How Twitch CMO Rachel Delphin works to woo livestream creators in a fragmented digital marketplace

Last year, the company was reported to have lost its way with the streaming community, which could be seen as its most valuable asset. At the same time, culture is changing, becoming more fragmented in a way where fewer monocultural moments exist. All said, it’s harder than ever to keep people’s attention, said Rachel Delphin, CMO at Twitch.

“Attention feels so divided and it also feels really short as a person, but also as a professional,” she said on the most recent episode of the Digiday Podcast. “Creating content and programs that really capture attention to the point where people want to engage with it, share it, comment on it, that’s a really high bar.”

On this week’s Digiday Podcast, Delphin talks about Twitch’s plans to stay in the cultural zeitgeist all while keeping attention from creators and advertisers in a fragmented digital marketplace.

Below are highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Monetization for creators

We started that relationship with creators really early. We saw an opportunity for people to really invest their time [and] build careers and followings and be able to do that full time. In order to do that full time, you’ve got to be able to generate some income. We play a pretty fundamental role [in creator monetization] and Twitch was really early on in ideas like channel subscriptions, subscriptions on our services are a paid service. Then these micro-transactions or what we call “bits” [or] celebration in the moment. Those are more in the moment donations. Subscriptions being the thing that you obviously pay for on a monthly basis and it accrues you some benefits, status in the community, recognition, as well as, of course, advertising. Having a really robust set of tools to make sure that streamers have lots of opportunities to earn.

A coveted audience for advertisers

We’ve got a highly coveted, hard to reach audience. They’re Gen Z and millennial. [We have] really coveted that younger demographic, which I think on its face is very appealing, obviously. Then the other thing is this idea of these are really highly networked communities. When you have those deep bonds and deep connections, what you also have is someone who’s really influential over that community. When they are sharing a product or an experience or whatever the case may be, it carries a lot of weight. That part is really appealing to brands.

Brand safety concerns

[It’s about] giving some more controls to advertisers as well as viewers over the content that they see — so things like what we call our “Content Classification Labels” [CCLs]. So if you’re a streamer who’s creating content, that’s a bit more mature … you’re required to label that content. That’s a relatively new feature in the last couple of years where viewers have more control.

Advertisers can also use those to target, or not, certain communities. If you want something where you have a lot more control, not only can you target away from certain content classification labels, you can also focus on content communities that are more aligned with your own brand values. You can target by game or category in addition to those CCLs. Part of this brand safety is giving advertisers as well as our viewers a lot more control over where their content appears so that they have a lot more confidence about where that is. We’re continuing to invest in those things.