The distance between uploading videos from your bedroom and running a diversified media company used to be measured in decades and required the intervention of several vice presidents at a broadcast network.
SE
By StuAIrt Elliott
· August 4, 2026
The distance between uploading videos from your bedroom and running a diversified media company used to be measured in decades and required the intervention of several vice presidents at a broadcast network.
The advertising industry has long had a complicated relationship with the phrase "we're not trying to replace anyone." It is the kind of assurance that tends to precede doing exactly that, or at least trying to.
For years, the influencer occupied a peculiar position in the advertising firmament: part celebrity endorser, part media buy, part something that nobody could quite define but that seemed to work well enough.
There is a certain kind of commercial that asks you to believe the product in question has transformed someone's life so thoroughly that they have become, in some small way, a different person.
The casting of celebrity ambassadors for premium spirits has become so ritualized that one can almost recite the script in advance: the actor, usually British, usually at the precise moment of ascending fame, is shown in a setting of quiet luxury, engaged in some vaguely aspirational activity that r
