The rise of the “de-influencing” movement has proven that people not only want authenticity online, they demand it. Today, effective influencer marketing strategies must explore deeper and more collaborative partnerships to ensure sponsored content genuinely resonates with audiences.
Authenticity has always been a crucial component in the brand partnerships we facilitate at The Spotlight Agency and is made possible by the unique range of celebrity talent we represent. Our celebrity talent offers all the benefits of a celebrity brand partnership, right alongside the benefits of an influencer marketing campaign, including offering custom content creation.
In part one of our three-part “mythbusting” series we explored the assumed differences between celebrity and influencer talent; today, we’re showing how celebrity profiles and content creation go hand in hand, yielding an incredible ROI.
Myth #2: Celebrities Are Not Content Creators
Traditionally, celebrity talent has the reputation of only being expected to contribute their influence to advertising campaigns that capitalize solely on their celebrity factor. Even with the advent of social media, it’s often assumed the onus of content creation will fall on the brand or marketing team when partnering with a celebrity.
Social media influencers, however, have created a reputation that they are more collaborative when it comes to brand partnerships. They’ve taken on the role of “content creator” to ensure branded content authentically reflects their style, voice, and tone and better connects with their community.
But likewise, content creation is an area where our celebrity talent at The Spotlight Agency thrives. With many talent on our roster having worked in television and radio as writers, media personalities, hosts, and producers, they have hands-on experience in creating content that resonates with their large audiences. They are also very aware of their online communities, and the content their communities connect with, and self-produce high quality, creative digital content campaigns.
Our celebrity talent brings this knowledge and experience to their brand partnerships, working in collaboration — from ideation to campaign execution —with brands to ensure their finished content accurately reflects the brand’s goals, and authentically connects with their own personal story, personality, and community of fans and followers, all culminating in maximum ROI.
Case Study: Quality Content, Quality Results
Matt Basile x McDonald’s Canada
Chef Matt Basile is a McDonald’s ultra-fan. They are home to his all-time favourite guilty pleasure: the sausage egg McMuffin with Big Mac Sauce, which he has turned many of his followers on to over the years. McDonald’s Canada took notice and partnered with Matt to promote the debut of their Chicken Big Mac.
Matt is known as a prolific food content creator, often sharing his mouth-watering grill recipes with his community of 120K+ followers across Instagram and TikTok.
In collaboration with McDonald’s, he created an epic review of the Chicken Big Mac, giving it his chef’s-kiss approval. This campaign had a 10% engagement rate!
Jessi Cruickshank x Pampers
Called the Internet’s funniest mom by Today’s Parent, Pampers partnered with Jessi Cruickshank to promote their Swaddlers and Cruisers360 products. Jessi has a dedicated community of 236K+ followers across her personal and New Mom, Who Dis Instagram channels, who love her honest, humorous take on parenting.
To appeal to her audience, Jessi created custom, professionally produced and edited content for this campaign. This included a sweet reel featuring her daughter Romi, first as a newborn and then as a one-year-old, to show how Pampers is a growing baby’s best friend. The Reel reached 34K+ people with 1.5K+ number of engagements and a 4% engagement rate.
Based on the success of this campaign, Pampers partnered with Jessi again in 2023 to follow up on her wild adventures with her toddler daughter. Jessi praised Pampers for making diaper changes the easiest part of her day.
Andrew Phung x Samsung
Samsung was looking to work with a well-known personality proficient in creating high-quality digital content campaigns to promote their smartphone, the Galaxy Z Fold2 5G. We knew Andrew Phung was the perfect fit.
The star of Kim’s Convenience and the co-creator and star of Run the Burbs, Andrew is a Canadian Screen Award-winning comedian, writer, and producer. He also has a passion for tech and a large, engaged online community, making him a natural partner for Samsung.
In collaboration with the brand, Andrew wrote and self-recorded a fun and informative video (featuring cameos of his two adorable boys) that explored all of the smartphone’s incredible features and how they help enhance his and his family’s day-to-day life. Andrew shared the Reel to his 102K+ Instagram followers through both his feed and stories, before it was boosted by the brand itself.
Just two weeks after it was posted, Andrew’s video had 8,000 organic views.
Contact us to start collaborating with our talent on custom content campaigns.
