Owning Your Content in the Digital Age w/ Jamie Gutfreund (Creator Vision)

0:00know your audience, speak their language, and understand their world. You're going to land pretty close to where you need to end up in terms of having some kind of communication that's legit, that's going to make sense, that's going to make an impact.

0:19Hey, Jamie, welcome to the show. How are you? I am great. Love that background, Alessandro. What a beautiful scene. Thank you. It's something I'm very proud of. It's a great way to get started with the day. you know this morning I was I woke up in a cloud that happens sometimes so when you're like you know high floor and everything and so I'm very glad that now clear up but it's one of those things that personally give me a lot of energy and you know when I moved right from Italy to here and we're not used right to this type of views so it's something that you know whenever I watch out even after years I'm still amazed so I'm glad you like it as well I love it I well I would trade the pasta and the Italian food for the view any old day but you know that's just me.

0:59No no that is me as well to be honest I miss that you know all the time but it's great to have you on the show. What we do all the time before getting the ins and outs right about today's topics we'd love to for you to tell you know a bit more about yourself and we do it using the map that basically is divided in three different main sections. The first one is the mission so basically what do you aim to achieve with your work. Achievements. So anything that you are really proud of and notable milestones could be in your career, personal life or both. And the last one is the purpose. So why do you do what you do?

1:32I'm Jamie Goodfriend. I'm the founder of Creator Vision. My mission is a simple one. I want to bridge the gap between the promise and the practice of the creator economy. I really want to help brands and professionals in this industry, the creators, everybody involved, get the benefit of what we can do with creator marketing and really see those tangible benefits. Fantastic. And, you know, in these years, right, that you've been in the industry, is there anything that you are like really proud of, any achievements against something big that you're like, you know, that was a moment for me? Yeah, I was, I'm going to age myself, but I was very, very early in digital.

2:13I started at Prodigy way back when, and when it was still 14-4 dial-up, which was, I can't even tell you how excited we were when it went to double speed of 28.8. So two things early on was I was part of the team that helped Prodigy go from being a private software accessible network of sorts to going onto the internet, which we were the first online platform to go broadly to the internet, which was amazing. And then I was part of the team. I went from there to Microsoft and then ended up working very closely with the founders of Expedia, which many people may not know, was launched and incubated by Rich Barton, who's the founder of Zillow, at Microsoft.

2:53And it started as a CD-ROM business, and then it evolved to be an online destination. And I was really lucky to be part of the team that took Expedia public. And we did an IPO from Microsoft, and it was a standalone company after that until it got bought again. But that was a really, those were some interesting times. So saw it early and lived to talk about it. That's amazing. I mean, I'm pretty sure that, especially that size, everything happening, again, going from this new online world has been quite exciting. And also the IPOs and all of that. So I'm pretty sure that you still have a lot of stories on that.

3:35So many stories. And I loved the spirit of what was happening in those days because it was so new. And we were very limited by the technology. I mean, people think that they're limited now with you know, the developments in whatever you're using, you know, the speed of AI, you look at AI from six months ago and you think it's slow. But when you were building a new business, people weren't even used to going on the internet and it was still the browser wars. And it was so early that to be a part of a group of people that had this vision of what it could be, the idea of booking travel online was remarkable.

4:12And then building out content to help enable that experience was super early. And I feel lucky to have been part of that. That's amazing. So, you know, if up until a few years ago, not really a few years ago, right? But let's say that, you know, we got from like, you know, the internet, right? And many people were like, what is the online world, right? Now we have the opposite. We have so many new apps, right? Every single week, there is a news about a new algorithm changes and so on. And so for people working in the crypto economy, influencer marketing, sometimes, right? There are a lot of things happening, but at the same time, also a lot of buzzwords, right?

4:48That go around. And one of those that I noticed, right? We all noticed in the last years is authenticity, right? And I think that many people almost abuse, right? Using that because if everything is authentic, is actually everything authentic? You know what I mean? And so how do you see authenticity these days? It's still a thing. How can brand really, again, use that term without abusing it in some way? And what do you think is going to happen this year about that? If we could eliminate the word authenticity from our conversations now, it doesn't mean anything. I mean, nobody wakes up and says, I'm going to have an inauthentic boast.

5:23Yes. It's, I think we've gone well beyond that. Where I do think is a better framework to, to consider how we are engaging with human beings is like to have empathy is to think about the problems that you're solving or the opportunities that you're bringing as a brand or as a creator to people that you want to have a conversation with. Because at the end of the day, it's all about communication. Yeah. And what's most important, instead of trying to be authentic, whatever the hell that means, is trust. So I want to earn your trust and I want to show that I'm worthy of earning your trust. That's better.

6:04And I think accountability is a better word. That'll probably get overused as well. But the thing about creators that really differentiates them from a TV ad or traditional marketing is that it's backed by a human being who you feel like you know, whose career is built on being able to communicate something that you can rely on. And that's more important than just saying, I want authenticity. It just doesn't work and nobody understands what it means. We all pretend we do. It's just a lazy word. But I think all opportunities, it's really about trust. And we're in such an interesting state in the industry right now.

6:48If you think about as a consumer and just as a human being, for years we've been having to prove who we are online with our identity and all those things. But it's gotten so bad that there's a mandate now that brands have to actually prove who they are. And I mean that literally and like ideologically, meaning I go online and I'm bombarded, as you said, by apps and things that I can buy and promises. I don't know if it's real or if it's not. And so what people want to know, is this real? Are you going to stand by what this is? And are you actually who you say you are? So you've had some challenges, right?

7:32You've had just recently, I guess yesterday, there was the whole Kanye AI response, right? And there's an AI video that went around and it was, you know, Scarlett Johansson, again, has been used in this video. And, you know, it's art and it's a worthy cause and all of those things. It wasn't real. I know a lot of people thought it was real and it took a few hours for them to put some kind of disclaimer on it. Or you had like Viola Davis who someone used her image and likeness to sell a hair care product. and it wasn't real. Or you get a really good deal online and you find out that it's a scam.

8:08So brands that can be trusted and creators enable brands to feel more human and more relatable. That's a much better way to go than to talk about authenticity. No, I get it. It reminds me of Mr. Beast that they were using AI on many videos to say, if you click on this button, you're going to get$10 ,000, you know? And people are like, Like, wait, I mean, Mr. Beast all the time gives away money. So it might be real, right? And there is some gamers, right, using that. So I think it's going to be more and more difficult. I'm pretty sure that you also saw these new softwares that make very, in a very easy way, just with a bunch of different pictures as a reference to recreate very realistic videos.

8:51You don't need any more crazy cloud computing or anything like that. It's like, it's there, right, with a click of a button. So I think it's going to be quite interesting to see what happened there. And, you know, something also that I wanted to ask you is that, you know, in addition to write all the different buzzwords, another challenge for many creators in the past years has been about, you know, owning content. Meaning that more than owning the content themselves, like per se, it's how you can really avoid, right, to put either all the eggs in one basket. So, you know, what if tomorrow your TikTok account gets banned, right?

9:25What if your YouTube videos are not being liked anymore by the algorithm, right? And so that's why any people are starting to do newsletters, because you can own the email address of the people and you can reach them easily. Have you found anything that is working well for both creators and brands, again, when it comes to not being necessarily only under the rules of the algorithm that you cannot really control? So what are some of the devices that you can recommend? I have a framework that I often use just to sort of step back and think about it. So there's a practical explanation and then there's a strategic way of thinking about it.

9:59And I think about it overly simply, but it's know your audience, speak their language and understand their world. And if you look at any kind of a communication through those three approaches, you're going to land pretty close to where you need to end up in terms of having some kind of communication that's legit, that's going to make sense, that's going to make an impact. But where I am seeing a lot of advancement and a lot of success is with both brands and creators developing formats and owning their own IP. I mean, look, if you haven't diversified and you're a creator and you rely on the social platforms for your income, that's a challenging place to be because you're renting.

10:42We all know this. This is not new. I see a lot of people moving their business to different community platforms, whether it's Mighty Networks or Kajabi or Circle. Owning your data is critical, and that's part of knowing your audience. And what better way to know them to earn their trust so that they want to give you their email address and you know who they are. So that's one part. But there's a huge shift now where a lot of brands and creators are developing IP that's ownable. And what I mean by that is instead of just doing a post, they're creating a concept. So Risa Tisa actually was like right around now, a year ago, she created Who the F Did I Marry?

11:23She didn't set out to do that, but it was, I think, 80 hours of, you know, insanity. That's a format. And she now has a TV deal that's being made into a TV series. So I love that example. she thought in the terms of she was telling her story but it ended up being a new format that people are using on the other side you've got companies that are like gymnasium which is a production company actually based in new york and they built a show on social platforms they built it on tiktok and instagram called boy room and it's a comedian rachel costner who would go around to i don't know if you've ever seen it but to new york city apartments for boys you know men in their 20s and check out their rooms.

12:07And it was kind of like an archaeological dig, a little bit of queer eye for the straight guy, kind of those kind of things. And it was hilarious. They built it, not expensive to do that if you know what you're doing on social. They built an audience, most importantly. And then Amazon licensed that show from Gymnasium and they've now added in a home makeover component, which makes sense because Amazon, that's what they do. So they're not hiding from being a brand sponsor, but they're adding to the show's concept. But it's a new, interesting bit of a hybrid. They also did that with a show called Celebrity Substitute.

12:47And Amazon built this show where celebs come in and they've got a lot of really great talent that come in and are as New York City's substitute teacher for the day. And then Amazon fulfills the wish list from the teachers. So that's a really innovative way to own a format. But you also have one of my favorite ones is set in New York City. It's a jewelry designer, Alexis Bittar, his company, Beautiful Jewelry. They created a soap opera, literally a soap opera that's set on the Upper East Side of New York. And they have a fictitious character. The main character is Margo. And she lives her life with her sort of manservant all over New York.

13:25And it's become a serialized, episodic show. Susan Sarandon has been in it. Coco Roca has been in it. It's become so much more than just a TikTok show. And they've seen their e-commerce sales go up by 40%. So you have a lot of these new innovations. And there are quite a few really interesting companies that are building these integrations where they own the format. And it's going to build an annuity for them in the future. So they own something. And, you know, of course, they work well because of the storytelling, because there is this idea of almost like a TV show, right? But on your phone and production costs are usually, as you said, like very minimal.

14:02And this works very well for, let's say, B2C in terms that it's like almost like it's media, right? So there is a person or a little group of people that do that for the mass, right? And this is working well. What about also the B2B? Because B2B in the creative economy is growing. There are now, you know, so-called, you know, LinkedIn influencers. There is definitely more interest, right, about that. Do you think that it's possible to recreate something like that also in the B2B space? Are you seeing any good example of that? Or do you think that because it's still B2B, it's a bit more difficult to integrate the same sort of, again, IP storytelling formats compared to what you can see set for instance for jewelries or any other type of products?

14:46That's a great question. And when I was thinking about B2B, I was thinking originally about the companies that are enabling the creator economy. but B2B and creators on LinkedIn. Well, first of all, B2B could be sexy. It's always been relegated to being boring and sort of engineering and feature focused, but it doesn't have to be. And I've seen, there's two examples that I can give. One is something that Notion just did and they worked with Brendan Gann at Creator Authority. They did a campaign that allowed people to recreate that Notion icon, your portrait, and they had Snoop Dogg involved. So that was kind of a fun, not your typical campaign on LinkedIn.

15:25That was really good. And Notion is brilliant at marketing anyway. Their community focus is genius. And then my other favorite is Rob Mayhew, who is a hilarious creator. He's got a wit about making fun of the advertising and marketing industry, but he does it brilliantly and he's not mean. And so I think he's potentially going to start to develop more. He does kind of have an episodic. He has a character that he talks about and is really funny. So I think those are two examples. It's early days. But in B2B marketing, it's really about explaining to people the problems you solve and the opportunities you bring, even as much, if not more so than the consumer space.

16:12So any marketer that's in the business world that wants to reach a business buyer, so if you are Microsoft and you're trying to sell to IT decision makers, you could very easily develop a news show or some kind of format-driven approach that will help them get to know why your products are better than someone else's. And, you know, to just go back on a second when you say about Notion, I think also that what is fantastic for some of these B2B approaches there on social media is that information becomes actually not only valuable, but also entertaining, right? So I'm pretty sure that you saw so many like Notion tutorials and they go from the more serious ones to the one that are basically like very latest on how you can manage your life thanks to like a Notion gig, right?

17:00And so I really like when you said that it doesn't have to be necessarily boring. And we're seeing more examples of that. Adobe did something interesting, which was kind of B2B and B2C, where they had this campaign where they went into coffee shops and they pulled down those signs that you see that are in coffee shops. Where it's like house painter, dog walker that look pretty ugly. And they went and redesigned them using Adobe Express and then put them back up in the coffee shop. And people were like, wait, that's fantastic. So I love that campaign, too. That's the great thing about the creator space right now is that creativity is just going wild.

17:36There's so much opportunity for people who can think out of the box. If you've got a partner that's willing to be a little bit more innovative than just the typical get ready with me or here's the product, here are the features. There's a lot of opportunity to really tell a story. Is your brand ready to amplify its reach while the influencer marketing factory is here for you? We are a global influencer marketing agency helping brands ignite their growth. From influencer identification to campaign strategy, handling legalities and agreements to managing shipping and logistics, we got you all covered.

18:11We work with hundreds of brands across different verticals from Fortune 500 companies to direct-to-consumer brands. And we don't just stop there. With detailed ROI analysis, we help brands like yours measure success, transforming impressions into conversions. You can find us at theinfluencermarketingfactory.com or just searching the Influencer Marketing Factory on Google. And because, you know, you're talking about opportunities, I'm also curious, right? So I've personally been in the influencer marketing for 10 years. And, you know, we went from conversation of what is influencer marketing, right, 10 years ago, to now that is more about what is going to be the ROI of the campaign, right?

18:51Or I really want to work with these specific influencers and so on, right? So because of the current situation now, the state of influencer marketing, I'm curious to know now, since again, you were talking about opportunities. We know what are the things that brands are doing, but there is still a lot of things that brands are not doing. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. I want to hear everything that brands are not doing that they should do better. And I'm very curious. Wait, we only have 20 minutes. No, there's a lot of stuff that brands are doing, right? Yeah. And I know you deal with this at Influencer Factory all the time.

19:27And I don't know how, you know, I know your clients love you. So you must deal with this on a regular basis. I think where I have a bit of an advantage, I think, is that I've been on both sides. I've been a buyer and I've been a seller. And so I know what it feels like on both sides of the table. and I've had a few years of being able to articulate that in a way that I just want people to do a better job. So my number one thing that I tell brands when I'm working with them is I did a research study because I like to know what's happening with data. And so I worked with the Harris Bowl and we did a research study called the Creator Rosetta Stone.

20:08It's public and you can get it online. And one of the big findings is that we talked to creators of all sizes and 85 % of them said they never hear feedback from brands after they finish a campaign, which means you spend so much time finding the creator, booking the creator, the contracts, the briefs, the work, the posting, the edits, and then it's up and gone and see you later. And you never talk to the creator about how you evaluated the campaign or what they could have done better. Or creators don't ever really have an opportunity to ask what could have gone better. And the creators are like, in that instance, first of all, it doesn't cost you any more money to ask people for insights.

20:51Second of all, they're like canaries in the coal mine. They see things between the agencies and the brands that nobody else sees. And I have a great example. I was talking to a creator who was on a campaign and it was supposed to drive traffic for conversion. And the marketing side and the e-commerce side because companies are siloed, right? So you've got silo, silo, silo, silo, but the consumer goes horizontal. They don't talk to each other. So the marketing team and the commerce team were not talking to each other. And the creator was the one that saw that and was trying to be like a marriage counselor so that the whole campaign would deliver on this ROI.

21:30And there were a number of different challenges. And one of the things that was happening was that the commerce side was putting a roadblock so that if the creator was successful enough to get somebody to click through to go to convert, the brand, the e-commerce side, was putting up like a roadblock of a survey so they could try to get first-party data. And that made the creator look like they weren't delivering. They lost a lot of people, and it made the brand just look not smooth. And so connecting the plumbing, basically, it's an oversimplification, that's a miss that could be fixed 100 % of the time.

22:03And that's another big area. What do you see with brands? I mean, I've got a list that keeps going on. I'm curious, what are you seeing? No, I mean, I think that when you talk about silos, it happens no matter how big is the team and the company. You know, we as an agency were educating brands to really understand that influencer marketing should be these days integrated, right? And be part of a 360 and you should communicate a bit more. But then, you know, life happens, right? And I think that everyone gets busy and everyone only thinks about their little tasks to do. On the human level, I kind of get it, right?

22:39I don't want to say that it's right or wrong. I'm just saying that, you know, sometimes, unfortunately, it happens. But I do agree with you when it comes to there is many times misalignment and miscommunication. And then, you know, maybe one department has certain KPIs in mind that do not align with the others, right? And so I really like, I like a lot the idea of the post-mortem, you know, analysis and feedback. because what we see all the time to brands is that, you know, not only you should trust the influencer or the creator, right, when it comes to the campaign, because they know, like, not just about, like, that specific promotion, right, but they understand very well their audience.

23:14And so what we see all the time is that they should be even more involved when possible to really understanding the pain points of their product or, you know, what people are actually lacking, right, or not. And to that, I don't know if you agree, but, like, Like, something I say all the time, I think I've been seeing this on every single episode, but, you know, the comment section is, you know, it's a real time. Right? And many friends, right? They don't analyze that. I don't know why. That was my next 100%. I say to every client, read the damn comments. Yeah. Read the damn comments. I can't even tell you how many times I see brands miss good opportunities or not respond to problems.

24:00They're all right there. And I know that there are like, it's challenging. There are some solutions that do this. There's a company called Glisten that is automating that so that you can see the comments at scale, which is really helpful. But that's gold. It's like your giant focus group. So I was at this conference last week in LA called SOCOM. It was a social commerce event. that was sponsored by Orca. And there were two examples that I thought were genius. The CMO of Gap, Fabi Torres, was there and she's a rock star. Oh my God. She's ex-Nike, ex-Pepsi. Now she's at Gap. And they listened. It's a giant company.

24:36They listened and there was a creator and I won't remember her name now. She was just posting about her mission was to find hoodies that hoodie. Gap saw it, listened, brought her in and they did a collab. It was her first creator collab they've done lots of collabs but they created a special hoodie genius okay so there was that one the other one was the cmo of beyond yoga she talked about they were listening in the comments and they were able to respond very quickly to developing a capri legging which and you're a dude so it may not be as exciting for you but getting an idea from your community and then having a product out in six weeks yes i don't know how they did it but the fans loved it because it's like that whole adage know your audience speak their language and understand their world and if you can do those things forget the word authenticity you've got a real relationship you've earned that relationship i don't you know i don't know why people don't look at the comments i'm still trying to understand that you know to be honest because but you know what i think that many times it happens because certain brands unfortunately they they think that they know everything and they are like i would know my customer base i know what will work and what doesn't i know that this is gonna be not in our dna and everything and i get it right there are certain guidelines and brand sedimentation absolutely important but sometimes we do challenge and we'll be like how do we actually know oh because it's always been like that have you actually a b tested and that happened you know what jamie many times with super polished content right versus raw more you know again relatable i don't want to again use those buzzwords but you know what i mean like that type of content that creators are able to create majority of the times right that type of content beat by i don't know what is the percentage the polish content and and and for them for many brands is like a revelation is like oh i didn't imagine that i'm like yes up until you don't test right how do you even know so i think that that's why sometimes they're like not even reading because it's like ah but we already know our our customer base we don't really need to read the comments that, you know, there are new generations, there are new needs, there is a new pop culture happening.

26:44And if you're outdated, if you're not really reading, right, what is happening? It's you go out of business sometimes because of that. Right. Well, we're in a real time world. And, you know, it's not even being up to the minutes, up to the nanosecond. And that's a buzzword, too, to say that, that if there's actually, you know, being able to turn around a new product in six weeks, that's real time. Oh, yes. That's the way it goes. And people know if you're listening to them. And there's an idea now, I think, that we call it, in my company, we call it this concept of being a venture consumer. People, if they're going to spend their money on your product, I don't care if it's a pack of gum, a mascara, or a car.