I thought I was a deep sleeper. Until 2020 happened. I remember nights of frantic tossing and turning. Some nights were better, when we heard a brand confirm a big campaign. While we hustled in the day, I was compelled to ask the harder questions at night.
The challenge of being a creator or running a company of creators is that revenue is often flood or famine. There are months when a bunch of brands want to partner and there are months when there’s a glut and the creator / team has to seek opportunities in the market.
Often, there is no clear, consistent source of revenue. This means that the creator cannot plan expansion with certainty.
Why does this happen?
Discovery - It’s hard for brands to discover creators. Agencies tend to recommend creators and this list is often broken and biased. The top-of-mind creators win, most of the time.
Sales - Brand managers are hard to reach. It’s hard for young creators to build sales teams so they need talent companies to do the selling for them. Most large brands have gatekeepers in advertising agencies. Advertising agencies also rely on brands for revenue and creative expression so unless they become creator management companies - this isn’t the cleanest partnership.
Revenue - Creators in India have mostly monetised via brand partnerships. While the ticket sizes can be meaningful, the sales pipeline is not always dependable because of discovery and sales issues. Most creators don’t think of diversifying revenue sources.
Attribution - Revenue source is hard to attribute. What led to getting the business? Why did the agency or the brand think of the creator? Creators are happy to get the business but don’t quite understand the dynamic behind the choice.
Value - “How do we measure ROI?” the age old brand marketing question extends to creator-brand partnerships too. Brands & agencies still aren't sure how to value a collaboration with a creator. Impressions is an archaic way of looking at this. There's no clarity on what they want out of the collaboration - is it sales? Is it recall? Is it a random i-also-want-to-do-something-new but don't really know what.
How can we change this?
User Revenue - This new transaction is the early days of the creator economy. The question - what can a creator offer that a fan is willing to pay for. 1000 followers paying 50 rupees / month is INR 50000 of recurring monthly revenue. This is incredibly valuable, especially for independent creators.
Agency-Creator Partnerships - Offering bulk deals to agencies and media companies can bring visibility of the money coming in.
IPs - Building intellectual property is the strongest card in the creator playbook. Meaningful IPs can bring agency back in the creator’s corner. An IP could be a channel or a new format or a new content insight or a course. It takes a lot more work and effort up-front but it can bring in recurring revenue in the future.
Build -
1. A tool that helps brands match with creators (Tinder-like). The more detailed your input is the higher the probability of getting matched with live brand-briefs. All creators and brands are curated on this platform.
2. An IMDB Pro for creators where you can look up all their work and case studies (from a brand lens). It helps brands make more informed decisions.
3. A simple and scalable community tool (what we’re building) to help creators make money doing the work they love.
I’m keen to also learn from you. Please comment with thoughts on what we can do to change this.
Notes
Nikhil Taneja believes this needs an industry-wide solution. The cycles can get damn tricky.
Roshan Abbas adds, the idea of flood and famine applies as much to money, ideas and opportunities. The crucial thing is to find balance.
Shephali Bhatt came up with the need of an unbiased IMDB like platform for creators and their campaigns. She also believes online courses (design + delivery) using the creator’s skillset could drive consistent revenue and will become very big in the time to come.
Shreya Shively helped bring up the attribution lens. Brand managers still, sometimes, compare it with a tv-ad like spike in search etc. Important questions with no easy answers.
Anshuman Ghosh adds that a band of creators may be a stronger force than independent creators.
Thanks to Nikhil Taneja, Roshan Abbas, Shephali Bhatt, Anshuman Ghosh and Shreya Shively for reading an early draft of this and adding valuable inputs.
I think if / when there is progress made on improving discovery, then the question of value will be crucial (where to invest, given plethora of options).
From a brand's pov (not a large brand gated behind agencies, but small brands who are only looking at impactful investing and would be open to work directly with creators), it would help if the creator(s) articulated what exactly they can offer. Just two things could make the brand-creator matching process more sharp, and make collabs easier I think (coming at this entirely from digital pov where attribution is definitely better compared to traditional media):
1. Who is the creator's audience? Demographics is table stakes. What else can be articulated about the audience at an aggregate level (behaviour, brand / content preferences, lifestyle, etc) which can help determine brand-creator fitment. Knowing this, to me, represents win-win-win for the audience, creators and brands. High potential for value, and repeat collabs if it works.
2. What is the realistic outcome expected? Impressions alone don't offer much, I agree. But impressions for a certain reach (i.e. frequency) give some idea about recall potential. Clicks are a great proxy for brand-audience fitment. Clearly, different creators can offer different impacts based on audience x content style. Knowing this, again, helps in matching.