Brands cannot achieve everything alone, so their external agency partners are essential. And agencies could provide brands with more creativity, better design, decisive leadership, technical capabilities, etc.

But for a successful partnership between a brand and an agency, both parties must have mutual understanding and trust. This is why companies are increasingly moving towards smaller, independent agencies. Thus, companies with different experts establish a solid and open relationship.

In this episode of YouShouldTalkTo, our host Daniel Weiner welcomes Jason Schulweis, former EVP, Brand Partnerships & Creative Studio at Morning Brew. Jason and Daniel discuss the importance of working in small and large companies and gathering knowledge for business growth. They discuss the creator economy, partnerships, and how to build a strong relationship within a partnership.

Guest-at-a-Glance
💡 Name: Jason Schulweis

💡 What he does: Jason is the former EVP, Brand Partnerships & Creative Studio at Morning Brew

💡 Noteworthy: Jason is an experienced advertising revenue executive. He advises media and content brands focusing on revenue growth through advertising, brand/agency partnerships, sales strategy, branded content, and B2B/integrated marketing. Until recently, Jason was the EVP, Brand Partnerships and Creative Studio at Morning Brew. He joined them in July 2019 and has been self-employed since October.

💡 Where to find Jason: Linkedin 

Key Insights

⚡ The concept of making good in partnership. A partnership is a relationship between two or more people engaged in trade or business, and there are many advantages to a partnership. First, two heads (or more) are better than one. Your business is easy to set up, and start-up costs are low. And finally, more capital is available for business. As Jason notes, a performance partnership model should exist in a partnership world. "It would be amazing if, one day, that concept of making good could work both ways. And what I mean by that is that, so often on the publisher or vendor side, if we under-deliver or if something doesn't go perfectly right, we often have to make good or make back up the media or spend in some way. I think it would be super cool down the road — if publishers or vendors over-delivered and really go above and beyond — that the reverse ends up being true and that we would end up getting more money by default."

⚡ The creator economy is changing. Creators are people who have real influence and followers, real communities, audiences, and reach. According to Jason, the creator economy has been changing, there has been a democratization of creation, and it will change again soon. "It's been an amazing shift, and it's been awesome for the larger content and media industry getting more people involved and really opening up business lines and a whole new economy for a lot of the industry and a lot of creators, but I do think that some of that's going to start to course correct a little bit back to not necessarily where it was, but I have a belief that it's easier to turn celebrities into creators than creators into celebrities."

⚡ The inbox is the new homepage. People are increasingly giving importance to creating daily content on social networks. And since that content is often very intimate, the inbox is where they want peace. As Jason points out, Morning Brew data shows that, in most cases, the first thing we open in the morning is our inbox; it has become a ritual. "The inbox is the most intimate environment. It is the new homepage. That is your life’s homepage; it's the first thing that you open when you wake up. [...] Morning Brew also has the data where I think it was 92% of the Morning Brew community views Morning Brew as a daily ritual."