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And here I thought Severance would be my favorite show last night. When we laid down to rot with pizza last night, the new episode wasn’t up, so we flipped over to the Beast Games finale… which somehow turned into a Friday edition of this newsletter?

• What MrBeast’s game show says about the Creator Economy

• Poppi vs. Olipop vs. the ethics of influencers & community management

• Why I cried watching an influencer’s content?

—Jack Appleby

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What MrBeast’s $100 million Amazon Prime show means for Influencer Marketing

This’ll sound hyperbolic, but last night marked the greatest accomplishment in Creator Economy history. It also made my girlfriend and I both cry? (not from the accomplishment itself, a tremendously touching moment in the episode).

MrBeast’s Amazon Prime reality show Beast Games concluded last night with the biggest single prize in game show history, with a whopping $20 million in overall prizing to contestants, plus over 50 world records broken, including the most contestants ever with 1,000 Beast Gamers.

And the winner? He's using his $10 million prize to fund research for his son's rare genetic disease (hence the waterworks in the Appleby household—the winner's wife ran out, hugged him, and cried "you're gonna find Lucas a cure," andddd then we cried).

But the accomplishment here is the ultimate legitimization of Creators.

MrBeast convinced one of the biggest companies in the world to bet big on him—like, $100 million budget big according to some reports. And not just bet on his celebrity status, but his team's ability to conceptualize + produce a 10 episode reality show, and bring his over 700 million combined followers to a paid streaming platform, and become one of Amazon's most expensive marketing bets.

A $2.4 trillion market cap company gave a 26 year old YouTuber from North Carolina an unimaginable amount of money and said "we believe in you."

Us marketers are asking all the right questions. Was it successful for Amazon? How does the ROI work on $100 million? How much were Beast Games commercials sold for? On the outside, we'll never know (though Amazon says Beast Games was their # 1 single source of new customers in 2024, which is likely their biggest KPI).

But really, there's only one result we should watch for: if Amazon renews Beast Games for a second season. And I'll tell you what, MrBeast has been pretty clear during the show, in interviews, and on his social that this thing's coming back.

So does influencer marketing work? Looks like it's a big ol' yes.

Poppi vs. Olipop… but one brand might’ve broken the law?

If you’re TikToking, you know that Poppi has had a very unfun time with their recent influencer marketing. You also might know that their primary competitor Olipop made thing wayyy worse for Poppi with some community management that I find unethical at a minimum, and probably libelous if we really look into it.

I broke it down on my new marketing video channel. Watch below and give it a follow for more social, creator, and content marketing thinking!