How influencer shops and agencies are adding content studios to boost production speed, revenue

To put it into perspective, about 5.17 billion social network users worldwide will spend some 143 minutes a day on social media in 2024, according to Statista. That’s a lot of content consumed — and a massive need for more and more to be made to feed those appetites.

Global expansion

Content growth is a major motivator for social commerce shops to bring live shopping and content operations to the U.S. — like SuperOrdinary is doing this month, Digiday has learned. As it builds more studios, the company is betting its livestream and commerce business will mirror its success in Asia.

SuperOrdinary Creator Studios is opening 15 more studios in Los Angeles after building 30 studios across China and working with some 100,000 creators and affiliates with brands like Peter Thomas Roth, Herschel and Milk Makeup. It produces 200 livestreams per month globally, said Julian Reis, CEO and founder of SuperOrdinary.

“It is definitely a talent being able to produce these [live] shows that I think of as mini drama series, and making them exciting and engaging, and wanting the audience to come and tune in and watch it every day,” Reis said.

The 11,500-square-foot space for brands and creators will offer services including livestream production, creator affiliate management and data analysis. SuperOrdinary said it produced some of the largest livestreams in the U.S. to date, including one with Farmacy that generated $7.9 million in sales in one minute. The company hopes to continue creating its own channels on social media, as well as create more long-term opportunities for creators in this space.

“We’re extremely bullish on this,” Reis added. “We think this is going to be one of the largest growth opportunities globally in e-commerce, and we’re going all in on it.”

Hi-fi or lo-fi?

Given the explosion of online content, creators and brands are also looking for more dynamic ways to stand out and stay consistent with their content strategies — especially as AI recommendations may start to generate a lot of repetition across social feeds. Brands are also creating their own content and creative studios as this trend grows.

San Francisco-based Linqia in October launched its new offering, VFX Creator Network, specializing in high-production quality and visuals to try to stand out from the pack. The creator network includes about 50 creators, including Caleb Natalie and Zach King, who specialize in green screen work and visual effects with prior brand experience and who can attract strong social engagement. They will focus on four styles of content: professional, testimonial, entertainment and trendy.

“You’re just seeing a sea of sameness right now on social media where it feels like every creator video is a similar thematic, a similar delivery — and this is very different,” said Keith Bendes, vp of strategy at influencer marketing agency Linqia. “So if every brand is trying to scroll-stop, so to speak, this is very disruptive as you go through your scroll.”

Lo-fi content has its own kind of appeal and hits differently. In the case of Stagwell business agency Gale, the social team is “actively scaling” content studios as it grows to more than 50 people in content creation, said Erin Lyden, vp of public relations and influencer, and co-lead of the social marketing team at Gale. Three creators are currently full-time with another 30 working as contractors, with the team focusing on rapidly produced content “by an average person” that isn’t overly branded, Lyden explained.

“We really see the value of having in-house creators for that fast, less-produced content that we want to get out into the world in real-time,” she said.

Dentsu’s Social Creative Lab also staffs about 20 creators generating content from short-form videos to photography for clients. One of its digital marketing production arms, Tag Canada, runs a Toronto studio producing content for North American brands, “whether it’s lifestyle stories, how-to tips, outdoor content or life journeys” — depending on what resonates with consumers, said Andrea Flanders, chief client officer of Tag Canada.

Revenue growth

There is another business incentive as creator shops can rent out studios and equipment to external creators or generate additional revenue by leasing the space to other companies. In L.A., the sound stage occupancy and utilization average annual occupancy rate was 94% in 2020, up from 93% in 2019, per FilmLA. Could spaces like these potentially fill the gap?

For instance, Monks has content studios in Shanghai, L.A., the Netherlands and Brazil. Besides using them to create consistent brand visuals and quality for creator content, it’s a place to train and guide creators on studio shooting techniques, said Amy Luca, global head of social at Monks.

Studios are used by both in-house creators and external creators that the company works with, but getting creators to pay to use the studio spaces can be a challenge, Luca added. As such, the costs are often built into the overall campaign fees charged to the brand clients.

“I think that’s happening because the burden on creators to better align with brand creative and brand vision is bigger than ever, right?” Luca said. “So I think building your studio sets and being able to have more control over the quality and the look and feel of content is really what attracts us to that type of a model.”