The creator economy, an industry that prides itself on eliminating the intermediaries between talent and audience, has found itself in need of someone to make introductions.
Dhar Mann, the motivational video producer who built a studio empire on YouTube, has been installed as Advertising Week New York's first "chief creator officer," a title that did not exist at the conference until this week because the position it describes did not exist anywhere until this week. His assignment is to broker $100 million in deals between creators and brands over the next 12 months — a figure Mr. Mann said has already been pledged by chief marketing officers whose names he declined to share, though he added that no contracts would actually be signed before the week concludes.
(What, you were expecting the contracts to be signed during a karaoke event hosted by Christina Milian?)
Mr. Mann's elevation to this role represents something of a structural acknowledgment by the advertising establishment that creators have become too large to be handled through the usual channels, yet too disorganized to be bought like television time. "Advertisers like process. They like consistency. They like spots and dots," said Jamie Gutfreund, founder of the consultancy Creator Vision, who noted that Mr. Mann's team "think like operators" and speak the language of "pipeline" and "deal flow."
The week's programming reflects this tension between show business and actual business. There is a "creator challenge" involving seven tasks and a golden key somehow associated with Zillow. There is something called "The Masked CMO," which is apparently a variation on the Fox singing competition, hosted by Nick Cannon. There is a "creator deal making room" with the rapper Fat Joe.
Mr. Mann himself identified what he sees as the central problem: creators who have millions of followers but have never pitched a brand, and marketing executives who control millions of dollars but do not know what creators can deliver. When he invited some of the largest creators in the world to participate in a pitching exercise, he said, several responded with variations of, "Wait, are you serious? I don't know how to do that."
Whether $100 million will actually change hands remains to be seen. But the number itself, as Brad Hoos, chief executive of the influencer agency The Outloud Group, put it, is "something that people can connect with."
It is also, not coincidentally, a very round number.
Original story published in Digiday: "Dhar Mann's $100M AWNY deal target for creators is already pledged (so he says)"