My first talk of the day was Creator Darwinism: The New Creative Advantage with Ashley Rudder at the Creators Lounge. She is currently the CCO of DNY but used to work for MAC cosmetics. She worked for MAC when they became the first makeup brand to shoot vertical videos and cover fashion week in real time. To be honest, this talk was all over the place and I could not follow along that well. With that, it was still cool to see one of the creators who was on our class test!
My next talk was Kai Cent x State Farm: Co-Creating a Blockbuster. I thought this talk was very interesting because it deep dived into how brands can turn creators into creative partners, not just endorsers. Kai talked about his experience working with a brand that he imagined impossible due to his type of streaming content. But State Farm loved him because with him, they were able to build authentic, culture-driving ideas.
My next talk was Borrowing Community in the New Ad Spend with Meridith Rojas, Campbell 'Pookie' Puckett, and Bethenny Frankel. This talk was not my favorite as I felt it jumped all over the place and was not as educational as I hoped. But Pookie and Bethenny both shared their experiences on how they built their communities online. They both have very select content, meaning it does not attract everyone. So to build a community was not so easy.
My next talk was The Social Playbook: Brand Strategies Unpacked with Rare Beauty. This talk was with Katie Welch, the Chief Marketing Officer of Rare Beauty. I thought this talk was great and incredibly interesting as I am a huge user of Rare Beauty. Katie talked about how creators are crucial to telling the mission story and brands truly value how creators talk to their audiences. Katie also pointed out that when her brand looks for creators to promote their products, she values a creator that will actually help educate the audience, not just sell a product to them. I thought this was a very interesting POV and more brands should use creators in this way to see real growth.
Lastly, I saw Virality Masterclass: How to Become The Internet's Fave. This was host by Zaria Parvez, Social Media Manager for Duolingo, Jake Shane, Content Creator, Anita Chiba, the founder of Diet Paratha, and Shaina Zafar, director of United Talent Agency. I wouldn't say this talk was extremely education but it definitely was entertaining. As many know, Duolingo has some of the funniest TikToks and Zaria touched on how those are made and where the ideas come from. Jake Shane, who recently became a very big TikToker and podcast host, talked about bringing authenticity to his content. He stated that it was because none of his content was pre-planned and he never tried to follow a script.
We attended the award shows for the 3rd night in a row. I am still amazed by the creativity on that stage. My favorite work from this night was Vaseline - Vaseline Verified.