How Culture Genesis, a Black-owned media network, hopes to grow a South Asian base with the help of Lilly Singh

“We are copy pasting … from Culture Genesis, where you’ll see that they follow this exact pattern,” said Joey Mullick, partner at Skara Ventures, an investor of Culture Genesis. (Sean Kilbane, current chief strategy officer at Skara, will also serve as the network’s interim CEO.)

Targeting successful creators, the monetization model follows that of Culture Genesis’: Splitting ad revenue generated through YouTube with creators by 50-50, based on Google’s CPM rates.

Backed by venture capital firm Skara Ventures, HYPHEN8 will launch with YouTuber and Emmy-nominated creator Lilly Singh (she has 14 million Instagram followers and 14.3 million YouTube subscribers), who will serve as its chief creative officer and use her network to draw other South Asian creators as they aim to recruit about 20 in the initial cohort.

“So Google has a rate card for what they sell their CPMs at, and so we split the delta of what we’re able to get,” Mullick explained. “So let’s say the Google CPM is $5 for an ad, and we’re able to sell it for $10 because of the value add and the targeting, that extra $5 gets split between us and the creator.”

The idea is brands can generate an estimated two to three times more revenue (per Culture Genesis) based on the increased value from this targeting and working with creators with an established following, rather than a typical ad placement without those creators. Advertisers can choose to place ads directly on a creator’s channel or spend across the network to reach the demographic they want. Mullick declined to provide ad revenue figures.

For brands, accessing creator networks like these provide another effective way to find their targeted demographic. Singh, who spent a decade as a creator on YouTube, said brands understand the value of this: “People don’t passively watch [content],” she said. “It’s not just about finding an influencer that has a bazillion views and will do the talking points. It’s really about [who] are the creators? What do they stand for? What is their audience specifically watching them for?”

The hope is that advertisers that have invested some $50 million in ad spending through Culture Genesis’s platform, which reaches some 100 million viewers worldwide and works with some 120 creators, will see ways they can expand in the South Asian community. While it’s hard to quantify the total creators identifying as South Asian in the world, the global influencer marketing sector is projected to grow to some $33 billion — more than tripling its size since 2020, according to Statista.

Betting on YouTube could pay off too, considering the platform is the No. 1 streaming platform in the U.S., per Nielsen, and it remains the top streaming service – accounting for three-quarters as many hours viewed as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and Prime Video combined in Q4 2024.

In coming months, Singh hopes to attract major South Asian creators and plans to add additional YouTube channels to the network.

“One in four people on this planet are South Asians,” Singh said. “It’s long overdue that we invest in that reality, and so one of the things I’m excited about is to act as a syndicate to the marketing world, and use my connections and get brand decision makers to understand as well.”

Around 42% of the U.S. population is people of color (BIPOC), per the U.S. Census, making appealing to that audience all that more important for brands. “We live in a multicultural country, it’s paramount for brands to reach and connect with multicultural audiences,” said Luiz Felipe Barros, global CMO of social media advertising company Channel Factory. “The growth of BIPOC creator channels is a reflection of that.”

Founded in 2020, Culture Genesis, which also owns the studio All Def Digital, also recently inked a deal with BuzzFeed in January 2024 for advertisers to buy sponsorships, brand activations and other media inventory across both companies’ channels, including social media and connected TV. Culture Genesis also secured YouTube rights sales in January 2020 to allow them to sell inventory directly to advertisers – giving them more control over where their ads appear. This results in better targeting ability because the platform can bundle channels to offer advertisers a more targeted segment, like comedy or cannabis interests.

Increasingly, brands are prioritizing strategic alignments with particular creators and moving toward ongoing contracts and partnerships, as opposed to flashy campaigns with big influencers and celebrities – especially if they want to attract Gen Z audiences.