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From Side Hustle to Strategy with Becky Owen · We Built This Brand

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Creators are great at couple of things.
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They're not great at everything.
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And what they struggle to do, and I've spoken to a lot of creative
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founders, spoken to a lot of people that work with creative founders,
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is they struggle to self-reflect and say, what am I great at?
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So what am I gonna stay doing?
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What am I terrible at?
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Oftentimes it's the finances same.
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I need someone to come and help me do this.
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Welcome to, we Built this brand where we pull back the
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curtain on the people, the ideas, and the sometimes
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challenging process of building something that matters.
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Today I'm joined by Becky Owen, the Global
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Chief Marketing Officer, a billion dollar boy.
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One of the world's leading social and influencer marketing
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agencies, as well as the head of 5 2 9, which was built to elevate
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creators to the forefront of the industry while supporting their
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careers and even catalyzing growth for the entire creator economy.
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Now, Becky has had quite the career journey prior to
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coming to work at Billion Dollar Boy in 5 2 9, working
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with companies like Meta and Disney, just to name a few.
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And in this episode.
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We're gonna dive deep into her work as an intrapreneur
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with 5 2 9, as well as the company's recent research, paper
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Muse Volume two, the Real Impact on the Creator Economy.
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And this paper is all about AI and its impact
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on creators, marketers, and the consumer base.
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So if you are curious about how that impacts you,
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I definitely recommend checking this episode out.
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And definitely checking the show notes for the link to the paper itself.
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It's fascinating and it's very in depth.
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I think you'll really get a lot out of it if you're trying to
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figure out where to go with marketing in this brand new year.
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So this is a really wide ranging conversation
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with a lot of hot topics to discuss.
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So I'm not gonna delay this any further.
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Without further ado, here's my interview with
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Becky Owen, a billion dollar boy and 5 2 9.
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Well, Becky, welcome to We Built This Brand.
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It's great to have you with us.
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Thank you so much for having me, Chris.
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I'm so happy to be here.
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Absolutely.
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It's a pleasure to, uh, to get to talk to you today about
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your time with being the chief Marketing officer at Billion
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Dollar Boy and, um, everything you're doing with 5 2 9 as well.
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I'm really excited to dive into this today and, and also the report that.
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Man, I just, I don't wanna give too much away, but I read
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it and I've been thinking about it a lot since I read
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it, so I can't wait to just have a chat about it today.
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So, we'll, we'll dive right in.
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Typically, where I like to start is just to get to know you a little bit better.
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So tell me, tell me where you got your start
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and what led you to Billion Dollar Boy.
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I mean, this is such a good question because.
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In so many ways.
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There's things that feel so unnecessary to talk
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about, but I guess they're all part of the journey.
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I started actually in recruitment.
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I always start there because I never intended to add end up in advertising
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or marketing, and I can tell you that it was a gift to move over.
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But I think for me, my career really started, I would say
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when Maker Studios, I dunno if you remember Maker Studios,
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but it was one of the first MCNs in creative marketing.
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It came over to Europe and I knew Renny Reman, who had done
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a lot of work, um, scaling another company called Go Viral.
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And that was when going viral, was putting your TV ad on a network of small.
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Publishing sites and we disguised that as going viral.
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So we scaled that together.
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That got bought by a OL and he went over to make a studios.
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And it was just at the start of like, I think 2014
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where creators were being interesting, like they were
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interesting in the market, but they weren't taken seriously.
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And he asked me if I wanted to come over and do sales there, and I said, yes.
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'cause I was currently doing data and that was not fun.
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So creators and YouTube sounded much more exciting.
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And so I'd say for me, my career really started there because not only
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was it something I suddenly realized this was something I was really
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passionate about, but also it was timed with the birth of a new industry.
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And so my career rose.
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Almost at the speed of how fast creative marketing has risen.
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And now obviously I've been at uh, maker Studios that I did got bought by
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Disney and I worked there across digital partnerships across the film studios.
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At which point I met Meta and I was putting a lot of work on Instagram
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and Facebook 'cause they asked me to move over there and lead creators.
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'cause no one was doing creators.
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There's like a. Clear commercial strategy at Meta at the time.
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And then at Meta I was hiring agencies all the
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time to do the work that we were producing.
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And that's when I was, um, always hiring Billion Dollar Boy.
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And I met Ed East, the CEO and founder.
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And then he was like, have you thought about coming over to an agency?
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I wasn't sure to be honest with you, but he sweetened the deal.
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By saying there's something else though that we think you could do.
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We think there's a missing gap with the ecosystem
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and how creators are being looked after.
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And what if you came and you were CMO of the
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agency, but you also explored how to fill this gap?
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And so by that point, I was like, okay, cool.
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That's, that's a whole different ball game.
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I get to build something from scratch.
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So I'd say in a whistle stop tour.
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That's it.
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I'd say it all starts from Maker Studios though.
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'cause I feel like getting into creative marketing
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is really when everything unlocked for me,
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when you think about the history of creator marketing,
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'cause you, you, you say creator, not even influencer.
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And I think that's a great way to put it because it's, it's around a long time.
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I remember back in the, the very first podcast I was ever a
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guest on the very first podcast I ever even really listened to.
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Back in 2006 was a guy talking about micro celebrities
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and he had this whole theory about how like you could
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be a celebrity to this very small group of people.
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And at the time that was a novel concept for me.
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And I'm sure for you at that time it was, you know, when everything was
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kind of coming up, it was still a very novel concept and people were like,
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well, how do I, how do I get people to influence change in this area or.
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Byproducts.
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I mean, it was all, you're right, it was all very commercial driven at first.
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So, um, it's a fascinating space.
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So tell me, tell me about that, like that
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early time doing the, the creator marketing.
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Like, what was that like?
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Or do you have any, any memories from that time of like, Hey, this
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is when it really came to me that this was gonna be the future?
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I, yes.
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I have so many amazing memories.
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I was really lucky.
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Maker Studios was an incredible company and an amazing people there.
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I always say.
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It was never easier, and my job every year since has
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become harder because credit marketing has become more
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sophisticated, more accountable, and budgets have increased.
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But we didn't know what we were doing, so we
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were working largely, I will say with gamers.
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PewDiePie, Dan, TDM, they were huge YouTube gaming creators.
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And the integrations were just simple because by then there was low saturation.
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At that point.
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We didn't, we weren't consuming content from hundreds of thousands of creators.
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Uh, we weren't that savvy on this.
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Uh, so it's actually all we had to do is have a little
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bit of integration of gameplay on a, you know, an app.
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And that was acceptable.
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We tolerated that as consumers, so creativity was
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actually very minimal, and the impact was huge because.
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It wasn't as saturated it is as it is today.
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And I think the moment that I realized that this was really the
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right bet for me and the co economy was gonna take off is we
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also managed at that time a lot of creators AdSense accounts.
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So we repackaged and sold the inventory around their content
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and we got to see how much they were making on YouTube.
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And I won't say the numbers, but the numbers will shock you.
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Like, and I can't even imagine what there'll be now, but the fact that
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there was so much money going there just from audience viewership.
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Like that to me said, this isn't what everyone else thought.
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At that time, by the way, everyone else thought it
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was just hooter nanny, like it was gonna disappear.
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It was a distraction.
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It was the poor man's marketing.
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No one took it seriously.
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I was very much considered an outsider from the marketing ecosystem,
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but when I saw these numbers, because that was audience behavior led
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numbers, that's when I knew that this is, this really is the future.
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That's definitely, I mean, you had the insider track, so that's
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gonna be very helpful in, in knowing what's to come with that.
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So that's really cool.
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So then that gross, now you're where you're at at
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Billion Dollar Boy, you've also founded five two nine.
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I would call that, you know, you're an.
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Intrapreneur, you've built something within another business.
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It's like, you know, kind of like a sub-business within the business.
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You're not going out on your own and building something else.
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So tell me, tell me what is 5 2 9 and, and in fact, let's back
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up a step further because we've mentioned Billion Dollar Boy and
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there may be some listeners going, I have no clue what this is.
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So tell us what Billion Dollar Boy is first.
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Great question.
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So, billion Dollar Boy is one of the largest.
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Social agencies that works in the creator and social space.
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So it's been around, this is its 12th year in operation.
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Uh, it's largely, uh, north America and Europe.
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We've got offices all over Europe, London, and New York.
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And we work with the leading brands in the
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world to help build those brands on social.
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And our belief is now, if you wanna win on social, you have to be creator first.
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Be that building your brand with creators in collaboration with them.
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Or looking at how creators are actually doing it and getting those models and
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those, um, modes of operation and applying them to your actual brand output.
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So that's what Billion Dollar Boy is.
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We, we consider it now a bit of a group.
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So we have the agency which meets all the needs of the brands.
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And then we have, and I love how you, what did you call it?
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Inter Entrepreneur?
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Intrapreneur.
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Intrapreneur.
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I love that because.
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It has actually been a gift to be an entrepreneur because I've been able to
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forge something, have all the anxiety of building something from nothing,
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but have this nice comfort blanket of the fact that I am a part of a
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group and there's lots of people I can talk to when I'm losing my mind.
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But yeah.
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5, 2, 9. If billion dollar boy meets the needs
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of brands, 5, 2, 9 meets the needs of creators.
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I can go into 5, 2, 9 if you like.
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I just wanted to pause.
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Yeah, that's a good pausing point because it kind of shows you the, the,
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I guess the yin and yang of how your business is, is built and created.
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So tell me, tell me a little bit more about 5 2
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9, you're, you're helping with the creator side.
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Are you helping with new creators?
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Are you helping with existing, is this like a way to develop your pool?
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Like how, how do you see Five to nine?
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Tell me a little bit more about it.
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So 5 2 9 was for me, the drive was born when I was at Meta,
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so I was leading creator innovation and solutions there.
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And I was working with all the biggest brands.
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And my job there was to help them crack creator marketing.
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And so I'd work with the CEOs and CMOs and filter down
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to the teams, and we devised the systems that they
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should build internally to really get the most of this.
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And part of that is we would do the campaigns with them as well to ensure.
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They were set up.
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So in that time, I worked with hundreds of
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creators on so many different campaigns.
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And what I noticed was I was in this incredible world of
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meta where I had so many opportunities, so many perks in my
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career to support me working with the biggest brands in the
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world that had so many opportunities and perks and systems.
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And then I was on the phone to creators who were anxious alone.
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Panicking.
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They had all this responsibility of massive, massive companies
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bearing down on them saying, do this, do that the other, and
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they're on their own in their bedroom and they're freaking out.
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And I realized that the only reason I have my job is because of creators.
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This industry meta is propped up because of creators,
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yet there is zero infrastructure or support.
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Given to them.
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And so I wanted to do something at Meta when I was there and you know,
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there were things that we could do that were more guiding principles,
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but because of Meta's stance that, you know, the people operating on the
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platform want their responsibility, I couldn't do what I wanted to do.
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So five two nine was really born out of this.
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Gap and this hole in the credit economy that I was like, let's close the gap.
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Like everybody else can't get all this infrastructure and support and security.
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And then the people that make it possible are totally isolated on, on their own.
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And so that's what we did.
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We did a ton of research, what are the needs of creators
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and you know, we really found that it was structural.
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A lot of the anxiety, the fear, the kind of.
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When the role becomes overwhelming is because there's no system
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structure or process surrounding them, and then the ones that
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we're trying to slap onto them are from other industries entirely.
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And this is a brand new industry.
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It's got its own rules.
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It's a totally new beast, and we have to create the rules.
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For the credit economy.
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So that's kind of the impetus of 5 2 9 and why
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I was like specifically passionate about it.
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And then Ed, billion Dollar Boy, he saw that there was this big gap as well.
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He didn't know what it was.
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He just said, there's something here, can you just work it out?
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And I was like, well, yes, because I'm passionate about this.
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And then it's been two years.
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And it's been a wild ride, but it's, it's, it's been incredible
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and the work that we've got to do with incredible creators,
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like we've had 350 creators come through our spaces, our
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events, our funding in 2025, which has just been incredible.
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Wow.
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I, I can identify with that because in doing the
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podcast production side of things, one of the early.
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Things we ran into was people who said, I've got sponsors.
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How do I deal with sponsors and what, what
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can we do to like manage that and handle that?
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And those challenges come up for young creators once you start hitting a
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certain level of awareness in an industry and all of a sudden it's like.
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I don't even know if I'm promising in something that's fair or if
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I'm taking advantage of them or you know, what's going on here.
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And it could be a very challenging place for any creator.
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We've definitely helped a few walk through that, that chasm
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of, oh, how do I get my first 5,000, 10,000, $50,000 deal?
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And those are.
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Those are scary moments for those people.
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Like they don't know what's gonna come of it.
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They don't know if they're really promising what they can
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promise, and you know, they, they need to make money on it too.
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So like, all those things are things you don't think about when you just start
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a podcast as a hobby or for, you know, a very personal, passionate reason.
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And all of a sudden you're faced with.
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Business responsibilities.
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I know.
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And the interesting thing with that, the charging model, you know,
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I saw a lot of fees when I was at Mesa and I either saw people were
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overcharging, like, good for you, or surprisingly severely undercharging
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themselves because they were so afraid to claim their worth.
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Like if someone was looking at them.
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That was enough.
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They were so excited that they got someone's attention and they
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were giving this stuff away, like, don't undervalue yourself.
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And I think that's quite common for those that are
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just on those cus in those cusp areas of making it.
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Yeah.
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I always, I always try to encourage people if, if you find yourself
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sending out a price and you get an immediate, okay, you've probably done
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something wrong or you could probably ask for more on the next pitch.
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And I think it's just a matter of figuring out where that limit in that line is.
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But yeah, that's.
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That that, yeah, I've seen that for sure too.
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So tell me, where did the name 5 2 9 come from?
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Because I think of when I think of.
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5, 2, 9. My brain flips it to nine to five.
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You know, I'm from East Tennessee where Dolly Parton is.
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So I hear working nine to five and that, yeah, that's just where my brain goes.
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So tell me, what is 5 2 9?
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Why that name?
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So it's inspired by nine to five.
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I cannot take credit.
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Alex Williamson, we have to credit him for
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it, but it is about turning your five to nine.
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To your nine to five.
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So your five to nine is technically it's your hobby hours.
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So when you clock off and you get to do the stuff that you love
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or you're crazy and you're getting up at 5:00 AM and you're doing
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the stuff you love before your 9:00 AM So it's about how do we
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help creators turn the hobby hours into their nine to five AKA?
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How do you make it sustain you financially?
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It's very, I mean.
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Names are funny, aren't they?
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Because you build them from a very intellectual, thoughtful place,
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but they're just also, it's just a collection of numbers, but there
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is a very clear theory why people call it lots of different things.
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We also just thought it look cool on a sign, so,
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and I noticed it's TWO too.
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It's not TO.
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So is that.
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The number two important as well.
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You know, there's a, it's a club, right?
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It's a community, it's a gathering of people.
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And we looked at what are other really cool places out
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there and how do they structure their names, and how do
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you have something that's literal but also ambiguous?
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Like we have these really cool hats.
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That just that have the 5 2 9 on it.
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That's our logo, but also it's kind of a logo that you want to
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wear because it does, it's not saying like food to go or whatever.
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It's not a literal articulation of the product or service.
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So we wanted to have the kind of meaning of hobby hours
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to your main hours, whilst also feeling consumer friendly
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and like you'd actually wanna wear this logo on your body.
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He kind of brands it more than just saying it Exactly
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and being blunt about what the title of the name is.
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I get ya.
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When I was outta college and working, I had a friend who was
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an artist and we, we joked for a while about building a studio
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together and when we looked at studio names for art, art galleries,
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art studios, everything was like, I remember one Gallery 21 C or.
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Art Gallery 39 40 A and I was like, why don't we just
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name our, our gallery letters followed by numbers.
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Or numbers followed by letters or something like that.
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And yeah, so I, I get it, that that clicks for me.
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I get the brand you're going for there.
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It's that kind of cool feel.
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Yeah, I think it's just something that we'd, we would like people
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to want to associate with that doesn't feel too on the nose and
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literal, like, you know, Exxon Mobile or something like that.
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So you've got the name, you've got this business.
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Where did you first receive what I call the moment of validation?
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That's that moment where you know, okay, this isn't just an idea,
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this is something that's really gonna work for our business.
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Where was that for you?
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So
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I mean, for 5, 2, 9 specifically, I would say
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one of our first partnerships with Microsoft.
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And the kind of aha moment was that they wanted
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to create the opportunity around 5, 2, 9.
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So we kind of went into pilot phase for the first year and
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then gathered kind of momentum, started speaking to people
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and it was when people, different people and different brands.
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There's some that I can't talk about right
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now saying we are gonna design the need.
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To meet and partner with you because we didn't realize we needed it,
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but we're seeing that, that we are now, and I think that's a very one.
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It's very difficult when you're building something brand new because
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you are predicting a consumer behavior and a market behavior,
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and I felt very clear that that's where everything was heading.
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I've been on the inside, I've seen all the signals.
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And the aha moment has been when, definitely when Microsoft and LinkedIn
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Substack have all come to us and said, we wanna find the ways to partner
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with you and we are gonna create the opportunity because you are key.
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And the Microsoft one actually was specifically amazing because.
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We were a named partner, so it was 5 2 9 and Microsoft.
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And so when you think about it on the other way, with Billion
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Dollar Boy, the agency, you know, we make everybody else look good.
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That's the job we're, you don't even know we're there if we're doing our job
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well unless you're on my LinkedIn, you don't know billion dollar Boy was there.
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You just know that it was great work.
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Whereas 5, 2, 9, when Microsoft said we want our logos
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next to each other, the brand, the co-branding together is.
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What we wanna bring to the market.
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Uh, we did it in New York.
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That was a massive aha moment because that's a major,
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major brand wanting to be side by side with you.
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Yeah.
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That, that's gotta feel good too.
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Yeah, for sure.
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You've taken all that time.
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I'm sure you have some pictures of that,
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those logos together and things like that.
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Yeah.
19:47
Oh my gosh.
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Yeah.
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I've actually, you probably can't see it, but
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they're on my bookshelf behind me as well.
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Yeah, see, I just, I, I just knew, I just, I could see it back there.
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No, I'm kidding.
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But I don't have that big of a monitor, but, but that's really cool.
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Yeah, that's a five to nine one.
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I dunno if you'd like to know the billion dollar boy one.
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Yeah, go right ahead.
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I'd love to hear the one for Billion Dollar Boy as well.
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I think so there's two, I would say one when I wasn't a
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billion dollar boy, but I was hiring billion Dollar Boy.
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And I think it's interesting 'cause it's an aha moment
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of a few agencies in the economy and it was COVID.
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And so I was at Meta during COVID.
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Obviously everything went into panic stations with advertising and marketing,
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and everything was rethought and the worst case scenarios were planned out.
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And I remember being on the other side of
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the platform being like, hang on, creators.
20:38
Creators are the key.
20:39
This is how we continue doing what we're gonna do.
20:41
And then interestingly, conversely, that's what Billion Dollar Boy.
20:45
Identified and saw.
20:46
So create a marketing moved, I would say significantly
20:50
in COVID from a silo, a Bolton, to your mainstay.
20:55
And since then it's had this like uptick of trajectory.
20:58
So I think that was a massive aha moment.
21:00
And billion dollar Boy was there and available and kind of really got.
21:04
Really grasped that.
21:06
And then I think more recently, I will say 2025 has been huge for us.
21:10
We've won like some really exciting and humbling Agency of the year awards.
21:15
We won Adweek Social and Influencer Agency.
21:18
You're the ward and And these are ones we enter them, right?
21:20
Everyone enters them and you just hope that you know who you are up against.
21:24
Like some incredible powerhouses and, and when you're seen to stand up
21:29
shoulder to shoulder with them, I had to say it is those moments that are
21:32
aha moments now, it's like being seen to be equal to some of these really
21:37
amazing social agencies, massive agencies that just dominate the industry.
21:41
Those are real aha moments for us.
21:43
No, I, I totally get that.
21:45
There's something about winning some recognition for your business that just
21:49
takes you to another level, makes you think about things in a different way.
21:52
I mean, I can just on a personal level, relate where I had a
21:56
craft beer podcast for years and we ended up winning best podcast
22:00
in our region for two years in a row, and we were just like.
22:04
Whoa.
22:04
We won something and me and my co-hosts were
22:06
like, we've never won anything like this before.
22:08
This is amazing.
22:09
So it's just, yeah, it feels, I understand that
22:12
feeling, I guess, is what I'm saying there.
22:14
I can see how that's a huge win for you all.
22:16
So congratulations on that, by the way.
22:18
Thank you.
22:18
Jill Awards are really weird because I
22:20
think people either hate them or love them.
22:23
I think some people, and I understand like some people have
22:26
disdain, like chasing, like, are you chasing the award?
22:29
Are you chasing good work?
22:31
But.
22:32
Personally, I believe they all can't come if the, the work isn't good.
22:36
But also I think about it for the team at Billion Dollar
22:38
Boy, that it's very rare that you have a moment where you
22:43
actually feel really good about the work that you're doing.
22:46
And I think your example there, you're doing it out of passion, right?
22:49
You're doing it out.
22:49
Love the viewership numbers.
22:51
I'm sure feedback from your community was really
22:53
sustaining, but you wanna be the best you do.
22:57
I say you are the best.
23:01
That's human and you work so hard and you give your all,
23:04
and there are days when you just think, why am I doing this?
23:08
This is grueling or thankless or hard, but
23:10
it is moments when you think, oh my gosh.
23:12
Like, okay, we're doing it and we're actually pretty good.
23:15
It is.
23:16
It is a really great moment.
23:18
Yeah, I think, I think people do chase the awards.
23:20
That can be the challenge.
23:21
In the inverse of that too, of, I know especially locally, there have
23:25
been, you know, like the ADDIE Awards and things like that that we do
23:28
locally here in the states, and they're, they're big for the region.
23:32
Like the, the agencies make it a big deal where it's like,
23:34
well, if you don't win an ADDIE this year, that's a bad thing.
23:37
And it's like job performance related as opposed to just
23:40
being something that you should be proud that you put
23:43
in the effort and you got something in return for it.
23:45
So.
23:46
Yeah, that can definitely become the negative side of that.
23:49
So let's, let's dive in just a little bit more.
23:51
I want to get to the report soon.
23:53
You, you talk a lot about how five to nine is helping, you know,
23:57
creators turn their, not five to nine, into their nine to five.
24:01
How does that translate?
24:04
Like who do you see be successful in these programs and,
24:07
and how often do you see people burnout in these programs?
24:11
If, if you can talk to that.
24:12
Yeah, it's really interesting and I've, I've actually been thinking about it
24:15
a lot because I'm seeing so much, there's a lot of chat right now on LinkedIn
24:19
about creators of the new entrepreneurs and creators, the new brand builders,
24:22
and yes and no, and I would say the last year I've changed my thoughts.
24:27
On it.
24:28
Uh, so I think 2024, I might have answered it slightly differently to how,
24:31
you know, I've been around 350 creators this last year in the US and the uk.
24:37
I would say only a few creators actually, percentage wise, want their own brand.
24:41
What they actually want is to be more influential in brand building.
24:45
That's the more common thing.
24:47
So you'll have some really ambitious individuals that want it because.
24:53
For two reasons.
24:54
One, they've got a great idea and they're entrepreneurial and they deserve it.
24:57
Another is, everyone else is doing it.
24:59
Am I an idiot if I don't do it?
25:01
And then you have this other massive group that's
25:03
saying like, I get my passion and my topic.
25:06
I get my community.
25:08
I have so much intelligence and insight.
25:10
Give me a bigger seat at the table brand because I can help you.
25:13
That's actually the entrepreneurial spirit that we're seeing.
25:17
I'm seeing more of, but then you are seen as
25:19
groundswell and it is a significant number.
25:21
It's just not every single creator, which I feel like we're just
25:23
starting to say of creators that, that want to launch brands or feel
25:28
like they should turn whatever they, they have into a lasting legacy.
25:31
And the the biggest pitfall that we see here
25:33
is that creators are great at couple of things.
25:36
They're not great at everything.
25:38
And what they struggle to do, and I've spoken to a lot of creative
25:42
founders, spoken to a lot of people that work with creative founders,
25:45
is they struggle to self-reflect and say, what am I great at?
25:48
So what am I gonna stay doing?
25:50
What am I terrible at?
25:51
Oftentimes it's the finances.
25:53
Same.
25:55
I need someone to come and help me do this because I am not the, the one trick
26:00
pony, and that's when they really fall over themselves is they don't identify
26:04
their strengths and weaknesses and they don't get support and then it fails.
26:08
And I think that.
26:09
This kind of belief that as long as you have an audience,
26:11
you can build a brand and you can sell a product on your
26:14
own back 'cause you've done so much already on your own.
26:17
That belief is kind of the kind of a red herring
26:20
and a lot of creators have been burnt by that.
26:22
Yeah, I could definitely.
26:24
Definitely see where that stalls people out and causes people to fail,
26:27
especially when you're just, it's something as a side hobby that you know, or
26:31
a side hustle that turns into this giant monster that you now have to control.
26:36
And, and we've seen online, like I feel like the trend last
26:39
year, especially early in the year, was, I'm quitting YouTube.
26:43
And I'm stopping doing this to the point where everybody made it.
26:46
I'm quitting YouTube video.
26:50
I don't know if you noticed that or not.
26:51
Maybe.
26:51
Maybe.
26:51
I'm thinking of 2024, but I feel like it was a lot
26:54
the, was it the poster image where they're crying, I'm quitting and, yes.
26:59
Yeah.
26:59
And it became like an April Fools joke and you just had to watch
27:02
it because you were like, man, why is Marcus Brownley quitting?
27:05
Like, what is he?
27:05
Oh no, he's not.
27:06
He's just not doing that one thing anymore.
27:08
Or he is a bit fed up because it's really hard.
27:11
And it's harder than anyone realized.
27:14
Yeah, I mean, creator burnout's a real thing.
27:16
And I mean doing it all the time by yourself.
27:18
And we've seen clients that have, you know, tried to do so
27:22
much that eventually it's just like, I've got the weight
27:24
of the world on my shoulders if I don't finish this.
27:27
And being able to put them in a position where they
27:30
can feel supported and makes a huge difference.
27:32
For sure.
27:33
A couple of things came to mind there.
27:35
We, um.
27:36
I don't know if you know Grace Beverly, she's a serial entrepreneur.
27:39
She's got like four or five brands, really successful creator,
27:42
and I asked her, you know, do you think it's easier launching a
27:45
brand as a creator because you've got your community baked in?
27:49
I think Kim Kardashian recently said on Keeping Up with the
27:51
Kardashians, she doesn't know how she would launch a brand.
27:54
She didn't have social, so is it easy now?
27:56
And she said, it's so much harder.
27:58
Because there's no grace period and everyone
28:02
knows you, sees you waits for you to fail.
28:04
So if you think about me launching 5, 2 9, I actually say to
28:07
my team, there was a thousand roads that we could walk down.
28:10
Two of them were right.
28:12
We probably had to knock off those 998 before we found the two.
28:16
But it's okay 'cause no one's looking and it's very different for creators.
28:21
So that's it.
28:22
It is really hard and it's very personal, and there's no,
28:25
I mean, I think as a founder that you are weirdly connected
28:27
to it anyway, but I think it's even harder on your creator.
28:30
And then the other thing is, you know, creators, they
28:32
are entrepreneurial and they are doing more with brands.
28:35
They absolutely are.
28:37
Uh, they're getting equity investment, like they're getting
28:40
like ca they're sitting at the cap table, like there is.
28:43
There's other ways that we're seeing that creators are becoming dominant
28:46
in this industry other than just launching a brand in their own right.
28:48
And I think that's the pivot that I've seen, and that's what we're
28:51
starting to help creators understand is like, what's your longevity here?
28:55
You don't have to have your own brand to have longevity or success as a creator.
29:00
There are other ways you can be influential in brand building and that.
29:03
So I'd say that's a pivot that we've seen in 2025 and what we're
29:06
going into 2026 is that's what we're really helping creators with.
29:09
That's interesting.
29:10
Yeah.
29:10
I hadn't thought about taking equity, but I guess a lot of times these
29:14
creators now are partnering with newer brands, newer technologies, newer
29:17
solutions, and so there's a sometimes a risk to their brand to take it on.
29:22
So why not get some equity out of that to be the face of a.
29:26
Whatever that technology or whatever that solution is, that they're,
29:29
you know, presenting to people, whether it's something as simple as
29:32
AI, or I say simple as ai, something as complex as ai or something as
29:37
simple as like, you know, a new camera lens or something like that.
29:41
But it benefits the brand because they're moving from
29:43
transactional one-off deals to like this creator is now
29:46
intrinsically invested in the health of my business.
29:49
So it's twofold.
29:50
It creates long-term career health for the individual and they get to.
29:54
Exercise their entrepreneurial spirit in a
29:56
safer way, and then the brand themselves.
29:58
You know, there is a, you know, transactional cost that can
30:01
happen with marketing and creators kind of rotating through.
30:04
So it's, it's a really smart way that this industry's starting to evolve to
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30:51
Well, let's move on because you, you all recently did a study
30:55
called Muse Volume two, the real impact, uh, on the Creator Economy.
31:01
And like I said, I got to read through pretty much all of this.
31:04
I think it's like a hundred pages of like a, it's, it's
31:07
very long, but you know, they're, they're, they're very
31:10
colorful pages with lots of pictures, so that made it easy.
31:13
Um, hopefully that helps.
31:14
That was the goal, Chris.
31:15
We entertain you every step of the way.
31:18
Yeah, it kept me, it kept me drawn in and so I found it
31:21
really fascinating because there's just like, AI is so new.
31:25
I mean, it's been around for longer than I, I keep
31:28
feeling like last year was the big year for ai, but like.
31:31
Really, it's been the last two to three years.
31:33
And so seeing that growth, seeing that change, and seeing
31:37
what you all have tracked, I have found really fascinating.
31:39
And then I've also seen since, you know, reading the report, things
31:43
that are corroborating what you're saying, and also some things
31:46
that might be counter just in personal, an we'll call it anti data.
31:50
It's not nearly as detailed as what y'all did, but we'll get into it.
31:54
But my initial takeaway from the report is that there's a huge gap
31:56
between the consumer sentiment for AI and the creator and marketer.
32:00
You know to that are taking on ai.
32:02
We've even seen this recently.
32:04
We had a AI company come to us and they were talking about doing a
32:08
podcast and their whole business was doing AI assets for companies.
32:13
And we see, we see that marketers want use it,
32:17
creators want to use it to make their job easier.
32:20
And I think that.
32:21
In that respect, it becomes a challenge
32:23
because the consumer doesn't always want it.
32:25
When it's obvious.
32:26
When it's there, that flag gets raised.
32:29
So I guess like before we dive in too deeply, when we talk ai,
32:34
are we just talking about generative AI in the sense, are we
32:36
talking about generative ai, like video and photos and text?
32:40
Or are we talking about AI in some other context here?
32:44
I just wanna make sure I don't get too, so in this one,
32:45
it's specifically how it's showing up in advertising the credit economy.
32:49
We do have different ways that we've.
32:51
We talk about it in advertising, there's the quiet ways that it's helping
32:55
behind the scenes, and then there's the really visual ways that it's helping.
32:59
And I think the consumer, you know, sentiment it
33:01
very much is around the visual way that it's helping.
33:05
Because that can look really fake or, you know, lead to a lot of suspicion,
33:09
you know, celebrities using it or allowing their likeness to be used.
33:12
I think y'all used the example of, who was it?
33:14
Jake Paul doing everything that he's done that was just, yeah.
33:19
Crazy that someone would go, yeah, you can use
33:21
my likeness to do whatever you want with it.
33:23
It's brilliant though, I have to say like the day that it
33:26
happened, at first I was like, oh man, I bet he's annoyed.
33:30
Like.
33:30
He is like in all these ridiculous scenarios.
33:34
Then you have to remember it's Jake Paul, and then he was part of it all.
33:37
Like I ha like, it was just brilliant.
33:40
I loved all of it because everyone was talking about it, I
33:42
don't think in the right way, but everyone was talking about it.
33:45
So that's some good Mark.
33:47
You said that your data shows, one thing that I found
33:49
interesting was that it showed that creators and marketers are
33:52
still very bullish on ai, even though consumer sentiment has
33:56
seemed to fractured, you know, how do you explain that gap?
34:00
Well, I think with anything in marketing, advertising,
34:03
social, I do think we kind of always have this pendulum swing
34:08
where I think we get really excited and I think marketers.
34:13
We get very, very excited.
34:14
We get shiny object syndrome and we wanna jump on whatever's
34:18
gonna make our job feel more interesting, or it's driven by panic
34:22
that we're gonna be outdated and redundant and on the shelf.
34:25
So I think what happened is, and I, I absolutely did this, is we all
34:29
jumped on it and we wanted it everywhere and anywhere, and we wanted to
34:32
prove that we got it and we understood it and we're smarter than you.
34:35
And I think we pushed the pendulum all the way.
34:38
As as far as it can go in terms of current capabilities.
34:42
And then what happened is it saturated everything?
34:44
I think what was very interesting is even meta releasing meta vibes, we
34:48
push it so far and that consumers were not ready for it and so we just
34:52
oversaturated them and so now the pendulum is swinging all the way the back.
34:56
This happens all the time.
34:57
Eventually it's just gonna find its middle ground.
35:01
But I think us as marketers, we just shoved it as far as it could go.
35:06
Partly because we love new things, partly because
35:08
we're anxious and consumers just didn't want it.
35:10
And was it, you know, too soon for the technology?
35:13
I don't know, but I just think we're in the massive recalibration phase.
35:17
I think it's normal.
35:18
I think AI isn't going anywhere.
35:20
I just think we just gotta recalibrate.
35:23
A little bit before we get this kind of boring, normal, I think around ai.
35:27
It just, it's crazy to me that this is last year, it feels like it's years of
35:31
information and technology advancing so quickly that it's just like, holy cow.
35:35
That was just last year that, you know, chat, GPT came out with this
35:38
model that allowed everybody to have like Studio Ghibli effect, right?
35:42
And all of a sudden that became overused.
35:44
Oversaturated Disney now is partnering with chat GPT, which.
35:48
We hasn't even come out yet, and I'm a little afraid for that, but you
35:52
know, when they allow their likenesses and their art to be used, it's
35:55
both.
35:55
It's, I, I mean, yeah, say when I was at Disney and like the, um, sponsor,
36:00
the people that license the ip, that floor at Disney, they're gods because
36:04
that's a hundred percent profit's, the most protected part of the business.
36:07
They're the heroes of among the heroes.
36:10
Like if you talk to anyone at Disney, like who are the gods?
36:13
It's the people that monetize the IP because it's their
36:15
most valuable asset and it's profit, profit, profit,
36:18
it's, it's wild.
36:20
But what that has led to, and, and again with the
36:22
Disney thing, I think it'll be something similar.
36:24
We'll see this trend of um, basically the sea of sameness
36:27
where everything just kind of looks the same kind of.
36:30
Feels the same, and it's gonna feel less authentic if you use that
36:34
Studio Ghibli look or the new, you know, maybe you're hanging out with
36:37
the Disney princesses on a cruise or something, you know, look, that's
36:41
gonna be whatever that popular video trend will be like the one going
36:44
around right now where people are doing movie set to movie set with,
36:47
you know, different celebrities that they've always wanted to meet.
36:50
All those things are just.
36:52
Leading to this sea of sameness.
36:54
So in my opinion, you know, this is one of the driving factors in why
36:57
consumers don't trust AI or get tired of AI now versus a few years ago.
37:02
What, what do you think about that?
37:03
Yeah, I think so.
37:04
I think I've got, I guess, a bit more of a complex answer
37:07
to it that I really do feel like the sea of sameness came
37:11
from the promise that AI could make all of us creatives.
37:15
And I think it tapped into this like frustrated artist in many of us.
37:20
Like the only thing that held me back from being
37:22
an artist is that my hand can't do the work.
37:26
But I can type it and now I'm an artist and I think it maybe
37:31
exposed this kind of weird arrogance that we all thought
37:34
that we could create now and everyone should see our work.
37:38
And on mass we've been exposed as a world of
37:43
people that just are not that interesting.
37:46
When it comes to creating, we're not that creative.
37:48
So in, in many ways when people are saying it's threatening artists.
37:52
So I think it's shown how precious and rare true artistry is.
37:58
'cause the sea of sameness comes from just lazy prompting.
38:03
And I work with an incredible, um, AI filmmaker
38:05
called o Omar Karem, and he did an experiment for me.
38:08
He's great.
38:09
I mean, he's off the wall, he's an ex copywriter.
38:12
He knows how to.
38:13
Bring things to life in a very unique way.
38:15
He used like three or four different tools and wrote in
38:19
like he was doing a deodorant ad, wrote the prompts all
38:21
slightly differently and the output was all exactly the same.
38:24
So the sea of sameness really has come from the fact that I think we all were
38:27
just so arrogant to think that we were artists now because we've got chatty
38:31
BT on our phone, and it's just highlighting the fact that AI is not the
38:35
workhorse that we think it is when it comes to creativity and true imagination.
38:40
Real negotiation.
38:41
I mean, that's that whole thing of how many prompts did it take to do
38:44
the Coca-Cola ad when actually if you just set up and did a two day
38:47
filming session, would it have been, you know, a lot less painful?
38:50
So I think that's where the sea of sameness is coming from,
38:52
and I think we can't, we need to stop being so arrogant.
38:55
With what we think we can do on our own, our artists,
38:59
I saw a, um, a YouTuber recently do a video where he compared
39:04
like, he's like, here's the Coca-Cola ad. He replicated
39:07
it, shot for shot, doing AI by himself over like two days.
39:12
He, he themed it differently.
39:14
He didn't, you know, copy coke.
39:15
Exactly.
39:15
It was all about cameras and stuff like that.
39:17
But I mean, what he did was not like, you could tell there was
39:22
more that no more work that went into the Coke had to a degree,
39:25
but not much difference and yeah, that's just crazy that.
39:29
One person can have that impact versus, you know, an entire
39:33
team of people working around the clock to create things.
39:35
Now granted, that was also created by Koch, so I'm sure there were approvals
39:39
and all type, you know, you know, the PR and marketing process behind the scene.
39:43
For a big video project like that, it's
39:44
storyboarded forever fast and for sure.
39:47
I, I think also that the CocaCola lab was so interesting
39:51
because it's almost like its strategy was just ai.
39:55
Like the strategy was ai, the strategy wasn't a feeling, a
39:59
concept, a story like, you know, we wanna tell this story about
40:04
our brand, the strategy of that Coca-Cola ad, because it wasn't.
40:08
The best was it's made with AI though.
40:11
That's why, that's why people are gonna
40:13
watch this ad is 'cause it's made with ai
40:15
and just, just from a personal level, Coca of course is a big
40:18
American brand and I don't, I don't live too far from where.
40:22
You know, the first bottling plant of Coca-Cola ever was.
40:26
But you know, there's a lot of sentimental aspects
40:29
between Christmas and Coca-Cola over the years.
40:31
Just the Santa Claus with a Coke bottle is so iconic.
40:35
I think the fact that they've done AI ads around
40:37
Christmas is also a big part of the problem.
40:40
They do it around a holiday season when we wanna see something emotional
40:44
and sentimental, and then what we get is this AI ad that doesn't look great.
40:48
And I think that that's, that's also part of the problem.
40:51
If they had experimented another time of the year where people weren't
40:53
paying attention, I think it probably would've gone over a lot better.
40:57
Yeah, and I also think just as you're talking, you know,
40:59
there's KFC have been very honest about their use of ai and you
41:03
know, they've kind of merged AI and you know, real creativity.
41:07
But I guess kind of to your point, they've used it
41:10
irreverently in very experimental ways and they're not.
41:14
Damaging a property that we love.
41:16
And actually, as you say that, you know, we've seen a lot of marketing
41:19
missteps recently around properties that people love so much.
41:22
Logo changing, like all that stuff, like the heritage, the
41:25
stuff that we connect with when we change it for no reason.
41:29
You lose, you kind of stretch a brand too far outside of why people love it.
41:33
And I agree.
41:33
I mean, here in London, like everyone says Christmas starts when you
41:37
see the Coca-Cola ad. There's also a John Lewis ad, but you know.
41:40
Yeah.
41:40
And what if John Lewis was now ai?
41:43
Well, the Brits.
41:44
There'd be an uprising.
41:46
Exactly.
41:47
Exactly.
41:48
That's a, that that is a that is a great point.
41:51
Um, and you mentioned branding.
41:52
I mean, you talk about uprisings this year with, um, cracker Barrel.
41:57
Cracker Barrel is the one I was thinking of.
41:58
Yeah.
41:59
Yeah.
41:59
I, I had a feeling that's where you were, what you
42:01
were alluding to, and again, being a southerner.
42:04
That's just, you know, part of traveling in
42:07
the South is stopping at a Cracker Barrel.
42:09
I don't know if you've been to one yourself, but you'll know it's
42:12
a very kitschy experience and the fact that they wanted to make it
42:16
look like the inside of a Pottery Barn and not a Cracker Barrel.
42:19
It just everything about the design changes they wanted to do and
42:23
everything else, like, you know, you've gotta leave some danger.
42:27
In a cracker Barrel, there has to be a giant saw where
42:30
it's rusted to death hanging up like 50 feet in the air.
42:35
And you know, there has to be all these
42:37
things that make it feel homey and local.
42:40
That's why people go there is it feels comfortable and you take that away and.
42:44
You take the man and the cracker barrel literally
42:47
out of the drawing and what do you even have?
42:49
Yeah,
42:50
it's really interesting 'cause we've had quite a few, I feel
42:53
in the last couple of years, where brands have really stretched
42:55
their identity so far in the hope of modernization and future
43:00
proofing, that they totally alienate their existing consumer.
43:04
And it's a really interesting case of how far do you need
43:07
to stretch to main, just make sure you're not outdated.
43:09
'cause that's the biggest fear I think, more so than ever is as, as consumers.
43:13
We want the comfort of what feels real and what we remember and
43:17
what's nostalgic and isn't maybe digital or cold or copy and repeat.
43:23
I, it is, it is really interesting what's happening right
43:25
now and I do think it's driven by a lot of people feeling.
43:28
Nervous that are we gonna be outdated soon and what's the next
43:31
innovation that's gonna come around the corner and come, you know,
43:34
Uber, like what's the next Uber that's gonna destroy whatever.
43:37
We've worked with startups for years, so there's always, you
43:39
know, we are like this or we are the next that in technology.
43:43
And right now everything is like, we're the next open ai.
43:46
We're the next unicorn in that field.
43:48
And yeah, AI becomes quite big.
43:50
So to that point, what is some practical guidance for adopting AI responsibly?
43:55
Protecting this creativity and consumer confidence, what,
43:58
what do you all see as the important things to think about?
44:02
I think, to be honest, it comes down to a very simple role,
44:06
which is, is it genuinely helpful right now, is AI genuinely
44:11
helping us do something and is it useful and is the use.
44:16
Clear from a consumer, the creator, and the brand if,
44:21
and that's, I think where we've lost it a little is we've
44:23
been using it in a way that we're not sure if it's useful.
44:26
And that use can be, is it entertaining, is it better?
44:29
Have I done something that I could not afford
44:31
to do or is physically impossible to do?
44:34
So therefore I've created something really exciting.
44:36
Is it helping me do things faster?
44:38
Like it has to have use baked into it.
44:41
Ai, using AI alone is not the strategy.
44:43
So I think if you can't identify why you are using it, um, outside of
44:48
efficiencies, because also that's a bit of a red herring that's coming from,
44:51
like I've spoken to quite a few CMOs and they're saying to me the pressure.
44:55
From the business is to use AI to cut costs because it makes
44:59
everything, you can do the same but faster with less people.
45:03
Not that use, but you, you've really gotta think about
45:05
how is this useful for the consumer that's gonna watch
45:07
it for the person who's making it and for us as a brand.
45:10
And if you can't answer that it, you're probably just using it out of panic.
45:14
And so walk away.
45:16
That is a great way to put it because there's this fear
45:18
of like, oh, it's nice and shiny and, and I can use it to
45:22
help me come up with ideas or design this thing and then.
45:25
It ends up, you know, taking you more time than
45:28
you would've done otherwise to get it done.
45:31
I've had multiple examples of that just in trying to use it for different
45:35
things here at Humble Pod of like, oh, well I can use it to automate
45:38
my, my email workflow in the morning and check my emails for me.
45:42
And then I find out that, oh, chat UBT again disconnected from
45:45
Google and it gave me, I kid you not, it gave me imagined emails.
45:51
In an imagined schedule because it didn't have the information.
45:54
Instead of telling me it didn't have the information, it just
45:56
made it up and it's like, here's your schedule for the day.
45:58
You have a call with Acme Company, and I'm
46:00
like, I do not have Acme Company anywhere.
46:03
What are you talking about?
46:05
That's wild.
46:06
The other thing that I, I've noticed and I've had to kind of
46:09
be really strict on myself on this is if I know something to
46:13
be right and then chat, GPT tells me the opposite at first.
46:19
I defaulted to well chat GP t's, right?
46:22
And I'm wrong, which is the problem, like chat.
46:26
GBT doesn't know it all.
46:27
And I actually was chatting to chat GPT
46:30
over Christmas when it did my 2025 wrapped.
46:34
And I was asking like, what do the top users like do?
46:37
And it actually said like, you know, they do the work separately
46:40
and they put it in and they ask, what's the weaknesses here?
46:43
Like, are there any holes here?
46:45
And I think that's really important.
46:46
I think if we just outsource everything, I think we risk making ourselves
46:51
more stupid or or risk creating insecurities around our own instincts.
46:55
And specifically in marketing.
46:57
Marketing is all instinct.
46:59
Like it is.
47:00
Like you can make a data system or whatever around marketing
47:03
as best you can, the best marketing you'll ever see.
47:06
You can tell came from somebody had an amazing instinct that no one else had.
47:11
So, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's an aid, but it's not, it's
47:14
not replacing anything like we thought it would back in 2022.
47:18
2023.
47:19
Yeah.
47:19
I always get scared when I use it for larger projects
47:22
or things where it's like, I wanna create an outline.
47:24
Like, I'll be completely honest, I used it for this interview.
47:29
Don't worry, we'll do.
47:30
Uh, we probably do.
47:31
And, and you know, the thing that I get scared about
47:33
when I do that is it creates detailed questions.
47:36
And if I didn't write it, I don't think about it the
47:40
same way as if I wrote it myself, if I did it myself.
47:43
And I have to remind myself that like, it's not always helpful to have chat GPT.
47:48
'cause when I first did it, it dumped a bunch of stuff.
47:50
I ended up rewriting half of what, what I was given
47:52
by chat because I was like, this just doesn't.
47:55
Flow, it doesn't make sense or I'm not gonna remember to ask this
47:58
question in this way 'cause it's hyper-specific and I've gotta
48:01
verify everything that it quoted and everything that it said.
48:04
And it's just, it's very frustrating at times.
48:08
But it can be useful.
48:09
It did save me some time and, and where I really have used it.
48:13
Efficiently, at least personally, is meetings, being able to come out
48:16
of a meeting and go, Hey, what are the key notes from this meeting?
48:19
What are the key highlights?
48:20
Did Becky say anything that I need to remember for our interview
48:24
so that I don't trip over myself or say something I shouldn't say?
48:28
You know, those things are really helpful.
48:30
But yeah, it's just a, it's a wild tool that can be overused.
48:33
Um, I mean, we're even talking about AI psychosis now as a thing.
48:38
Executives, which is the wild thing.
48:40
CEOs are starting to come down with AI psychosis because they're
48:45
just like, oh, well Chachi BT said this is the best thing to do.
48:47
Oh my gosh.
48:48
Yeah.
48:49
Well, I think that's it.
48:50
It everyone says it's the quality of what you put in.
48:53
Because also, you know, in that example, for example, like you
48:56
are here, Chris, because you've built a podcast based on your
49:00
natural ability to interview people, craft a story, and so.
49:05
There's remove, like remove the heavy lift, right?
49:08
So that the good, the stuff that I'm really good at, I can just focus on that.
49:13
I just think the problem is chat, GBT or
49:15
whatever you're using always wants to do more.
49:17
It's like, should I do this then for you?
49:19
And like, oh well, okay.
49:20
Alright.
49:21
And we just have to remember that we are, there's only one of us.
49:25
We are not gonna turn into a computer.
49:27
I voice note it now.
49:28
I, I put in as much detail as possible and then
49:33
I say to it, don't rewrite, don't reformat.
49:35
Don't assume my meaning.
49:38
Just help me structure this so that it's just a
49:41
little bit more linear or a little bit more robust.
49:44
Are there any weaknesses?
49:45
Is there any research that can help me make this a little bit better?
49:48
But we have to contain it because I think it's gonna make us.
49:51
Less impactful or at worst case, crazy.
49:54
So I don't know.
49:56
Yeah, it can definitely, it can definitely do that.
49:58
Or or worst case, you know, waste a bunch of time.
50:02
I just as an experiment, used it for a full script on a
50:05
podcast where it was just a solo episode we did recently
50:08
and the amount of stuff I had to go back and redo.
50:11
Just because it was like it imagined, like I gave it the scripts and it
50:15
still imagined stuff for me because I said I needed it at a certain length.
50:19
It pulled excerpts that didn't exist and just, yeah, it was wild.
50:23
We ended up making a really good episode out of
50:26
it and I was really proud with the end result.
50:27
But like the amount of time that that.
50:30
Just the same time as if I would've done it myself.
50:32
And also the emotional frustration because
50:36
sometimes it's like talking to a toddler.
50:38
It's like asking a toddler to write your dissertation is that would be
50:42
really annoying to do, and that sometimes I get really irate with it.
50:47
So I don't want to give that emotional labor to chat GBT.
50:51
That's, that is another great way to put it.
50:53
So let's, let's think about it this way, just as we, as we wrap
50:56
up this paper and this research for you all, you know, if you
50:59
were writing like a short AI code of conduct for creator of the
51:02
economy, what would maybe like the top three rules be for that?
51:06
So number one is AI itself is not the strategy.
51:09
So for the creator economy specifically, AI isn't a strategy.
51:13
If you want to work with an AI creator or use ai, understand how it's
51:17
gonna help the content be better, be more entertaining, do something within
51:23
your budget constraints that you couldn't normally do, or, you know, help
51:27
that creator achieve more than they ever were able to do on their own.
51:31
It's gotta be naturally beneficial.
51:33
And then, you know, I saw this thing saying
51:35
strategy is knowing what to take out.
51:38
And I think what happens is with ai, we just
51:40
add more in, 'cause it always offers more.
51:42
So then really work on strategy and the strategy being know
51:47
what to remove, what to take out, and what to pause on.
51:52
Mm. Okay.
51:53
Those are great.
51:55
I was really on the spot then, Chris, so
51:59
No, but I, I think, I think those are, that's great guidance
52:01
because I think a lot of times thinking about thinking about AI
52:05
as a strategy versus a tactic, like you think about, 'cause I've,
52:09
I've learned over the years, like when I was going through my
52:11
MBA courses and things like that, like tactics versus strategies.
52:14
A lot of times I would get confused on thinking like, Facebook is a strategy.
52:19
No, Facebook's not a strategy.
52:20
Facebook is the tactic.
52:21
That you use to support whatever strategy you have in place.
52:25
And in thinking about it that way, even, even at a base level,
52:28
if that's all anybody took away, I think that would be a key.
52:31
A key piece of that.
52:32
I think so.
52:33
And I think it can, it can create incredible content.
52:35
We've had amazing success with building content that is.
52:40
The only, you know, Pixar Burbank could do for billions of dollars, right?
52:44
We can do that stuff now.
52:46
Creators, anywhere in the world can do
52:49
brilliant, exciting, thrilling, creative work.
52:52
Now that's great and let's explore that.
52:54
But that's because the creator is now unlocked and they
52:58
were always a creator and they were always brilliant.
53:01
So I think it's just being aware of that and yeah, it's, it's a tactic.
53:05
It's, I think we just thought.
53:07
But also everyone wants the headlines, right?
53:08
So everyone wanted the headline of, we made this with ai.
53:11
'cause then you're the innovator.
53:12
So the headlines are done.
53:14
Let's get into the boring middle.
53:16
Awesome.
53:17
So where can people pick up this study if they wanna look at
53:20
it for themselves and dive into it more than we have today?
53:22
Billion dollar boy.com.
53:24
Excellent.
53:24
Awesome.
53:25
Well, as we wrap up, one of the things I always like to ask at the
53:28
end of the interview is, you know, what brand do you admire the
53:31
most right now in, in context of everything we've discussed today?
53:34
I'd just love to know what brands you're looking at as brands you admire.
53:38
I love this question.
53:39
It's actually really hard to answer because I have.
53:43
Different reasons to like different brands.
53:45
So one that I really love, I love everything they're doing right now.
53:48
I love Adobe, uh, because I really feel their investment in the
53:53
creator economy and in creatives, and it doesn't feel superficial.
53:57
It actually.
53:59
I dunno, I'd love to know like what directive or decision
54:01
they made, but everything feels very genuine and creative
54:04
first, and like it's built from a very human place.
54:07
The stuff that they've been doing, um, and
54:09
you know, someone in the creative economy.
54:11
I love it.
54:12
That makes me very excited.
54:14
I actually just today went down a rabbit hole around the Lemi brand.
54:18
It's not Chloe Kardash, Courtney Kardashian's, Lemi.
54:21
So there's these gummy vitamins and they just went on to TikTok shop.
54:25
So they're in era one.
54:27
As this premium brand for a very long time, they went into
54:29
TikTok shop and I think they did 13 million on TikTok shop, all
54:33
through gathering like creative content, putting into TikTok
54:36
ads, optimizing for sales, um, which I think is brilliant.
54:40
I've loved that.
54:40
So I've just been watching everything that LE's been doing
54:42
recently, and I like that because it's kind of, it's culture first.
54:46
It's, you know, leaning into TikTok shop.
54:49
In a really cool way.
54:51
It's giving up on this premium need, prestige, need to be an era one
54:55
and allowing actually to be in the hands of creators and community.
54:58
I think that's a really interesting pivot.
54:59
So I just went on a, you can go on it afterwards, but I just went
55:02
into a rabbit hole of that earlier and like the power of TikTok shop.
55:05
I thought it was quite cool.
55:06
Yeah, TikTok shop has gotten me a number of times,
55:10
same.
55:11
It's, I, I've also got loads of clothes here that don't fit me from
55:13
TikTok shop that I don't know what to do with, but you know, it's fine.
55:17
I got a really cool t-shirt the other day from there, so yes, you're
55:21
doing better than me.
55:21
I've failed.
55:22
Yeah, no, I, I understand.
55:24
Sometimes you're just not sure.
55:25
'cause it's like, oh, this looks funny, but is it gonna be a wearable shirt?
55:28
Is it gonna last?
55:29
Is it gonna
55:30
But it was two pounds.
55:31
$2. Who cares?
55:33
Exactly.
55:33
Exactly.
55:35
Yeah.
55:35
I've got a washcloth coming of all things.
55:37
I, I go to the gym.
55:39
In the mornings and stuff, and I, right now I'm just doing
55:42
everything by hand and I was like, I need something for the gym.
55:43
And they marketed something to me.
55:45
I was like, what?
55:46
This is amazing.
55:47
That's great.
55:48
The latest thing that I bought, I don't, I dunno if this would be
55:50
on your feed, Chris, but there are these little sticker books with
55:54
like where you make sticker scenes and they're tiny, like there's
55:57
like Capy bearers and everything, like you need to build these
55:59
little interactive worlds of stickers that TikTok sold to me and.
56:04
I did that last night in bed for like an hour, so that was good.
56:07
That's adorable.
56:08
No, my, my kids might like that though.
56:11
Your kids would like that?
56:12
Yeah.
56:12
They love sticker book stuff.
56:14
Yeah, but I get the most random, random things marketed
56:17
to me too, so I know what you're, you're talking about.
56:19
Mine's more like car, random car stuff.
56:22
Like I have a car HUD that keeps coming up on my
56:24
feed right now and I'm like, I don't need that.
56:26
That's silly, but I kind of want it.
56:28
Well, I mean, is TikTok the new QVC?
56:30
That's what I wanna know.
56:32
I think so.
56:33
Yeah.
56:33
I think in a lot of ways in in, I've actually found myself, especially
56:37
over the holiday season, with a lot of downtime and kids watching
56:40
tv and not much to do, like, you know, scrolling through TikTok to
56:44
the point where it's just like every other video is an ad sometime.
56:48
Yeah.
56:49
I'm not sure how, like, in a way.
56:50
The final point to this, I've been thinking about it like, I like it
56:54
because it's just the average person, again, talking about products
56:56
they've bought and that's how influencer marketing, it's just the girl
56:59
next door just with my salary, my lifestyle saying I bought this mascara.
57:04
And that's what made it so influential.
57:07
And in a way, TikTok shop is just, I mean, it's your grandma
57:09
around the corner telling about these jeans that she bought and
57:13
it's, it's just really interesting 'cause the average person is.
57:16
Shop seller and tiktoks al chaotic algorithm is sending me
57:20
everybody, not just MIDI and mega creators selling me their products.
57:26
So it's quite interesting.
57:27
It definitely makes it fascinating.
57:28
We've actually got a, um, you mentioned QVC, we've.
57:32
One of the things regionally for us is we have the,
57:35
um, jewelry TV was out of our, like they, they're
57:39
headquartered here in Knoxville, Tennessee, where we are.
57:41
So we've seen that industry come up and grow and stuff over time.
57:46
So it's fascinating to see it now shift to TikTok, and I'm sure you see even
57:49
them shift some of their content and marketing to TikTok and other places.
57:53
They
57:53
must do just well just 'cause of the share, like
57:56
Lemi vitamins doing 13 million just from moving.
58:01
Like the numbers are talking, so
58:04
it's insane.
58:04
Yeah.
58:05
TikTok is wild, what they're doing.
58:07
Well, very cool.
58:08
Well, very cool.
58:09
Well, Becky, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
58:12
I have loved this conversation.
58:13
It was really great.
58:14
Me too.
58:15
No, thank you so much Chris.
58:16
I really appreciate it and we've covered a lot,
58:18
but all the stuff I love, so it's wonderful.
58:21
Excellent.
58:22
So where can people connect with you?
58:23
Billion dollar Boy.
58:25
Find out more about five to nine.
58:26
So follow 5 2 9 on Instagram.
58:28
That's where we do most of our um, updates, which is just 5 2 9 Global.
58:33
That's our handle.
58:34
You can find me on LinkedIn, Becky Owen, and then I
58:37
would follow Billion Dollar Boy on LinkedIn as well.
58:39
Those are your best places.
58:41
Awesome, alrightyy.
58:42
Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
58:45
Thank you, Chris.
58:45
We'll speak to you soon.
58:48
Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand.
58:50
Don't forget to like and subscribe on your player of choice.
58:53
You can also keep up with the podcast on we built this brand.com.
58:57
If you like this episode, please give the podcast a five star review and make
59:01
sure to tell all your friends about it so we can continue to build this brand.