a better way to understand us.

16:35And Nielsen standardized that, you know, and they got disrupted too. There's been other players who've come into the game. And there's a lot of companies here who do measurement and are figuring that out. But I think that is a major, major thing to solve. And people have asked us on panels here, like, how do you guys measure what you're doing? And I think we should talk a little bit about that. You know, there's a lot of data we have available on YouTube. So, like, we do have ways that we're like, hey, look, this is how we're measuring. We actually talked about Spotify. One of the best ways and most fun ways that we've looked at our community and measured our community is seeing how many of you have us in your top Spotify wrapped as your number one show.

17:16And we get that metric from Spotify at the end. And it was like 50 ,000 people. I was like, that's so cool. Top five podcasts of the year was around 80 or 100. Yeah. Top 10 was over 100. And I was like, that's amazing. Like, that is so cool. That's a story we can tell. Right. Right. Yeah. A lot of this measurement is about like, how do you tell the story to the person who's going to make the investment so that they can tell their boss? Right. Seriously. That is a lot of the story of like, how do I tell a story with data? And so, you know, the things that we look at one is, is, is, you know, connected TV viewership has been a big one specifically for YouTube.

17:54Spotify for people who watch on Spotify and listen across RSS feeds been completion percentage. returning viewers is super important to us or like what we just said about how many people have us unwrapped how many people are coming back week after week we can tell a story around that but i think it is interesting that like our metrics of success are different from another creator's metrics of success and how we communicate those again it's just not standardized so what would you tell a brand that or what would you tell now the brand that comes to you and says hey we would spend 50 and we would expect 70k to be made oh yeah from that video what would you tell them specifically in that conversation i said oh well then we we wouldn't be the right partner for you because like that's not how i that's not how we work um you know if that is if conversion is like super super important i can take a step back and explore if i really believe in this funnel that you've built that when i send my audience to you this offer is so good that they're going to sign up and they're eventually going to convert to a paying customer.

18:56But I'd have to be pretty involved in that whole process. And signups can happen and they are a part of a lot of the deals that we do and every creator does. So it's not like we're saying it's not a part of it. No, it's definitely not. Like, of course, if you're marketing, you expect a return. I'm not suggesting you don't expect a return, but that like direct return, like we are a part of a broader marketing strategy. And I think like the, the high level is, is, um, I think the best brands believe that when you work with a creator or part of something that a community enjoys or that has cultural relevance to a community, then you are increasing awareness within that community.

19:32You're increasing positive sentiment. And that should over time, lower your customer acquisition costs, whether you're running performance marketing or, or other, like you should believe that over time, a marketer, which is what a celebrity endorsement. That's what a celebrity endorsement is. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Or, or like an, a TV ad positive sentiment. Yeah. And awareness, A TV ad does not go like head to blank.com right now. We have 50 % off. I mean, maybe occasionally, but it's pretty uncommon. Coca-Cola is not expecting their commercials to make you go immediately to the store and buy one.

20:04It's over time. You've had so much awareness and hopefully positive sentiment that when you're in the store and you're wondering what you should drink, you go, oh, this one's recognizable to me. I trust it. So number one is like this industry needs like meaning the creator economy. We need language around this concept that YouTube is pushing the Emmys right now and Hot Ones is on the Emmy ballot or Michelle Carr is on the Emmy ballot. Okay, how does Challenge Accepted compare to television? Let's use the same language. Or is there one new metric that's like, here's the metric of success. So I think that's super important.

20:45But when we were walking out of one of our panels this morning, someone asked us, like, how do you guys know if you're resonating? And I just brought up one thing that you and I talk about a lot is Jerry Seinfeld. Him saying, like, when he gets off stage, he doesn't really need to ask someone, like, how do you think that went? He's like, I know how it went. I was on stage. I got the feedback live. He said comedians get more feedback more often than anyone else. I think creators are really similar from a digital perspective. We all know how things are going. We know if our show is good or bad or if a video tanked or something really hit.

21:21We just know. When you guys don't like an episode, we know. We know and we talk about it. And we feel it. And we make resumes so we can apply for jobs. We know. And we totally make adjustments. Okay, so that's trend number one. Trend number two. So this is going to be a little maybe complex, but we'll explain it. You want me to say it? You got it. I'll say it. You can help explain it. I'll explain it. Trend number two, deficit financing, what feels like traditional film and TV on YouTube. We'll just leave you guys with that. So enjoy that one. Yeah, enjoy that one. Share that with your friend.

22:04No, but a lot of the conversations have been about investing in IP, so investing in content, series, scripted content, unscripted content that can go on YouTube. So let's say someone's like, hey, I'm going to invest$100 ,000 into this series. We're going to make four episodes at$25 ,000 each. And as those four episodes come out, we'll see if they gain some traction. And if they do, we'll figure out how to monetize it. So deficit financing, meaning I'm going to put up my own money to see if this thing will work. And then I'll try and recoup my money and make money. In other ways, through syndication, monetizing the IP.

22:50You believe in it and you'll figure it out. This I did not expect. This is a conversation you and I have been having. We're like, man, we really want to crack scripted content on YouTube. We have an idea. It's like, God, I want to do it, but it's going to cost a lot of money. Okay, should we go out to partners and explore? Okay, that's interesting. Can we just finance it ourselves? Like, can we just put up the money and see if this works? And I did not expect when I got on the plane to come here that so many people would be already in the process of doing this. Like, millions of dollars getting spent to fund content on YouTube that's going to be coming out within the next year.

23:26That's like scripted content. Brands, agencies. shows and studios yeah i think youtube it's going to be so interesting to look at youtube a year or two from now and see do any of these scripted shows these shows that they don't have the context and the history that creators have right with their channel right like we start from a place of doing this because we love it uh we have something to say our first video was made speaking into a macbook like it's like a slow process a slow progression of like building an understanding of your audience and then for a lot of us up leveling our production.

24:00But when we look at YouTube a year from now or two years from now, are we going to see people dropping things on relatively new channels that feel more like television and them finding audience? Well, technically we all deficit finance our content in the beginning, right? Like if you just, if it just like, we all just make it, which is why the creator economy emerges because we didn't wait for anyone to fund our content. We just made the content. And the inverse of it, just unless it's not incredibly clear, but the inverse of deficit finance in the film business is saying, we got an idea. We're going to go pitch to studios.

24:32They're going to give us, once they give us the money, we'll make the thing. Like we need Netflix to buy it. Then we can make the thing that takes years. That takes years. Great connections, great packaging. That's like, that takes a long time. The reason why the creator economy was able to emerge is because people are like, no, actually I got a platform I can just post it to. I'll just, I'll actually just make it and it'll cost me time or, it'll cost me a couple thousand bucks and I'll make it. Jimmy, as he talks about when he first started, it's like, all right, I spent$10 ,000, then I spent$20 ,000.

25:00So he's like, I'll just make the content. What we're talking about now is people going, hey, you know what? I'll finance that at$75 ,000 an episode and we'll figure it out. We'll figure out how this makes money. We'll sell it to a brand eventually. We'll sell it to a streamer. or like what happens in film and TV it flops and that IP doesn't go anywhere and that show is dead yeah think about pilot season right pilot season from TV of let's make a pilot season of something let's see how it goes if it doesn't go anywhere we'll move on that is coming to YouTube which is wild I just really did not expect that to be a major conversation here this week which I think long term is really great for filmmakers.

25:49It's really great. I think more things will get made. That's my hope. The same thing that YouTube has done for Unscripted, of democratizing it and letting these independent storytellers find audiences and careers, I'm wondering and hoping that that comes for scripted content. I think what's interesting here is it's through the lens of the adage, ad holding companies and advertising backed, right? So meaning like, let's make the show and then let's get it sponsored, right? Because that's what everyone's believing in right now. There's so much money coming towards these types of shows that they're saying, let's make a show and we will recoup the money through advertising.