Influence Weekly

New Monaco Media, Inc.

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. 

  1. -10 h

    July 2026 Creator Economy News Recap - CAA's $250M Creator Bet, Ruggable's Data-Driven Playbook & Forbes' Billion-Dollar Creator List

    In this July episode, hosts Ceci Carloni and Nii Ahene break down three stories that capture the creator economy's maturation—from institutional capital entering the space to brands cracking creator performance marketing to Forbes confirming the industry has officially crossed the billion-dollar threshold: 💰 CAA Bets $250M on Creator-Led Media: Creative Artists Agency and Integrated Media Company launched Compound Creative Holdings, a $250 million holding company built to buy, operate, and grow creator-led media businesses—separate from CAA's existing talent representation business covering 300+ creators. This isn't about representing creators; it's about owning their companies. Nii's honest take: the thesis is sound, but the question is whether there are enough scaled creator businesses to justify the investment size, and whether Compound operates more like private equity underwriting cash flows or growth equity helping smaller creator businesses build real product and media distribution revenue. 🛒 Ruggable Turns ShopMy Into a $3M Revenue Machine: Ruggable's CMO Lauren Sherman replaced spreadsheets and DMs with ShopMy, put half a million dollars behind creators, and generated $3 million in revenue in the first month. The secret: treating creator marketing like performance marketing—deploy broadly, let the data surface who's working, then build deeper relationships with the outliers. Food creator Dan Pelosi kept showing up in the data, which led to a full co-branded collection. Nii's read: this is creator marketing 101 in 2026, and the same volume-first strategy is what's working on TikTok Shop too. 🏆 Forbes' Top 50 Creators Cross $1 Billion for the First Time: For the first time in five years of rankings, the top 50 creators collectively earned over $1 billion—up 20% from last year. Mr. Beast leads at $300M, followed by Dhar Mann at $65M and Steven Bartlett at $52M. But the bigger story is what Forbes opens with: the creator economy is no longer trying to break into show business—it is show business. Backrooms and Obsession both beat Hollywood blockbusters at the box office on fractions of their budgets. Nii's biggest misses from the list: Mel Robbins, Joe Rogan, and IShowSpeed—a reminder that any ranking reflects whose lens you're looking through. From institutional capital placing its biggest bet yet on creator businesses to a brand proving performance marketing works with creators at scale to Forbes confirming creators have officially crossed into mainstream entertainment—this episode maps where the money, the data, and the cultural moment are all pointing at the same time. The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

    14 min
  2. 3 juin

    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.

    11 min

Notes et avis

À propos

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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