Creator Economy Live

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Lowe’s has been pushing its creator strategy well beyond the traditional sponsored post. This week, Keith sits down with Jonathan Stanley, Head of Social Media and Influencer Marketing at Lowe’s, to unpack how the retailer is building long-term creator relationships, bringing creators into product innovation, and deciding where creators fit alongside sports partnerships, paid social and traditional media.

Jonathan takes us inside the Lowe’s Creator Program and its latest Into the Blue initiative, shares how physical stores are becoming part of the creator strategy, and discusses what could come next as creators move from media partners and sales drivers to having a real influence on the products brands sell.

Plus, Keith breaks down the latest creator economy news, including VidCon’s major overhaul, Meta One’s new subscription tiers, and new data showing shoppers increasingly want creator perspectives incorporated into AI-powered recommendations.

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Keith and Brendan welcome Jason Y. Lee, founder and CEO of Jubilee Media, the company behind viral series including Middle Ground, Surrounded, and Spectrum. What started as a nonprofit focused on human connection has grown into one of YouTube's most recognizable media brands, generating billions of views and nearly 11 million subscribers.

Jason shares the story behind Jubilee's rise, the key moments that fueled its growth, and why the company has succeeded by leaning into conversations most brands would rather avoid. The discussion also explores the blurred lines between creators and media companies, what brands can learn from great long-form content, the power of episodic storytelling, and how to balance provocative content with meaningful conversation.

Elsewhere, Keith and Brendan break down the growing creator presence at the US Open, Sephora's move into TikTok Shop, Amazon joining YouTube's affiliate program, TikTok's expanded comment features, and what the latest developments in Meta's youth safety settlement could mean for the creator economy.

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Keith and Brendan sit down with Pamela Stephens, who's spent over a decade shaping influencer and content strategy at 3M — the $25 billion company behind everyday staples like Post-it, Scotch, Command, and Scotch-Brite. Pamela shares how influencer marketing has evolved inside a massive, multi-brand organization and what it takes to get executives to invest in creator partnerships.

News catchup covers Meta's landmark $12.2 billion youth safety settlement (with new age verification, screen time caps, and curfew rules for under-18 users on Instagram and Facebook), YouTube's shift to counting a view the instant a video starts playing, and the platform's push to lock in top creators with exclusive deals.

Plus this week's Creator of the Week and Brand of the Week picks — including Germany's "Opa Werner," the ongoing Bricks & Minifigs LEGO drama, and a trio of brands (Lovesac, Callaway/Good Good Golf, and Neutrogena) that all learned the hard way what happens when you lose control of the narrative around your marketing.

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Keith and Brendan celebrate the 100th episode of the Creator Economy Live Podcast, looking back at some of the standout moments and conversations from the past 100 episodes.

They reflect on how the creator economy has evolved along the way - from changing brand-creator relationships and the professionalisation of influencer marketing to the trends shaping where the industry goes next.

The conversation also dives into how CPG brands are structuring their influencer teams, the rise of employee-generated content, and what both tell us about the next phase of the creator economy.

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 Live from CEL East in New York, Keith and Brendan sit down with Sam Friedman, the NFL's Senior Director of Global Social & Creator Strategy, to unpack how the league builds its creator ecosystem — from player social support to platform partnerships and of course a nod to the Taylor Swift strategy. Sam breaks down last season's global activations, how creators complement broadcasts World Cup-style, and what's ahead for a record nine international games including Australia, Paris, and Rio. 

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Keith and Brendan welcome Michael Kaye, global brand comms lead at Match Group, for a wide-ranging talk on dating apps and creator culture. 

News catchup covers C3/Live Nation's new creator festival For You Fest (a TanaCon callback), Google Search Console's new "platform properties" tracking, and creators dominating World Cup coverage. 

Guest discussion dives into Kaye's path into comms, how Match Group brands build creator partnerships, AI's impact on storytelling, and where brand comms is headed — plus some Taylor Swift wedding hot takes.

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Keith and Brendan fly solo this week for a no-guest catch-up. First: the Cannes debrief — fashion on the Riviera, celebrity sightings,  and which announcements actually mattered vs. yacht-money cosplay. Then into industry news: TikTok's new Custom Creator Networks, Lowe's opening creator pitch applications and the DoorDash/T-Pain mixup gone viral.

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This episode was recorded Live at Cannes Lions where Keith and Brendan sat down with Davang Shah, VP of Marketing at LinkedIn, for a conversation on what it means that B2B finally has a seat at the world's biggest marketing festival. Davang - who cut his teeth at P&G, Ford, and Google before landing at LinkedIn - breaks down what changed internally that made LinkedIn go all-in on creators,  and how the platform plans to protect the trust that built its audience in the first place. They also get into budget, buying behaviors, and Davang makes a bet on what's coming next in the creator space over the next 18 months.

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This week on Creator Economy Live, Keith Bendes and Brendan Gahan are joined by Jason Feifer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine, author of Build for Tomorrow, and one of the voices operating at the intersection of legacy media, the creator economy, and hands-on entrepreneurship.

In this episode, Jason gets into whether the creator/media exec/entrepreneur label even matters anymore, where legacy media still has a genuine edge over individual creators, and what separates the personal brands that last from the ones that burn out fast.

The conversation also covers time management when you're doing everything at once, and why the shifts in the creator economy that everyone's panicking about might actually be good news.

Plus the week's news: LinkedIn's creator marketplace, Instagram finally letting users reorder their grid, Google's new Search Profiles for creators, and the UK's planned social media ban for under-16s.

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How does a sponge become one of the most loved brands on social media? Brianna McDevitt, Influencer Marketing Lead at Scrub Daddy, joins Creator Economy Live to share how the brand's creator strategy has evolved over her three years there, why betting on up and coming creators before they get expensive pays off, and how one creator went from partner to actual product collaborator. Keith and Brendan also dig into the latest creator economy news, from Meta's new Forum app to YouTube's top fans feature and Roku's new creator hub.