Take a drink every time someone says the word “authenticity.”
That would be a dangerous game to play at a creator marketing event, unless you’re looking to get plastered by 10 am. But, overused as it is, authenticity is the reason creator marketing is a big enough deal in the ad industry now for us to have full events dedicated to it.
On Tuesday, the IAB hosted its inaugural CreatorFronts in New York City, an upfronts-style event but for the creator economy.
And one idea kept surfacing.
Some of the most authentic partnerships are born when creators were passionate about the product even before they had a brand deal.
That’s how a recent collaboration between The Try Guys, a comedy YouTube channel, and electrolyte drink mix Liquid I.V. came to be, said Izzy Rusher, director of media at Liquid I.V., during a panel at the CreatorFronts.
The Try Guys were already “a huge fan of the brand,” said Rusher, and using it regularly, which made for an “extremely authentic” (take a drink!) partnership right off the bat.
Worth a try (guy)
As loath as content creators may be to admit it, “time spent on the internet is default forgettable,” said Zach Kornfeld, a founding member of The Try Guys. The job of a creator, therefore, is to make content that stands out “among the noise,” he added.
For The Try Guys, that means creating long-form, episodic content that people “don’t just click,” but actively look forward to and return to, said Kornfeld. The content experience functions more like a TV show, rather than a collection of standalone videos. (Great news for YouTube CEO Neal Mohan.)
One thing returning viewers might know is that Keith Habersberger, another founding Try Guy, is a lifelong fan of Liquid I.V.
The Try Guys were already a client of creator marketing and growth platform Spotter, which matches creators with relevant brands, and Spotter was aware of their affinity for Liquid I.V. So when Spotter took on Liquid I.V. as a client, making a connection with The Try Guys felt like a no-brainer.
They ate with that …
Although this particular partnership came to be because of Habersberger’s well-known partiality for Liquid I.V., the same recommendation could have been surfaced via machine learning, Spotter President and Co-Founder Nic Paul told AdExchanger. Spotter’s agentic tools can analyze the transcripts of every video its creator clients have produced and track all mentions of a specific brand.
But discovery is tactical. Execution is strategic, and creators need to be directly involved for the end result to feel … you know what.
The Try Guys (who got their name from trying silly and outlandish activities on camera) incorporated their Liquid I.V. partnership into their videos in a way that allowed the content to still feel natural. For instance, during the Waffle House episode of their “Eat the Menu” series, in which Habersberger tries everything on a restaurant’s menu, he pauses partway through to rehydrate with Liquid I.V., noting that he does this often when a menu is particularly sodium-heavy.
But the ads don’t have to live only within full-length creator videos. Spotter also carves out shorter bits from the long-form content, usually 15 or 30 seconds long, that can be used for short-form ads inserted as breaks in videos from other creators.
To ensure the ads are reaching the right audience, Spotter uses data points like a video’s traffic and average view time, as well as what brought a viewer to a video, all of which is available via YouTube’s API and enabled by direct relationships with creators. This data allows Spotter to determine where, exactly, to place an ad, Paul said.
For instance, if a notable percentage of Try Guys viewers were coming from Vlogbrothers videos, Spotter might incorporate the former’s ads into Vlogbrothers videos with the longest average view times.
Livin’ the dream
This strategy is effective for a couple of reasons. First, the ads in videos with longer view times tend to have much higher view-through rates, said Paul. In fact, Try Guys viewers who watched a video for more than 20 minutes were nearly twice as likely to watch a skippable ad in its entirety compared to viewers who only watched for three to five minutes.
But there’s also an element of loyalty that’s likely to build positive association, Kornfeld suggested.
“The thing you spend the most time with is the thing that’s going to make the most impact in your memory,” he said.
And even though there’s “a negative connotation around ad integrations,” said Liquid I.V.’s Rusher, if done well, viewers get excited about sponsorships, too. After The Try Guys partnered with Liquid I.V., she said, fans were delighted to see Habersberger living out his dream.
“To see all of the fans say, ‘Oh my gosh, he got his Liquid I.V. partnership,’ was so exciting,” Rusher said. “I read all 8,000 comments on the YouTube video.”
