Bant Breen:
Collab is one of the most exciting companies out there doing all of this wonderful content creation, and digital content work network, in the TikTok and YouTube universe. You guys did all that work with America Online, AOL, back in the day and the show that you did when madmen broke the newspaper covered all those amazing things. What excited you initially to join Collab?
Dave Rosner:
Coming from the media and marketing space, you’re always asking the first question, when you see something new. How big is it? What’s the scale? Is this something that I’m gonna learn about and be super smart for when it’s big-time? Or is this something that I can reach my consumers now and be thinking about strategically? Most new things are in that first bucket, you’re like, “This is incredible, this is great, I better learn how to do mobile geo-positioning, because someday that’s going to be on everybody’s phone.” Now it is before it wasn’t right. When I joined Collab, I think it was a shock just how scaled they had become without ever being on the radar of the media and marketing landscape. That’s because they weren’t built around scaling and getting to brands that were built around creating the best content and helping these digital stores grow in doing what they had to become this giant media property. What got me excited was to be able to see what they had built and understand the value that that has for Collab as a company and partners. To be the first one from the media marketing industry to see the potential thereof something that was already built. On tap, that’s what got me excited. That was both for when we were huge on YouTube before all this additional activity started happening with TikTok which has been a roller coaster.
Bant Breen:
What are you guys doing right now? Why is that so important for business today?
Dave Rosner:
The life of the younger consumer and what is important to the younger consumer in terms of content has dramatically shifted, and it’s shifted faster than the people who are trying to reach them. Today, the most-watched content type for younger consumers is digital-first. If you are thinking, “How do I take my TV success and bring it in?” You’re already starting on the wrong base, you’re already making strategies that don’t have to do with how this consumer has grown up. Who to them are the biggest celebrities. If you ask children today, what they want to be when they grow up, it’s not what I would have answered, which was a rock star, which I tried and that didn’t work out. It’s a YouTube content creator and influencer, those are the top things, those are the roles and the creative. The creative lifestyles are most in touch. The thing for marketers and brands to keep in mind is “Okay, great. If that’s if this is where the deepest emotional connections are if this is where this is, where my audience is, aspirations are, how do I become part of that conversation? How does that become the beginning?” Because in five or 10 years, even more of the buying power that you’re going to be depending on to be a successful business will be shifting into that age group.
Bant Breen:
What’s your hope as you go forward? What’s your hope for the future of this industry and what you guys are working on?
Dave Rosner:
There are a couple of things. My hope for this industry is that as we mature, the value that we’ve been delivering with huge gold global brands for years now brands like Nike, and we mentioned Chipotle, that they start to understand that the way to connect with consumers on mass is through the digital platforms. Building these programs that look and feel a little different maybe than what’s happened traditionally, but are going right into the heart of their consumer. Consumers appreciate that. I think that’s going to be one piece of it. The other piece of this is about the growth of TikTok. I’ll tell you why. There are two reasons. One is, it’s always just great to see something new. I think we were kind of in-between that for a long time. I had those eight years in my career where everything was always new. That’s when you and I worked together. That’s when you were the big proponent of Facebook and helped early investment. We lived in a time when new was happening all the time. Then some of those new players became very, very established. Almost all the digital dollars in the industry go to a couple of players. New wasn’t so big. To see something that is new, and in the consumer, adoption growing, and that’s the TikTok and to understand not only that TikTok is new and driving all these great moments, and helping us through hope, helping us through a lack of new products in the world and bringing, joy and new ways to connect. It also is evolving an entire ecosystem of companies that are going to be all about this new experience. That is a new community that a lot of people don’t think about which is this core company that’s providing the core experience. Then there are going to be a lot of other interesting new things that come out of it. They’re going to be people who are focused on how do we help raise money for charitable donations on TikTok? How do we help better sell there? What’s the merchandising model look like? How are how am I better growing the careers of TikTokers? All those things are going to be boutique industries. I think that’s going to be a huge win. That sometimes gets overlooked because TikTok is so exciting in and of itself.
Bant Breen:
Dave, thank you so much for being on UNCAGED today and we look forward to having you back.
To see the full interview on the Uncaged YouTube channel, go to:
