The Creator Evolution: How to Craft High-End Content Without Losing Your Core

The first conversation, I have been privileged enough in my career to interview presidents and prime ministers, CEOs of the world's largest companies in moments of crisis and in moments of happiness, but this is one of the most exciting conversations I will literally ever have because of the two men standing at the back of the terrace, come and join me on the stage. Thank you so much. Darnell Strom runs the remarkable, it's more than a talent agency, I think talent agency does you not enough justice, Darnell. It's a full service business. I think that's interesting because Fortune is about moving to full service. How do we ensure that we create the right content in the right way, the right conversations in the right way, in the best way for the partners as well as for the people who use Fortune, our audiences. So Darnell, UTA, the talent agency, but let's find a different word as we speak together on the stage, and Stadguy, the man on whom I base all of my stylistic instincts. I read you, it's almost like a bible for me. Every morning I get up and I say what does Stadguy said that I should be wearing. I put longer socks on today because it was very much à la poubelle to wear those short ballerina socks which I had been wearing for a while but I literally burned them last night in a in a bin fire because I put it in the trash. I do what you ask and I hope that my slightly longer socks are fantastique today, really important. So welcome, thank you both of you for coming. Thank you for having us. To talk about the new ways that we can think about branding, Stadguy, let me start with you because I think one of the most interesting things about how you have created not only obviously wonderful entertainment for people, that's really important to remember, I think sometimes we forget at undervalue that the main value is that you are just lovely to watch and very funny. Thank you, thank you. Good looking as well which is nice, which we're not all, we don't all have that, but it's the the other thing is the serendipity of you just finding something that connected because you didn't start with thinking right how can I become this thing, you started with basically a chat with a friend which was very funny and you produced a bit of video off the back of it but tell us about how serendipity and the opportunity to create something, the journey from that moment which I think was shared on Whatsapp initially amongst your friendship group became a business because I think that journey is what many Fortune 500 audiences really want to hear and think about for themselves, how can I disrupt what I do to create success like that. Thank you, I appreciate being here for the two of you, I appreciate the praise and the kindness and very honored to be here. I think it all came down to connection, I think connection with people here in Cannes, connection with people we meet in the wild and connection online is undeniable, I think when a connection is authentic and real it's so obvious to both parties and when it's not and it's artificial or when it's forced it's equally obvious to both parties and I got very lucky where that initial connection was very strong, I made that video by accident, I was just having fun as you said and people felt incredibly drawn to that accidental video, they felt drawn to that content and I felt drawn to them when I would meet them because I would see them lighting up and being so excited by it and that's the spark I needed to really just run behind something, it's that feeling that actually I felt we shared in the back and getting ready for this, it's meeting someone new and bonding over something and then just fueling that connection to turn it into a friendship or to turn it online into a community, so stage one was creating that community and being authentic to what that community wanted from me and through that storytelling brands naturally wanted in and I also wanted the brands in and the key to that to me was defining what the Shtad Guy universe could include and who the real life Shtad Guys and girls would be and creating those universes around them and thankfully UTA, the agency I work with, with Darnell, an incredible team have allowed me to further develop that universe and also turn it into my business. Did you think from the beginning I've got something here that has value not just for the moments of joy you create for people, the connection, that's one value, but also frankly a commercial value, let's not be too shy here, we are about running successful businesses that are profitable and create great products for people that they want to pay for, did you know that at the beginning and then went for help or did you not really know what I've got here and then thought actually maybe there's more here than I have imagined? It was the former at first and definitely the second later on as well. I think the initial thesis was these people clearly like these videos, they're asking more questions and actually they're buying the things I'm speaking about playfully without me trying to sell them and that's what I think the word authenticity comes in for a brand creator relationship where I was talking about the brands I work with today long before working with them but the ceiling of that accidental work is actually quite low and then actually further developing and unlocking much more value the ceiling is much higher and that's where bringing experts and professionals in the room to actually understand where this ship can go allowed for that to happen. So the initial part was very much this is in front of me let me run after it and then phase two was UTA helping me actually find out all the different paths that could exist for me that I never considered and that my audience also never considered. Daniel, tell us about UTA, let's obviously get to Stadtgeier and how you spot the right people to work with but I just do want to talk a little bit about UTA itself. This idea of music, fashion, film, sports, art, advisory, thought leadership. I think we sometimes think of agents as almost sort of solo operators who are just phoning up trying to get gigs broadly. It is much more and much deeper than that now. How are talent agencies, how much has it changed in the last just say five years how the talent agency operates and then we'll get to Stadtgeier and how you think about your individuals and leveraging what it is they do. So you know the agency landscape has grown a lot over the last number of years I think especially over the last five. I think to your point people thought of agents as we're the deal makers that you have to deal with and oftentimes you want to try to avoid because you know I think people thought of us as like a toll booth where it's like if you pass through us it's going to cost you money so they would try to go around us. But I think the evolution of the agent has changed in that and I think brands are starting to recognize us more where we're not just the deal makers we're basically strategic operators with our clients and so we're working with them in a way where it's okay what are these extensions to your business which I think Stadtgeier is a great example of that that you might be operating in this one space how do we continue to grow your platform so you can reach larger audiences and how do we create commercial opportunities around those and how do we create opportunities for you to own and build your own businesses and so really looking at the you know 360 view of being a full service agency so when we started we represented tv writers and then I extended into film and then I extended into music and then so on and so forth now we're in almost every category of culture that you can think of and you've you've listed a lot of those and because we are in the center of culture you know not just as deal makers but we look at ourselves as kind of like this information intelligence agency because we have all of this data and analytics about everything that's happening in culture because we represent the people who are creating that culture and so and not just from a deal making perspective it's from a how do we take those insights how are they reaching their audiences which deals have worked well why have they worked well so our advisory business which is one of the leading you know advisory businesses in the world is using those insights to help brands tap into culture and tell their story in a different way so you know the agency looks a lot different than it did a long time ago we want our clients to feel like this is a one-stop shop for everything that they want to do whether it's write a book whether it's start a brand or do anything else in between you know be in a film go on tour we want it to all be in in one place and so that's what the modern agency is. Stag guy spoke about authenticity but there are many different routes to engagement online I've just interviewed the chief exec of Legora the new legal AI firm and they've got Jude Law to basically very arch and comedic clearly not a lawyer they've hired someone because he's got a surname and it's a cheesy joke and that's basically the gag so it's not all about I think Stag guy you're absolutely right you're the sort of self-aware narrator which is it connects in the heart as well as the the comedic part of it because you are very self-aware of who it is you are but when you say authenticity Darnell what are we talking about because not everyone necessarily needs to even know or love the brand and the Legora example with Jude Law has revealed that archness comedic talent can also really work so when you talk about authenticity what do we mean? I mean I think authenticity is a word especially around can and anytime you're at a brand event is you know if we had a drinking game for every time you know someone said authenticity we'd all be black out but and I think the word's been ruined a bit because I think people state it as if it's a brand value and I don't think you can just be like authenticity authenticity is our brand value I think that authenticity is a byproduct of a series of decisions that you make one of them being you know knowing when to get out of your own way knowing when to creatively let somebody else lead who might have an insight to an audience that you want so when we do these partnerships with brands and they want to work with our clients I think the first thing we say is like engage us in that process early on because if you authentically want to connect with a creator to have them be a part of your brand story they know how to reach the audience you want better than you do because they're doing it on a day-to-day basis and they're putting out a level of content that you can't even imagine to do and so instead of coming at us with a 47 page brief and saying this is how this is going to work and also too there's these legal factors that you need to you know it's clearly written by someone who's never been on the internet before and then they're like but we really like to partner and it's like well that's not a partnership so I think the brands that have gotten it and understand that there is a authentic voice to the way that creators and talent reach their audience and then allow them to be a part of that process those are the ones that create moments and then the ones who don't I think you know have a stunt or shtick and then it kind of goes off into the into the ether so I think knowing who you are knowing who you're trying to reach and then also knowing when to kind of step back and be like hey we'd actually love your thoughts here because you know this better than I do. I think that's it stop going to the table with your thought-out plan but listen Stadgar how have you found having to interact with the big brands that you now partner with you know most recently possibly most famously now Bentley for example are you looking for collaboration because the thing that can happen is that the brand kills the skill because it demands things done in certain ways and you sometimes wonder why are you trying to hire talented content creators and then kill the very thing that you're trying to hire how have you found that connection or working with and what's the best way what's the advice for creators for brands in the room around that interface? I started initially working with UTA nearly three years ago now and my page has changed drastically since then I've started speaking as myself I have a podcast of my own I collaborate with loads of different people and businesses and I feel like I've expanded a lot as a creator as a result and at the same time the business has grown in so many different ways as a result and those two things may seem impossible to do at the same time I think people assume that when you may become more commercial quote-unquote in business size the content may lose that feel and that actually never happened was quite the opposite and I think that's thanks to that hand holding from people that know better than I to do the right thing and grow in the right directions and a small example of that is Bentley I think there's a way to be very commercial to get people to buy a car and there's a way to get people very excited about a true partnership and collaboration between two entities and two brands I have never had as much celebration from my audience and praise from my audience that I'm deeply grateful for than that Bentley moment and had it been executed in a different way the reception I think would have been entirely different and possibly even entirely negative so the how I think is far more important than the what actually I think the what of Bentley plus that guy there's a clear alignment there that could be assumed but the how was highly strategic and that's what allowed for its success and its positive sentiment from the audience so that hand holding and making sure that the brand is shining in a way that makes the most sense for the brand and the creator shining in the way that makes the most sense for the creator is something that the agency particularly UTA here does very well but I just I want to jump in on that because I think one of the things that Shaw guy's so good at is knowing who he is and you know I think there's two things that happen with talent or creator sometimes that when it goes wrong it's you know there's a difference between an extension of what you want to do or a new area that you want to go into and a departure from character and if you depart from that core that idea that that character it tends to go very wrong but if you show up in a new space or place but as you kind of peel back the layer of the onion you're like oh this makes a lot of sense why this person would be doing this thing that now builds new audience the other one loses trust this builds audience and so you have that instinct really well and it's been so fun working with you because you know who you are and we're like we can push it let's go into this space and then we can tell the story of why that makes sense and I think your audience trusts you on that on that journey but shot guy and I met at a conference three years ago and he spoke and actually I was supposed to interview him and so I hadn't I wasn't a follower yet I hadn't you know I'm a little older I'm not as savvy on the internet as some of the younger kids are but I started following him I started doing all this research like wow he's really interesting but I didn't I didn't end up interviewing him but I watched the interview and I was like oh this is you know a UTA client because you have a point of view you're very entrepreneurial you had a platform that you built in an audience that trusts you and it's like we can get in there together and figure out how to expand this so we built this amazing team around shod guy our colleague shelby is here is is one of those people and you know now we're working across all of these different areas so it's been a it's been a fun journey and I feel like we're just getting started and started you you almost then become a founder of your own business and then you have to lose a little bit of maybe control is the wrong word but then you have it as you say dial you then have a team I'm just interested when you think about longevity you have a brilliant thing in the moment which everyone really connects with but you are what you would describe in the corporate world a single point of failure i.e if there's no you there's no business how do you think about that over the next sort of five years I know you have two characters obviously already but you need to think about are you thinking ahead and how should creators think ahead about them as a business we've seen a lot in journalism where characters like piers morgan have created their own businesses by creating channels with different people within the channels similar with gary lineker and gulhanger etc etc is that in the end you could you imagine a business that is growing in that way or are you about the singular success of stad guy himself and the brands you can build off that it's a question I ask myself every night before I go to sleep but I'll write it out for you you can pin it above your bed please do I think in reality it's a bit of both I think there's there's a great case for a moment where that actually turned into action a few years ago darnell mentioned our colleague shelby who's sitting front row today and shelby had been trying to get me to start a podcast for a long time as myself and would tell me that people would love it and I felt otherwise I felt people only followed me for my existing characters and only wanted one particular thing out of me and at the same time I had that fear of longevity I was six years into stad guy always frowning always playing my I had never spoken as myself publicly and with shelby's guidance of slowly doing some calculated tests that wouldn't put the past at risk for the sake of the future I think we added five to ten years to the lifespan of stad guy by introducing that third character which is me and kind of turning me and the stad guy message from the product to actually a platform for conversation where I welcome guests to my podcast who are experts across categories that I've already dipped my toes in but also that I'm completely new to so I'm learning during every podcast episode as is my audience and thankfully there's an infinite amount of knowledge in this world and I think I'm in a unique position to help be a messenger of that knowledge to my audience and to my my new audience Darnell I'd like to ask you just about geographies and the data you have so you've you came to London just over a year ago to run the business here and it is a significant business I think you have 450 people in the UK running obviously the Europe and beyond and EMA operations how different is it from the American experience and how do you have to think about the sensibilities of geography when you're thinking about the type of talent that you pick up I founded my own company five years ago the news movement we're London New York we're about creating video-led news for younger people but the American version is very different from the UK version how do you consider that and does it mean that the talent like stad guy is manageable in all geographies or do you have to think about where is this kind of person going to be located? Yeah no it's a good question I you know I'm born and raised in the United States this is my first time living outside of the US but I've traveled extensively was in spending a lot of time in London so it was going four to five times a year and you know thought I knew what it was like to really live in London having not lived there but once you live there once you're in on a day-to-day basis it is very different than the United States we speak the same language kind of but that's kind of where the similarities end I think from a work culture perspective and what I love about being in London is you know I think the UK punches way above its weight culturally it always has I think some of the best most iconic music has come from there best TV and film I think the best actors in the world come from the UK because they're classically trained you know the Premier League is the most important sports league in the world you just go down the theater greatest journalist it's talent greatest journalists you know and it's all it's all it's all there yeah it's all there so for us we you know have invested heavily we you know bought an agency called Curtis Brown we bought a football agency based in Munich so it was our kind of first entree into sports on this side of the Atlantic and now we're kind of pulling all of those things together and have a real strategy for growth and I think you know TV and film and music will always be very core to who we are as a business but the opportunity we see across the UK and Europe is sports for sure the creators business so in the US we were the first agency to get into what back then was the digital talent space you know 20 years ago and as an agency treated creators and digital talent the same way that we treated other talent that we represented and it's why we are leaps and bounds the leading agency in the creator space you know you know some people are running into it in you know kind of bandwagoning now because they see how big of a business it is but we've been it lived it and talk about authenticity it's a part of the core of who we are as a business so the UK market on the creator space and internationally it's probably a few years behind where the US market is which is exciting because we've been able to broker some of the most groundbreaking deals on the US side so how do we push buyers to think differently I think that there is a I think in the US were a bit more entrepreneurial in that we're not so tied to rules or an institution if in business right it's like okay we're gonna try something new let's innovate and that's always been core to who we are as an agency being the first into the digital talent space is an example of that but I think sometimes in the UK there is a sticking to the way things have been done and so it's been very exciting is but I also think too there's a great discipline and understanding of areas of business in the UK that might be a little bit different so kind of blending these cultures together of going around and kind of unlocking my colleagues who may not have stepped out in that way and then when they do and being rewarded for doing such like we want to create that spirit of innovation and entrepreneurialism that comes from the US but also trusting their understanding of the marketplace their taste level all of those things I think are very important that have made the UK such a great place for talent and in creatives but yeah it's sometimes we are trying to meet each other in the middle but that's creative tension is a good thing stag guy final question as we come to the end of our time just about to hand on to my wonderful colleague Ruth for the next session which is the campaigns that made me but Shaka do you see yourself as a global brand or do you see yourself as a funny guy who's very good at creating content and if people love it they love it is there a third option would you put both of those things in the trash I think I am an entrepreneur and the business I'm working on right now is that of a storyteller and if that wasn't working I'd be doing something else so for now I'm just doing what works and working with people who allow me to do more of that I'm grateful that it has become quite global although my largest audience is the u.s. I think largely because most of what I talk about is luxury goods and services and experiences and the u.s. is the market that has the most access to that financially and I'll be doing lots of content about cam and can line so please tune in but I hope it's a bit of both I was very kind of you thank you shag I said one thing on a recent visit I think to Oxford University in the UK and he spoke about being pleasant is actually a very underrated quality and I want to say thank you to both of you for having this being so pleasant in the right way not in the pejorative sense in the right way to open up fuel up with fortune for our first hour thank you so much don't know thank you