Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
Speaker 1: guests are Adam Borston and Matt Crowley, co CEOs of
Speaker 1: Studio seventy one. Studio seventy one is a company that
Speaker 1: is part talent agency, part production company, part marketing firm,
Speaker 1: and a distribution specialist. They work with social media creators
Speaker 1: to boost their reach, diversify their platforms, and expand into
Speaker 1: ancillary businesses. Studio seventy one is owned by German media
Speaker 1: heavyweight pro sebon Borston and Crowley are based in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Regular listeners to Strictly Business will note that Studio seventy
Speaker 1: one works in similar channels as Jellysmack, a company who's president,
Speaker 1: Sean Atkins was last week's guest. As I have mentioned
Speaker 1: here more than once, I'm really trying to understand how
Speaker 1: the creator economy is evolving into a sustainable content business
Speaker 1: unto itself. Companies like Studio seventy one and Jellysmack are
Speaker 1: the evidence of a true talent marketplace. Emerging from what
Speaker 1: had been a wild West of DIY. Creators Borston and
Speaker 1: Crawley were good enough to walk me through their basic
Speaker 1: business models and answer my questions about where they see
Speaker 1: the growth opportunities for this emerging medium. Unfortunately, I failed
Speaker 1: my first job as host, which is to get interview
Speaker 1: subjects to identify themselves when there are two of them.
Speaker 1: So after this quick break, the first voice you will
Speaker 1: hear will be Adam Borston. So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2: City National Bank doesn't generalize. They specialize from entertainment and
Speaker 2: food and bade rich to real estate and tech. Their
Speaker 2: dedicated team of bankers has strategic solutions for all of
Speaker 2: your unique industry needs. Work with a team who knows
Speaker 2: your industry while getting the scale of their parent company,
Speaker 2: RBC City National Bank. See what personal can do for
Speaker 2: you at CNB dot com.
Speaker 1: And we're back with insights on the creator economy from
Speaker 1: Studio seventy one co CEOs Adam Borston and Matt Crowley.
Speaker 1: Matt Crawley and Adam Borston, co CEOs of Studio seventy one,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks for having us, Yes, thanks.
Speaker 4: For having us.
Speaker 1: Let's start by telling us, telling us the Studio seventy
Speaker 1: one story. What is it that is your primary business
Speaker 1: focus and how do you make money?
Speaker 3: Sure? Absolutely so. Studio seventy one is a creator services company,
Speaker 3: which basically means we partner with digital talent and brands
Speaker 3: and help them build their business in a variety of ways.
Speaker 3: The three key ways that we help creators grow are
Speaker 3: via ad sales, so we have a sales team and
Speaker 3: we help them sell ads across their different footprint and
Speaker 3: know their digital platforms. Production, we have a production space,
Speaker 3: we help the creators make more content and support their
Speaker 3: existing content pipeline. And then distribution, which basically means, you know,
Speaker 3: we have talent that are putting videos up on YouTube,
Speaker 3: and we have a whole team of editors that is
Speaker 3: essentially taking that content, optimizing it and putting on a
Speaker 3: variety of different platforms. So we, yeah, are built that way.
Speaker 1: Tell me how did how did the company come to be?
Speaker 1: How did you put all those sort of component parts together?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you know from the genesis, it started
Speaker 4: as a very traditional talent management company that was really
Speaker 4: focused on one platform and since Adam and I have
Speaker 4: since taken over in the past years, we've truly diversified
Speaker 4: across a multitude of different platforms and a multitude of
Speaker 4: different audiences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when you look at the creator economy,
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, sort of a lot of
Speaker 3: professionals approach it from a talent management standpoint. Again, sort
Speaker 3: of an older model of creator networks like ours was
Speaker 3: very much to treat it like a talent management company.
Speaker 3: The challenge was there would be a lot of different
Speaker 3: clients and there was sort of a limited amount of services,
Speaker 3: so there'd be you know, some of these companies said
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of clients, and as Matt mentioned, we're
Speaker 3: really focused on one platform, let's say YouTube, and a
Speaker 3: sort of a set of services for those platforms. We,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, approach it more like media business.
Speaker 3: We view all of these creators as media businesses. And
Speaker 3: you know my background, I came from the publisher space.
Speaker 3: I was at BuzzFeed before this, you know, Matt was
Speaker 3: at a variety of different studios, and so we partner
Speaker 3: with creators and really help them, you know, have that
Speaker 3: infrastructure that a media business should have, whether it's sales, production, distribution.
Speaker 3: We act as sort of the backbone of their ability
Speaker 3: to grow and essentially make more revenue on their platforms.
Speaker 4: And essentially just to kind of add on to that is,
Speaker 4: you know, my background was more on the television space
Speaker 4: and then digital video through Hulu and then coming over
Speaker 4: with Studio seventy one. It was chasing eyeballs and time
Speaker 4: and attention and in the you know, that's a media vinear.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's the definition of a media business.
Speaker 4: In the traditional linear business, it was more television focused,
Speaker 4: and then it kind of focused a little bit more
Speaker 4: to digital video, and then this new creator economy kind
Speaker 4: of emerged and all the eyeballs started going to different
Speaker 4: niche creators and they were capturing more time and attention
Speaker 4: from these audiences, and we build upon that across a
Speaker 4: variety of platforms.
Speaker 1: How would you say that the core of the talent
Speaker 1: representation core has been It sounds like it's been crucial
Speaker 1: for your for the company to survive and grow because
Speaker 1: there were, you know, a few just a few years ago,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of different creator networks they called
Speaker 1: they were called MSNs, remember just a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and they've all, you know, in various stages kind of
Speaker 1: either either unraveled or kind of disbanded. What has allowed
Speaker 1: Studio seventy one to kind of go in the opposite direction,
Speaker 1: which is really aggregating we were just talking about I
Speaker 1: noticed on comScore, you know, in aggregate, have you rank
Speaker 1: Studio seventy one ranks quite high in just overall impressions
Speaker 1: and general Internet activity. And yet I think that with
Speaker 1: all due respect, I don't think people would say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a Studio seventy one show. So I'm kind of
Speaker 1: curious about talking about at this moment in your growth,
Speaker 1: are you looking to really like enhance the enhance the
Speaker 1: reputation of Studio seventy one or is it still more
Speaker 1: like a classic talent agency, Your your clients are your brands.
Speaker 3: Right, So I think, first of all, to address your
Speaker 3: first question about the MCN space, am sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we have structured ourselves really to be, you know,
Speaker 3: a creator services company that works across many different platforms.
Speaker 3: I think the old model was again very focused on YouTube,
Speaker 3: with a limited set of services around uploading content to YouTube,
Speaker 3: maybe some brand deals and activations here and there. You know,
Speaker 3: what really has allowed us to thrive is expanding that
Speaker 3: reach and expanding our support across every medium possible. So
Speaker 3: we are supporting creators through our podcast division.
Speaker 4: We have over one.
Speaker 3: Hundred podcasts in our division. We you know, help them
Speaker 3: produce shows, distribute sell ads against those shows. We are
Speaker 3: taking creator content and putting it on connected TVs and
Speaker 3: distributing content that way. So our distribution business has been
Speaker 3: huge for us. And then our ad sales business again
Speaker 3: is something that is pretty expansive. So we are packaging
Speaker 3: up inventory and selling ads across everything from YouTube, to
Speaker 3: connected TVs to audio to you know, a lot of different.
Speaker 4: Platforms, napchat, a variety of different platforms, and I think,
Speaker 4: you know, from a more traditional sense, we are again
Speaker 4: seeking these different audiences and these niche audiences across all
Speaker 4: of these different platforms. And back to your question around
Speaker 4: are we forward facing as a studio seventy one brand know,
Speaker 4: the creators are their own brands, and we're selling audiences
Speaker 4: across all of these creators regardless of what platform they
Speaker 4: they're on. So that might be YouTube, that might be Snap,
Speaker 4: that might be a podcast, but we're we have the
Speaker 4: ability to target those audiences across all these different creator outlets.
Speaker 3: So the key for us has been diversification and I
Speaker 3: think that is something that was lacking in the past,
Speaker 3: and we really sort of built on that, focused on it,
Speaker 3: and have really helped talent grow across different platforms. So
Speaker 3: diversification has been incredibly important for us as we support
Speaker 3: creators across so many different platforms, and we think that
Speaker 3: that was a component that was lacking in the older
Speaker 3: model that was very focused on YouTube. That and we are,
Speaker 3: as Matt mentioned, a B to B company. We want
Speaker 3: our talent to be very forward facing that we work
Speaker 3: with and we want to be behind the scenes supporting
Speaker 3: them as that infrastructure that helps them grow.
Speaker 1: How what would you do you have like a core
Speaker 1: base of people that you work closely with or is
Speaker 1: it kind of a more project by project basis in
Speaker 1: terms of in terms of the talent that you actually
Speaker 1: work with.
Speaker 3: Yes, so we have a core set of talent. I
Speaker 3: would say we try to keep the list intentionally as
Speaker 3: small as possible, but it's around a thousand creators. And
Speaker 3: for that group of talent, really we work with them
Speaker 3: in a variety of different ways. For some of them,
Speaker 3: we help them just distribute, so take their content from YouTube,
Speaker 3: you know, edit it and put it on Facebook and
Speaker 3: Snapchat and you know connected TVs. For other talent, we
Speaker 3: sell ads and that's our big focus for that, you know,
Speaker 3: selling media sales against their you know, content on YouTube,
Speaker 3: as well as brand integrations, which is like when talent
Speaker 3: you know, shouts out different brands and gives different in
Speaker 3: video promotions. And then for others we help them on
Speaker 3: production support. You know, we have a big space in Burbank,
Speaker 3: that's our studio space. A lot of cut talent come through.
Speaker 1: There, beautiful downtown Burbank.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, we're a lot of digital videos get
Speaker 3: produced and we work with a lot of great creators there.
Speaker 3: So again it's a wide variety of services that we
Speaker 3: work on with different talent, but we do have that
Speaker 3: core group that we work with and again our goal
Speaker 3: is to really help them grow across every different platform.
Speaker 1: Do you have Is it set up somewhat like a
Speaker 1: traditional studio and that you have content people and ad
Speaker 1: sales people. I mean, do you have a lot of
Speaker 1: this under the studio seventy one roof in terms of
Speaker 1: like distribution help and advertising sales.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, and in fact obviously it's all under one
Speaker 4: roof and it depends on really what the creator needs, right,
Speaker 4: So as Adam mentioned, we work with creators that already
Speaker 4: have an existing audience on one platform and bringing those
Speaker 4: audiences to different platforms, and then we insert those teams.
Speaker 4: So if we're looking to use distribution as an outlet
Speaker 4: to grow an audience, we'll use the We'll go to
Speaker 4: the distribution team. If we're looking to gain more revenue
Speaker 4: and media sales, we'll go to the media sales team
Speaker 4: and look for additional opportunities around their existing channels and
Speaker 4: other ways to bring revenue streams in from non traditional means.
Speaker 4: So that's a way that all of our teams kind
Speaker 4: of cross collaborate to expand upon the creators, you know,
Speaker 4: core businesses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to also touch on something you know, when
Speaker 3: I came over to Studio seventy one, I had come
Speaker 3: from the publisher space, so I was one of the
Speaker 3: early employees at BuzzFeed. I was one of their first
Speaker 3: LA employees who helped launch their video division and ran
Speaker 3: business development and operations for their video division. And when
Speaker 3: I was at BuzzFeed, I know, you know, Matt saw
Speaker 3: this on the studio side. It was this elaborate operation
Speaker 3: with a team of analytics professionals, a team of editors, producers,
Speaker 3: you know, people just focus on optimizing the thumbnails and
Speaker 3: the art that you click on when you watch videos,
Speaker 3: and I remember thinking, wow, that's it's such an incredible
Speaker 3: sort of apparatus that's been built. Imagine if that were
Speaker 3: applied to the creator space, where essentially a lot of
Speaker 3: talent are building audiences that are just as big as
Speaker 3: any publisher, but they're making videos just in their basement.
Speaker 3: So we want us to sort of provide that infrastructure
Speaker 3: and a full sort of studio set of you know,
Speaker 3: resources across advertising and production and distribution to really help
Speaker 3: creators grow and become their own media company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's exactly a lot of these creators are
Speaker 4: media companies in their own, but they come to Studio
Speaker 4: seventy one to expand upon their offerings, whether that's through
Speaker 4: direct media sales, whether that's through distribution. We have the ability,
Speaker 4: the tools, the people, and the resources to actually get
Speaker 4: them to the place where they need to be. Whereas
Speaker 4: they're already a well known brand on their own right.
Speaker 1: And so if a creator comes in and they have,
Speaker 1: you know, they're established someone, they have a YouTube presence,
Speaker 1: and they're looking to you to bring them into other platforms.
Speaker 1: Would you have a traditional like a creative meeting where
Speaker 1: you would sit down with an editor or a producer
Speaker 1: type I'm just trying to envision in totally because old school,
Speaker 1: you know, total old school Hollywood terms sort of how
Speaker 1: that's being applied in your company.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes. So we have a Creator Partnerships team. So
Speaker 3: when a talent wants to work with us and sort
Speaker 3: of signs up for our services, they meet with a
Speaker 3: Creator Partnerships manager who essentially assesses their business and figures out,
Speaker 3: you know, where can we help you grow? Because you're
Speaker 3: absolutely right, a lot of times they already are doing
Speaker 3: one thing extremely well. They're already let's say, putting videos
Speaker 3: up on Snapchat or Facebook and optimizing videos and know
Speaker 3: those platforms really well. So you know, the Creator Partnership
Speaker 3: manager will try to figure out what can we provide
Speaker 3: that's a real value for you, and a lot of
Speaker 3: cases it's just ad sales. You know. We have a
Speaker 3: team of sellers based out of the World Trade Center
Speaker 3: building in New York City who essentially have direct connections
Speaker 3: with the big media buyers and we can help funnel
Speaker 3: a lot of advertising in a very targeted way to videos.
Speaker 3: So that's a big you know, a service that we
Speaker 3: provide some.
Speaker 1: Way beyond the programmatic you know, the bingo card of
Speaker 1: what you know what you get on any given day.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and then other times it might be production. So
Speaker 3: let's say they're making X number of videos a week
Speaker 3: or a month, we can say, hey, we can partner
Speaker 3: with you, invest in your business from a production standpoint
Speaker 3: and help you make more content. So, yes, there is
Speaker 3: always an initial meeting where we assess where can we
Speaker 3: really provide a lot of additional value and essentially be
Speaker 3: a set of resources for you that you wouldn't already
Speaker 3: be doing yourself.
Speaker 1: And do you do? How do How does Studio seventy
Speaker 1: one make money? Is it a revenue share it is?
Speaker 1: Is it a standard client fee? How does it? How
Speaker 1: does it work?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think it's you know, more of a case by
Speaker 4: case scenario based on what the creator is looking for, right,
Speaker 4: So I think it is a little bit of a
Speaker 4: wall crawl run. We don't try to do everything with
Speaker 4: everybody all at once. But it back to Adam's point.
Speaker 4: If it is something or they're looking for media sales,
Speaker 4: they'll come to us from a media sales standpoint. There
Speaker 4: will be some traditional like repe share agreement with the
Speaker 4: particular creator, or there's a production services where there's you know,
Speaker 4: a certain fee that's discussed beforehand before we're we actually
Speaker 4: go down that route. So it really is a case
Speaker 4: by case scenario based on the services that we provide
Speaker 4: to the various creators that we work with.
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to talk about sort of some
Speaker 1: of the levels that people work at and how just
Speaker 1: you know, what the paths to people really you know,
Speaker 1: monetizing their own di y content or or you know,
Speaker 1: their own self produced content.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's obviously the most important question for creators.
Speaker 3: You know, this is a business, this is something where
Speaker 3: they have a dedicated fan base, but they obviously want
Speaker 3: to make money and figure out a way to grow
Speaker 3: their revenue streams. So for us, I think two things
Speaker 3: that we're seeing a lot that are very important for
Speaker 3: talent and this is something we always stress is interactivity.
Speaker 3: How are you interacting with your audience and helping to
Speaker 3: gain more sort of devoted and engaged fan bases through
Speaker 3: sort of the way that you're reaching out to them
Speaker 3: that you're producing content. And then recency constantly being involved
Speaker 3: with the zeitgeist producing more content. I think gone are
Speaker 3: the days where creators would just make one piece of
Speaker 3: content and upload it to YouTube a week. Now in
Speaker 3: these days, a lot of creators are creating videos daily
Speaker 3: or sometimes several times a day, So we are really
Speaker 3: seeing that cadence of uploading is very important. So again,
Speaker 3: these are these sort of like areas where we try
Speaker 3: to partner with talent and help them grow how they're
Speaker 3: monetizing their content.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think in terms of the interactivity, it's
Speaker 4: them interacting with their fan base and then the fan
Speaker 4: base also interacting with their creators and also their friends.
Speaker 1: For so long that the real end game, the payday
Speaker 1: was a TV show, a movie, option, a book. Are
Speaker 1: you finding though, that there are people sort of a
Speaker 1: variation of my last question, but are there people that
Speaker 1: are really like they are devoted to the social media world.
Speaker 1: There their focus is not going into you know, getting
Speaker 1: into mainstream media through like through through generating buzz on
Speaker 1: social but then I really want to be a TV
Speaker 1: star or movie star. Are you finding that there are
Speaker 1: people that like this is becoming its own true medium.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's it's a very good question. There's in the past,
Speaker 3: there's sort of this concept that social media or the
Speaker 3: you know, digitally released content was a sort of base
Speaker 3: level to build a fan base and then you would
Speaker 3: sort of graduate from that onto television or film or
Speaker 3: some other form of entertainment. You know, the creators that
Speaker 3: we work with, this is their passion, this is the
Speaker 3: way that they communicate with their fans, and so it's
Speaker 3: not so much as moving on to a different medium entirely.
Speaker 3: It's more diversifying onto more platforms. So diversification is what
Speaker 3: we've seen is essentially the fastest way for creators to
Speaker 3: make more money. So if you are creating videos for YouTube,
Speaker 3: you know, we would recommend that you figure out a
Speaker 3: way to build a business on Instagram and on Facebook
Speaker 3: and potentially on connected TVs, and we partner with talent
Speaker 3: and help them sort of do that. So again, it
Speaker 3: is not so much as changing the medium so much
Speaker 3: as building out your digital business and to be a
Speaker 3: little bit more robust and hopefully a little more resilient
Speaker 3: to ups and downs in the market.
Speaker 1: When you say connected TV's, are you're talking about like
Speaker 1: creating your own fast channel kind of thing.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. So we've created creator apps that live
Speaker 3: on Roku that live on Amazon Fire for I don't
Speaker 3: know seventy plus creators, and a lot of them are
Speaker 3: seeing great traction where essentially their audience used to watch
Speaker 3: them just on YouTube or on mobile, and now they're
Speaker 3: really watching it as though we're a TV program, sort
Speaker 3: of in that lean back experience, and we have a
Speaker 3: whole team just focused on this area and essentially crafting
Speaker 3: the way that the content looks and feels, so it
Speaker 3: really resembles a television show with ad.
Speaker 4: Breaks and all of that.
Speaker 1: Don't even think about scrolling up. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: after this short break.
Speaker 2: City National Bank doesn't generalize. They specialize from entertainment and
Speaker 2: food and beverage to real estate and tech. Their dedicated
Speaker 2: team of bankers has strategic solutions for all of your
Speaker 2: unique industry needs. Work with a team who knows your
Speaker 2: industry while getting the scale of their parent company, RBC
Speaker 2: City National Bank. See what personal can do for you
Speaker 2: at CNB dot com.
Speaker 1: And we're back with more from Studio seventy one co
Speaker 1: CEOs Adam Borston and Matt Crowley. Can you give me
Speaker 1: some examples of creators that are successful in their niches
Speaker 1: but not at all the stereotype of what people well
Speaker 1: think think a social media creator is Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think entrepreneurialism is something that's a word that
Speaker 3: sort of gets thrown around a lot. You know, these
Speaker 3: creators really started a business as a startup, but you know,
Speaker 3: there is a side to them that is very creative
Speaker 3: and a lot of them have a side to them
Speaker 3: this is extremely entrepreneurial. We've seen a lot of great
Speaker 3: transitions where you know, a talent has started just making
Speaker 3: very simple, you know, beauty videos that go just on YouTube, uh,
Speaker 3: and then they are able to expand into starting a podcast,
Speaker 3: to starting you know, to get involved in their own
Speaker 3: line of beauty products, starting to figure out, you know,
Speaker 3: which are the brands that they work well with, which
Speaker 3: you know, what are their audience really looking to see,
Speaker 3: and how can they communicate better with their audience. So
Speaker 3: they are very much optimizing their business and it's an
Speaker 3: extremely like sophisticated way that I think is surprising to some.
Speaker 3: But as far as some great examples, you know, we
Speaker 3: have gamers. We have a we have a gaming channel
Speaker 3: that we work very closely with called f g t V.
Speaker 3: It's a fan gaming channel and it really was a
Speaker 3: man making videos with his son and playing games. It's
Speaker 3: extremely entertaining and f GTV has been able to sort
Speaker 3: of transition the business to become something that's much bigger
Speaker 3: and really just a just an empire. It started to
Speaker 3: launch their own fast channels, their own apps on connected TVs,
Speaker 3: which is something that we help them with. They've definitely
Speaker 3: expanded into the sort of graphic novel space. I think
Speaker 3: they're doing their own uh, you know stories there. We
Speaker 3: made an announcement recently that we're developing an animated series
Speaker 3: that we take out and that's going to be something
Speaker 3: very exciting. So definitely that you know, f GTV is
Speaker 3: a great example of something that started just with you know,
Speaker 3: video game commentary and has now become something that's a
Speaker 3: really fantastic business and incredibly entertaining property.
Speaker 1: How is the world of Madison Avenue responding to this
Speaker 1: sort of uprising of talent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, from a from an advertiser and an agency perspective,
Speaker 4: they very much are supporting the creator economy in a
Speaker 4: multitude of ways. And it's kind of goes back to
Speaker 4: what we were discussing earlier, which is they're trying to
Speaker 4: chase eyeballs. That's audiences, time and attention. So I think
Speaker 4: it was last night where where the v m as
Speaker 4: and you know, the v m as on MTV of
Speaker 4: the old days would garner huge, huge audiences, but those
Speaker 4: the same amount of eyeballs are you know doubled within
Speaker 4: you know, two videos or one video of certain creator channels.
Speaker 4: So I really do think that brands are following those
Speaker 4: trends and following you know, the more brand saved content
Speaker 4: content creators across all social platforms and saying there's more
Speaker 4: reach that I can get through buying you know, traditional
Speaker 4: creator outlets than some you know, linear television channel or
Speaker 4: even Temple because their audience is a little bit more
Speaker 4: niche and it's more specific to their brands.
Speaker 3: I also think that data that brands are getting back
Speaker 3: and media buyers are getting back is pretty you know,
Speaker 3: far surpasses uh when you can get in other mediums.
Speaker 3: So certainly part of what we do when we facilitate
Speaker 3: advertising is provide very detailed reports to help create you know,
Speaker 3: advertisers and brands understand who were they able to reach,
Speaker 3: you know, under what circumstances, what were the demographics, you know,
Speaker 3: what were the different audience segments and what did they
Speaker 3: look like? And it's something that's pretty amazing that across
Speaker 3: digital platforms you can really put that together and have
Speaker 3: a really clear understanding of your ROI for advertising.
Speaker 1: It's been, it's been, you know, it's been fascinating for
Speaker 1: me to watch the sort of the TikTok effect of
Speaker 1: having both the industry and advertisers be willing to you know,
Speaker 1: normally the industry does not part with its content, but
Speaker 1: realizing that giving you know, allowing people to use a
Speaker 1: few seconds of a trailer or or the TikTok challenging people,
Speaker 1: you know, come up with your most creative ad for
Speaker 1: Tide or whatever. It might be like that, there's a
Speaker 1: letting go process, but but in return getting so much
Speaker 1: either goodwill or creative that like creative beyond you could.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the TikTok effect on your business?
Speaker 1: Has it been? Has it been profound in terms of
Speaker 1: that platform opening up possibilities? Yes?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean that is really something where we're seeing
Speaker 3: that recency effect take place. A lot of creators are
Speaker 3: producing more content for that platform, and the you know,
Speaker 3: TikTok as a platform allows for a lot of sort
Speaker 3: of this duet feature where you can, you know, collaborate
Speaker 3: with other creators, you can have fans submit videos that
Speaker 3: you can then react to. So we've seen it sort
Speaker 3: of open up a whole new level of engagement with
Speaker 3: your audience from a brand standpoint, and that's something that
Speaker 3: you brought up. We're seeing a lot of brands utilizing
Speaker 3: TikTok in a really interesting way. I mean, a brand
Speaker 3: like Chipotle is having you know, different creators, you know,
Speaker 3: submit hacks that they use when it comes to their
Speaker 3: menu or different menus ideas. And in one case, I
Speaker 3: think recently, it was a TikTok creator that had made
Speaker 3: suggestions or sort of shared some of the hacks that
Speaker 3: they use when they go to Chipotle, and then Chippotle
Speaker 3: incorporated that into their menu and actually, now you can
Speaker 3: go buy this this amalgamation of Chipotle items that the
Speaker 3: creator put together. So I think a lot of brands
Speaker 3: are highly engaged on this and it's you know, it's
Speaker 3: really yielding a lot of dividends.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it's also a shift where brands
Speaker 4: are becoming influencers themselves and they're actually taking that. Chipotle
Speaker 4: is a great example. Duelingo is another great example. Of
Speaker 4: you know, a brand that's going out and creating editorial
Speaker 4: content with their mascot in such a way that's engaging
Speaker 4: to their fan base, and it's it's it's you know,
Speaker 4: TikTok videos that is more short form and is highly
Speaker 4: engaged for the audience. So it's this new kind of
Speaker 4: feeling of brands are also trying to emulate influencers and
Speaker 4: using platforms like TikTok and Instagram become influencers themselves.
Speaker 1: The TikTok has been it really is, even even among
Speaker 1: the social platforms. It feels like a leap and a
Speaker 1: leap into kind of a medium onto itself, a short
Speaker 1: attention span medium, but a medium. But it is actually
Speaker 1: as they say, you know, it's it's it's harder to
Speaker 1: write a short story than a long story, like it
Speaker 1: forces you to distill the essence of what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's it's fascinating, it's overwhelming, but it's also fascinating.
Speaker 3: Now absolutely, we've actually seen some ability for creators to
Speaker 3: migrate an audience from TikTok to more longer formats. We've
Speaker 3: released several podcasts in our network which started out as
Speaker 3: sort of TikTok handles making very short videos and then
Speaker 3: became a much bigger show. And what you do when
Speaker 3: you see that migration is it sort of selects for
Speaker 3: those highly engaged fans who are going to have, you know,
Speaker 3: that interest to see much longer programming. And so you
Speaker 3: start putting together this fan base for your podcast of
Speaker 3: you know, super loyal you know, and and eager fans
Speaker 3: that want to just see more and more. And that's
Speaker 3: very active for brands. So again, starting with TikTok, which
Speaker 3: sort of is this very broad reaching platform, does allow
Speaker 3: you to sort of move audience to other platforms and
Speaker 3: again create a really interesting business model.
Speaker 1: When you're selling ads on behalf of a creator, do
Speaker 1: you do your teams find do you do a are
Speaker 1: you able to do a package? I'm packaging ads across
Speaker 1: a podcast, across Instagram, across TikTok for this for this
Speaker 1: talent or do you do they tend to do, you know,
Speaker 1: platform by platform deals. I'm curious about how flexible advertising
Speaker 1: has become around social media creators that work in many
Speaker 1: different pawns.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. Actually, that's exactly how we
Speaker 4: position ourselves from a sales perspective, which is If you
Speaker 4: want to buy Facebook, you go to Facebook the platform.
Speaker 4: If you want to buy YouTube, you go to YouTube
Speaker 4: the platform. If you want to buy an audience around
Speaker 4: a specific creator, you go to Studio seventy one, Because
Speaker 4: Studio seventy one can sell you exactly what you were
Speaker 4: just asking. Can I buy the podcast? Can I buy
Speaker 4: the Instagram? Can I buy TikTok? Can I buy YouTube?
Speaker 4: The answer is yes, and we do package that together
Speaker 4: and we've seen it with great success. We've had a
Speaker 4: variety of different advertisers come to us and say, hey,
Speaker 4: I want to work with so and so auto creator
Speaker 4: like a Donut media like and the brand being Valveline,
Speaker 4: and they've purchased a three sixty program around not only
Speaker 4: the creators you know, core YouTube channels, but also audience
Speaker 4: extensions across a various different social media outlets and their podcasts,
Speaker 4: so and then reach extensions beyond just the Donut brand
Speaker 4: into other automotive enthusiast brands. So we've done that with
Speaker 4: great success, and that's actually how we position ourselves. Whereas
Speaker 4: Studio seventy one is kind of the backdrop to access
Speaker 4: the voices across all these different platforms rather than going
Speaker 4: platform by platform specific.
Speaker 1: Campaigns and the amount of the after you know, after
Speaker 1: sale info that you and deliver to that advertiser must
Speaker 1: be just incredible. And I'm guessing that some of your
Speaker 1: analytics are also kind of part of the whole package.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and in fact, with regard just to podcasts, you know,
Speaker 3: podcasting does have limitations when it comes to the analytics.
Speaker 4: That you get back.
Speaker 3: We release over half of our podcast I think now
Speaker 3: it's maybe even more than that, both in audio and
Speaker 3: video formats, precisely because it does you know, on the
Speaker 3: video side, it's obviously more engaging for fans, but from
Speaker 3: a brand standpoint, you can get a lot of interesting
Speaker 3: data back about how you know, advertisements are affecting audiences
Speaker 3: and reaching audiences on the video side as well as
Speaker 3: the audio side.
Speaker 4: And we're constantly optimizing. We're constantly working with different brands
Speaker 4: and seeing what works best for that particular brand based
Speaker 4: on what their KPIs are. So if they're currently buying
Speaker 4: across all mediums and Instagram's doing the best, will optimize
Speaker 4: more their media spend towards the Instagram versus a YouTube
Speaker 4: or you know, facebooks and something like that.
Speaker 1: This is a very bespoke business, and that sounds to
Speaker 1: me like you need a lot of humans. Like this
Speaker 1: is still you know, I think I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that have this idea that in social
Speaker 1: media that all this all is done by some form
Speaker 1: of giantic digital auction. But it sounds to me like
Speaker 1: you've got human beings putting together packages on behalf of
Speaker 1: your behalf of your folks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's it's a robust team. We have
Speaker 3: offices in la in New York, in London, in Toronto,
Speaker 3: so definitely we have boots on the ground who are
Speaker 3: able to help creators at any given moment. I think
Speaker 3: the goals that we do want to be that team
Speaker 3: that's there to support them if they don't have certain
Speaker 3: elements of that team on their own. With that said, though,
Speaker 3: you know, we do try to optimize our business and
Speaker 3: we find ways to you know, create tools that target
Speaker 3: advertising in different ways to streamline the process. We have
Speaker 3: been using AI more in our business to help connect
Speaker 3: brands with with talent to help sort of index lots
Speaker 3: of videos that are being created, get a sense of
Speaker 3: who a talent is, and then pitch that to a
Speaker 3: brand in a really sort of streamlined and you know,
Speaker 3: easy to digest way, it don't matter if you have
Speaker 3: anything else that there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's it's one feeds off the other, right,
Speaker 4: So obviously there's always going to be a human element
Speaker 4: to sales to put together the right packages for the
Speaker 4: right brands. And we also have internal tools, as Adam
Speaker 4: kind of mentioned, that go through brand suitability, brand safety
Speaker 4: for particular brands and pre vet some of that. And
Speaker 4: as we deliver more of these campaigns based on a
Speaker 4: particular set of KPIs whatever the brand is really looking
Speaker 4: to really lean into or stay away from. From a
Speaker 4: brand safety perspective, it educates our system a little bit better.
Speaker 4: From a targetability standpoint, it recommends different videos and different
Speaker 4: creators that we can then add to certain brands, and
Speaker 4: it also shows us which creators probably aren't performing as
Speaker 4: well from a brand safety and a brand suitable perspective
Speaker 4: to remove from those particular campaigns.
Speaker 1: Is the brand safety thing has has obviously been huge
Speaker 1: for the biggest of blue chip advertisers. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like that is It's hard to say under control because
Speaker 1: it's individual people, But do you feel like you know,
Speaker 1: I don't have to tell you a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: there really was almost a taint on digital advertising, and
Speaker 1: boy did the TV did the broadcast net and broadcasting
Speaker 1: cable networks try to milk that for all it's worth,
Speaker 1: but it does. It feels like that cloud has moved
Speaker 1: a little bit off of you know, digital advertising.
Speaker 4: I think it's gotten a lot better. Transparently. I came
Speaker 4: to Studio seventy one right in the heat of the
Speaker 4: ad apocalypse craziness, and that exactly right back to your point.
Speaker 1: Was there one thing, Was there one or two things
Speaker 1: that catalyzed it?
Speaker 4: Well, there there's a variety of different things that kind
Speaker 4: of all happens around the same time, and that was
Speaker 4: re uploads of videos with inappropriate content.
Speaker 1: Unfortunate juxtapositions on YouTube I recall now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And ultimately it really came down to the different
Speaker 4: platforms not having safeguards in place. And actually Studio seventy
Speaker 4: one was very forward facing and Adam and I and
Speaker 4: our team came out with a brand safety product product
Speaker 4: called context to make sure that not only was it
Speaker 4: brand safe for the brand, but it was contextually relevant
Speaker 4: for that brand to be within a certain creator channel,
Speaker 4: but not only the channel. We went as deep as
Speaker 4: the video and we were scanning videos both from a
Speaker 4: human perspective but also from an AI perspective. And again
Speaker 4: that was seven years ago. It's gotten much better from
Speaker 4: platform to platform. I will say from being around certain videos,
Speaker 4: I think there's always going to be a little bit
Speaker 4: of you know, nervousness for market of oh no, am
Speaker 4: I going to be around you know, inappropriate content because
Speaker 4: there is always that fear of you know, someone going
Speaker 4: rogue and uploading inappropriate content. Not so much from a
Speaker 4: studio seventy one standpoint, just from a general market standpoint.
Speaker 4: But the shift has really been about where is the
Speaker 4: content being delivered? Is it on fraudulent websites? Is it
Speaker 4: being viewed by human being? Is it running on AutoPlay
Speaker 4: below the fold where a human is not actually consuming
Speaker 4: that video? And I think that's been more of a
Speaker 4: concern more on the byside for advertisers to make sure
Speaker 4: that if they're running ads in front of content, it's
Speaker 4: actually being watched by human being.
Speaker 1: On the other side, Thanks for listening. Be sure to
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