Join us as we dive deeper into the latest trends, insights, and stories from the world of influencer marketing and the creator economy. Our podcast brings you exclusive interviews with industry leaders, in-depth analysis of key topics, and a behind-the-scenes look at the stories that matter most to our community.
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June 15, 2026Episode 3220 min
Leah Chaney (CYLNDR Studios): Every Revision Is a Tax on Creative
CYLNDR Studios is a Los Angeles-based creative and production studio that operates at the intersection of strategy, design, filmmaking, and influencer marketing. The company serves brands looking to move beyond transactional creator partnerships by embedding creators into the creative process from the brief stage, treating influencer work as a craft discipline rather than a content assembly line.Ceci chats with Leah Chaney, Director of Influencer at CYLNDR Studios, to hear her perspective on three critical issues: why brands lose their most valuable creative asset the moment a brief passes through legal, brand, and accounts teams before a creator ever sees it, what it actually means to embed a creator at the briefing stage versus claiming early involvement while handing them a finished TV campaign to amplify, and why the industry's obsession with scale and output volume is producing stock content that audiences scroll past without sharing. Tune in for a practitioner's case for treating creator work as authorship, not distribution.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
June 9, 2026Episode 3135 min
Matthew Lacey (Waypoint Partners): What the Whalar Deal Signals for the Creator Economy
Waypoint Partners is a specialist M&A advisory firm supporting high-growth businesses at the intersection of creativity, technology, and intellectual capital. With over $2 billion in completed deal value across 40 transactions, the firm advises founders, buyers, and investors navigating critical strategic moments across creator economy, marketing, entertainment, and talent businesses—including advising on the Sister Group acquisition of After Party Studios.Ceci chats with Matthew Lacey, Managing Partner at Waypoint Partners, to hear his perspective on three critical issues: what Accenture's acquisition of Whalar signals about where enterprise consultancies see long-term value in the creator economy and who else might make similar moves, why the convergence of brand, entertainment, and talent worlds has taken longer than expected and what businesses like After Party Studios are doing right by operating fluently across all three, and how much runway remains when creator-native agencies are still small compared to WPP and global ad spend tells a very different story. Tune in for an M&A advisor's read on where the money is moving and what deals will define the next phase of the industry.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
June 8, 2026Episode 3036 min
Jo Wong (Pop.Store): Virality Is Not a Business: Inside POP.STORE's Big VidCon Bet
Pop.Store is an agentic AI commerce platform built for creators, combining a social-first storefront where creators can sell digital products, bookings, and affiliate deals with an AI operating system that runs key business tasks autonomously. The platform serves creators of all sizes—from aspiring entrepreneurs to established talent—and is the title sponsor of VidCon Anaheim 2026, where it is launching Echo Me, its multi-agent AI platform.Ceci chats with Jo Wong, CRO and General Manager at Pop.Store, to hear her perspective on three critical issues: why virality is not a business and what it actually takes for creators to build recurring revenue and owned communities that compound over time, how Echo Me's five AI agents handle DMs, comments, deal monitoring, audience nurturing, and content creation so creators can stop spending 80% of their time on admin, and why VidCon's 15th anniversary marks a pivotal infrastructure moment for the creator economy. Tune in for a concrete look at what agentic AI means for everyday creators trying to scale without a team.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
June 3, 2026Episode 2911 min
June 2026 Creator Economy News Recap - Lenovo's Creator IP Playbook, GM's Big Bet & VidCon vs. Cannes
In this June episode, hosts Ceci Carloni and Nii Ahene break down three stories that reveal how brands are thinking about creator investment—and where the line is between genuine cultural impact and expensive noise:🎨 Lenovo's Creator Odyssey: When a Campaign Becomes IP: Two years, three chapters, fifty million views. Lenovo and agency Portal A built a creator program around a simple but powerful brief—don't make it about the product, make it about art and creativity. By chapter three, two of the original creators had evolved into creative directors, helping design the brief and co-hosting a live showcase in Mexico City around the FIFA World Cup. The result is a blueprint for what happens when brands extend genuine creative trust and give partnerships enough runway to grow into something bigger than a campaign.🎬 GM Creator Lab: Big Production, Real Questions: General Motors built five Hollywood sound stages, themed to different vehicles, and invited creators to compete for a car—generating 150+ submissions, 200 pieces of content, and 50 million earned views in the first month, double their target. But Nii isn't sold. His take: this is old advertising strategy dressed up as creator marketing—bringing creators onto the brand's turf instead of meeting them in the spaces that actually influence purchase decisions. The auto creator community on YouTube already exists. The real question is whether GM is showing up in the right places at the right moment in the buying journey.🎪 VidCon or Cannes? The Industry Weighs In: A Net Influencer roundtable asked 18 industry professionals which festival they'd send their team to. Cannes advocates say that's where the senior buyers and big budgets are—the Coachella for B2B. VidCon advocates say that's where you stay close to creator culture before everyone else catches on. Nii's honest read on Cannes: too many agency pitches, not enough decision makers, and real risk of losing the pulse of actual creator culture. Net Influencer is heading back to VidCon for the fifth year running—and Nii explains exactly why the three-floor layer cake of community, creator-to-creator learning, and industry conversations is still hard to beat.From a two-year creator IP program to a splashy activation that raises real ROI questions to where smart teams are actually investing their conference budget—this episode cuts through the noise on what creator marketing looks like when it works and when it doesn't.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
June 1, 2026Episode 2827 min
Eddie Pietzak (CESD): The Creator Economy Needs a Mailroom
CESD Talent Agency is one of the leading talent representation firms operating across both Hollywood and the creator economy, with offices in Los Angeles and New York. The company's digital department represents content creators across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and podcasts, applying traditional Hollywood representation principles to building sustainable creator careers.Ceci chats with Eddie Pietzak, SVP of Digital at CESD Talent Agency, to hear his perspective on three critical issues: what the Hollywood mailroom-to-agent mentorship model built over decades that the creator management space still hasn't replicated at scale, why creators who refuse to diversify beyond one platform or one revenue stream are running a one-to-three year business at best, and how the always-on service model that defined legacy talent representation became a competitive advantage in a space where most managers go dark after 6pm. Tune in for a practitioner's framework on what professional creator representation actually looks like when it's done right.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
May 18, 2026Episode 2739 min
Andy Cloyd (Superfiliate): Automate Everything Except Relationships
Superfiliate is a creator-led growth platform helping thousands of D2C brands run and scale creator partnerships across Shopify, Meta, and TikTok Shop. The platform provides unified affiliate and creator management, automated gifting workflows, creator storefronts, discovery tools, and performance visibility—consolidating what used to require 12 different tools into one system.Ceci chats with Andy Cloyd, Co-Founder and CEO of Superfiliate, to hear his perspective on three critical issues: why creators have become the new creative production house replacing quarterly high-budget shoots with volume testing where brands kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince worth $100K in paid media spend, how the operational chaos of managing 100+ creator partnerships causes brands to miss their best-performing relationships while wasting money on usage rights the paid team never activates, and where AI creates real value versus hype—automating everything except relationship building while human authenticity becomes more valuable in a world of indistinguishable content. Tune in for tactical frameworks on scaling creator programs without scaling headcount proportionally.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
May 11, 2026Episode 2635 min
Nick Jacklin (Underscore Talent): Why Single-Platform Creators Don't Last
Underscore Talent is a premier creator economy management company representing diverse talent across creators, comedians, athletes, and thought leaders. The company's division, Shorthand Studios, provides editorial services, editing, digital strategy consulting, and production support to help creators build sustainable businesses across social platforms, CTV, paywalls, and original content development.Ceci chats with Nick Jacklin, Partner at Underscore Talent and President of Shorthand Studios, to hear his perspective on three critical issues: why creators must shift from posting content to building IP that works across 25-50 episodes instead of chasing one-off viral moments, how the economics of creator businesses have grown 10-100x in the past decade but the infrastructure to support multi-platform monetization still requires specialized teams most creators can't build alone, and which platforms are being seriously underestimated right now—YouTube for podcasts, CTV for premium placement, and paywalls like Substack where creators need marketing and pricing support to unlock exponential growth. Tune in for operational frameworks on what it actually takes to run a creator business like a media company.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
May 4, 2026Episode 2627 min
Brianna Doe (Verbatim): Stop Treating Influencer Marketing Like Paid Ads
Verbatim is a boutique marketing agency that helps SMBs and startups grow through influencer marketing and speaker sourcing, specializing in SaaS and eCommerce brands. The agency focuses on helping businesses tell compelling stories that drive measurable results rather than just creating content for visibility.Ceci chats with Brianna Doe, Head of Influencer Marketing and Founder at Verbatim, to hear her perspective on three critical issues: why SMBs and startups approach creator marketing differently than enterprise brands and what infrastructure gaps prevent smaller companies from scaling programs effectively, how the rise of B2B influencer marketing has changed what types of creators and partnerships make sense for SaaS companies versus traditional consumer brands, and what brands at the SMB level misunderstand about building sustainable creator programs when budgets are tighter and every dollar needs clear attribution. Tune in for practical frameworks on making creator marketing work at startup scale.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
April 30, 2026Episode 2510 min
May 2026 Creator Economy News Recap - Creator Tier Strategy, Target's Gamified Shift & Instagram's Commerce Play
In this May episode, hosts Ceci Carloni and Nii Ahene unpack three stories revealing how brands are rethinking creator program structure, compensation models, and platform commerce strategies:🎯 Does "Make It Cool First, Scale Second" Actually Work?: A Net Influencer roundtable asked industry professionals whether brands need a macro creator to anchor credibility before scaling through micro creators. The consensus? The logic works in theory, but you don't always need a celebrity—just the most trusted voice in a niche, regardless of size. The real insight: treating macro and micro as separate budgets breaks the entire system. Nii argues the anchor doesn't have to be a creator at all—cultural events like the Grammys, NBA playoffs, or F1 Miami can serve as the universal touchstone that smaller creators triangulate around.💳 Target Drops Commissions for Gamification: Target is replacing its commission-based creator program with challenges, rewards, gift cards, and products—part of a broader retail shift toward gamified programs that scale creator marketing at lower cost. Nii's take: only a handful of brands have enough cache to pull this off. Target is ubiquitous enough that creators will participate without cash, but most companies still need actual financial incentives. This model works when you're a household name that looms large in American consciousness—not when you're still building brand equity.🛍️ Instagram's Shoppable Reels Rollout: Instagram launched a feature letting creators tag up to 30 shoppable products directly in Reels, including affiliate links, with in-app checkout. Facebook followed with a similar update launching Amazon first, then Temu and eBay. Meta says tagged content will appear in partnership tabs for brand discovery. Nii's verdict: too little, too late. While Meta focused on the metaverse for three years, ShopMy and LTK built giant creator commerce networks that now dominate boutique curation and creator-led shopping. Instagram's new features help creators not on those platforms, but the zeitgeist already shifted.From rethinking tier strategy beyond celebrity anchors to compensation models that only work for household brands to Instagram playing catch-up in creator commerce—this episode captures the tactical and structural shifts brands are navigating in mid-2026.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
April 26, 2026Episode 2433 min
Bryan Barletta (Sounds Profitable): Podcasting Needs to Stop Talking to Itself
Sounds Profitable is a media property covering strategic and tactical changes in the podcasting business through newsletters, podcasts, and industry research. The company produces educational content, conducts quarterly research series, and provides advisory services to keep companies informed on the state of podcasting. Bryan Barletta also serves as President of Podcast Movement, the world's largest conference for podcasters.Ceci chats with Bryan Barletta, President of Podcast Movement and Partner at Sounds Profitable, to hear his perspective on three critical issues: how the podcasting industry's infrastructure and measurement capabilities compare to where creator marketing sits today and what brands need to understand about attribution differences, why the convergence of podcasting and the broader creator economy creates opportunities for brands to think about audio creators as part of their overall influencer strategy, and what the shift from experimental podcast budgets to core marketing spend means for how the industry must mature its tooling and standards. Tune in for strategic context on positioning podcast creators within enterprise marketing programs.The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.
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