TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and if 2024 wasn’t the stuff of legends for you, no worries—streaming platforms took it slow last year, too. According Digital i, top services premiered 116 fewer original shows in 2024 than in 2022.

Today’s News

MONEY MOVES

After snagging Influential for $500M, Publicis Groupe is picking up Captiv8

The deal: Just over a year ago, Publicis Groupe joined the growing number of companies buying into the creator industry. The multinational ad agency and holding company paid $500 million to pick up influencer marketing business Influential—and now, it’s committing even more resources to the digital economy.

Publicis Groupe has announced the acquisition of Captiv8, which says it “unifies creators, commerce, and campaign performance” by using a data-central approach to match-make creators and brands for campaigns. Financial details of that deal are not being released, but Publicis said Captiv8 will continue operating independently (as Influential has) while under the umbrella of its Connected Media unit. Captiv8 CEO Krishna Subramanian will remain in charge.

The resources: Captiv8 was founded in 2015 on a $2 million seed round, and by 2016 had done deals with creators like Zach King, Casey Neistat, and iJustine and brands like Amazon and Johnson & Johnson. These days, the company’s platform processes 2.5 billion social media posts each year, collecting data from 95% of content creators with over 5,000 followers, it says. That data allows it to sift through over 15 million creators in 120 regions around the world.

In addition to tapping into those resources, Publicis Groupe plans to implement Captiv8’s ecommerce capabilities (which include offerings like digital storefronts, affiliate marketing integrations, and ROI tracking) into its creator/brand deals. The company’s platform (like Influential’s) has also been plugged into COREid, a consumer identity verification system made by fellow Publicis subsidiary Epsilon.

The takeaway: The acquisition of Captiv8 shows that more ‘mainstream’ companies are beginning to recognize the legitimacy and power of creators. Publicis, which had revenues of $14.45 billion in 2024, is one of the largest agencies yet to take a stake in the creator economy—a move that could open the floodgates for more businesses to get in on this space.

🔆 PRESENTED BY OPUSCLIP 🔆

How do top creators and brands create short-form videos in seconds? It all comes down to OpusClip.

There’s a reason why 12M+ creators and brands have used OpusClip to turn long-form content into short-form videos. 

With the industry’s #1 AI video search tool and the ability to turn any long-form video into social media-ready teasers, OpusClip saves users up to 90% of the time required to make Shorts.

Why do top channels like The Bob and Tom Show use OpusClip?

OpusClip doesn’t just generate short-form videos—it optimizes your content for specific platforms and ranks the resulting clips based on potential virality.  Earlier this month, The Bob and Tom Show began using that scoring function to determine which clips to post on social media.

The result: Since May 1st, videos made with OpusClip have earned 3x more views for The Bob and Tom Show than those made without.

Ready to find out how you can save time and score more views with OpusClip?

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• RHEI is teaming up with the Professional Fighters League, which plans to use the media-tech company’s “emotionally intelligent” AI agents—available through its Made platform—as “a creative dream team.” (Tubefilter)
  

• As AI deepfakes become widespread, YouTubers like Mark Brown aren’t just seeing their existing videos reposted without permission—their voices are (allegedly) being stolen to make new ones, too. (Wired)

• Gushcloud is already Asia’s largest talent representation, content distribution, and creator monetization company. CEO Althea Lim wants it to be an all-in-one income growth ecosystem for creators, too. (Tubefilter)
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• An update to TikTok’s "add to music app” feature gives users the ability to save songs to SoundCloud. (The Verge)

JOB MARKET

Airrack is hosting “YouTube’s greatest editor competition.” The prize: up to $100K/year.

The competition: Are you a talented editor willing to live in Los Angeles? If so, one of YouTube’s top stars might have a job for you. Eric Decker—aka vlogger/challenge creator Airrack—will pay a salary of up to $100,000 to the winner of what he’s calling “YouTube’s greatest editor competition.”

Roster, a creator economy job board founded by vlogger Sherry Wong, is hosting the sweepstakes on its platform, where submissions will be open from today through June 2. Here’s how it works:

1. After signing up for a Roster account, entrants will be given footage from an unreleased Airrack video and asked to craft a video to the best of their ability.
   
   

2. According to Zack Honarvar (who represents Decker), evaluation of those entries will be purely “qualitative” and focused on each editor’s ability to tell a story.
   
   

3. In addition to receiving a $2,000 prize, the winner will be considered for an L.A.-based editing role at Decker’s company—a position that could potentially include a $100,000 annual salary.

The context: The demand for creator-related jobs has skyrocketed, with companies like Creator Economy Jobs identifying thousands of open positions. But the dearth of quality applicants has led creators like MrBeast to launch academic partnerships that will train more behind-the-scenes professionals. Honarvar himself noted that it’s “wild” how difficult it is to find quality editing help.

Still, Decker’s contest isn’t just about filling a role—it’s also a chance to showcase the power of a good edit. Honarvar told Tubefilter that the competition is “an opportunity for editors around the world to test their skills, get on our radar, and maybe even join the Airrack team. It’s part recruitment, part celebration of the craft.”

THE BIZ

Visional Pop is turning animated YouTube channels into franchises

The acquisition: Over the last few years, firms like Moonbug and pocket.watch have helped some of YouTube’s biggest kid-friendly channels expand into new territory, from movie theaters and big-box retailers to holiday parades. Now, another company is getting in on the action.

Under the direction of former YouTube exec Ben Grubbs, Visional Pop plans to work with top YouTube creators to turn animated shows into multimedia franchises.

The newly-launched entertainment firm has already acquired Indian family media company YoBoHo, which currently reaches 200 million monthly viewers across over 150 owned-and-operated YouTube channels. One of the crown jewels in that catalog is HooplaKidz, a nursery rhyme channel that has amassed nearly six billion lifetime YouTube views.

The context: Visional Pop’s leadership puts it in a strong position as it enters the content creation industry. Grubbs is an experienced YouTube operative who spent two-and-a-half years as the platform’s Global Head of Top Creator Partnerships. His previous role—Head of YouTube Kids & Learning Content Partnerships for Asia Pacific—will also be highly relevant to his work at Visional Pop.

After departing YouTube, Grubbs invested in the creator economy through firms like Next 10 Ventures and Creator Plus. Now, the exec is bringing his acumen, resources, and industry connections to the world of animated family content.

WATCH THIS 🧛🏻

20 Years of YouTube: The New Moon trailer proved YouTube’s pop culture power

In February 2025, YouTube turned 20. The video site has gone through a lot over the past two decades, including an acquisition, an earnings glow-up, and multiple generations of star creators. In our 20 Years of YouTube series, we’ll examine the uploads, trends, and influencers that have defined the world’s favorite video site—one year at a time.

The trailer: When Twilight: New Moon was at its cultural zenith in 2009, the Team Edward vs. Team Jacob debate proved inescapable. The main trailer for New Moon became one of the first previews to go mega-viral on YouTube, and was then expertly skewered by creator Ryan Higa as part of his “Movies in Minutes” series.

That hype was faciliated by the 2007 rollout of YouTube’s Content ID digital fingerprinting system and the 2009 emergence of trailer consolidator Movieclips. Altogether, those milestones and the viral success of the New Moon trailer helped cement YouTube as the place to go for pop culture conversation.

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Today's newsletter is from: James Hale, Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.