Mr Beast, Logan Paul, Huda Kattan.

If I asked any advertiser to think about what this trio has in common, many would overlook one key thing.

They’re your future competitors.

Take Mr Beast. He has a subscriber base of 146 million on YouTube. That’s over five times the entire population of Australia. He could create any product, and transform it into a multi-million dollar enterprise over night - and with the launches of MrBeast Burger and Feastables Chocolate, he’s already made a solid start.

Huda Kattan (52.6 million followers on Instagram) started out as a humble makeup blogger, uploading reviews on WordPress. Flash forward 10 years, and her own makeup line is stocked in Sephora alongside industry staples such as Armani and Clinique.

Logan Paul (23.6 million subscribers on YouTube) found his following on the now defunct Vine, and has since transformed that initial subscriber base into a popular podcast and professional wrestling career. His foray into energy drinks, PRIME, flies off shelves and has even sparked fights in the aisles between obsessive customers. It’s also now the official sports drink of the LA Dodgers among others, with some big name athletes signing sponsorship deals with the brand.

Young, rich and famous, these three can now essentially operate as their own dedicated vertically integrated media channels into product companies. Their audiences are so significant (a combined total of 222.2 million subscribers and counting) that they dwarf that of any other individual network or show. 

They have a baked-in competitive advantage, they don’t need to spend money on a multi-channel campaign to find consumers – their consumers are already seeking them out in their millions, waiting for the next YouTube video to drop, Insta post or TikTok. It’s so simple, it’s genius. 

With a series of posts and some focus on a product vertical, they could take a decent bite out of your market share, and steal the attention of your customers through their hype.

That’s enough for any advertiser to be worried.  

Now, the jury is still out on whether this shift is a risk or an opportunity. To see where your brand falls, let’s consider the full ramifications of these massive creator product launches becoming the norm.

Who’s got what it takes?

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Ryan Reynolds’ Aviation Gin and Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics are two celebrity-run product lines that have found massive fame off the backs of their founders. Goop was even found to be the leading skincare brand in 2022, with a share of voice of nearly 43 per cnt and a net worth of US$230 million in 2023. 

The difference, however, is that these founders were already famous when they launched these products. They had access to resources and the capital necessary to get these products live. The average creator doesn’t have that. All they would have is a following.

That begs the question – what scale does a creator need in order to successfully launch a product?

Mr Beast’s audience already numbered in the multi-millions by the time he launched MrBeast Burger to great acclaim. But if we look at Aussie creators The Inspired Unemployed, they have a more humble following of 1.6 million on Instagram.

That being said, the group’s zero-carb beer brand, Better Beer, generated $50 million in retail sales in 2022 according to The Australian Financial Review, who even called it one of the fastest-growing brands in the brewing industry.

So followers aren’t everything, and creators certainly don’t need to have Mr Beast-level followings. A recent Forbes Australia feature interviewing a slew of homegrown successful creators, such as Marion Grasby, Elliot Watkins (aka Muselk), and Rowi Singh, explained it well. Many featured creators stressed the importance of authenticity, knowing your niche, and having business acumen.

All this is to say that while there may be many creators with significant followings, those that have successfully launched a product needed ambition and a balanced strategy to transform these followings into a business. It’s clear follower counts are just a start – so it’s just not just the mega-influencers advertisers should be concerned about.

If you can’t beat them, join them

Collaborations with creators are far from being a new thing. But many partnerships are missing out on the full range of possibilities creators offer.

Creators are at the crux of culture – that’s exactly what makes them such a potential, significant, threat to brands, as well as such an alluring partner.

Brands want, and need, to play in culture, but that’s easier said than done. Businesses struggle with culture namely because they have to appeal to a wide variety of people, but culture is something personal to everyone. Most businesses have structural barriers in place that keep them from authentically playing in culture - yet creators have no such red tape to cut through.

Instead, they can connect to their audience more deeply, authentically and informally than most companies ever could.

If we look at Mr Beast again, his Feastables Chocolate range launched late last year and instantly sold out. Due to the demand, a number of the supermarket displays ended up messy and unorganised. As a result, the mega-influencer asked his followers in a Tweet to help tidy the supermarket displays, and subsequently offered $100,000 to charity in thanks.

If Cadbury or Lindt asked their social media followers to clean up a supermarket aisle, I’m not sure anyone would turn up to help? It’s simply not something most brands can ask of their customers because they don’t have the same relationship with their audience.

Creators are a force in and amongst themselves – and the big decision for marketers, is to weigh up if it’s better off to partner with them first rather than risk sacrificing market share as their audiences grow, and their business advisors start co-creating products for them.

It may not be an easy pill to swallow, but the truth is these creators are only a few steps away from disrupting entire industries. Rather than relying on them as one of many parts in your media mix, think of a meaningful, impactful partnership with those creators that may be potential competitors to your business down the line.

Partnerships like this may be the future. McDonald’s is one example of a brand that’s already doing this well, through its Famous Orders campaign. This idea sees a number of celebrities, from Travis Scott, BTS and The Kid Laroi, create their favourite McDonald’s meals which customers can then purchase themselves.

It is too early to say how creator product launches may evolve in the future, but it may be a reasonable expectation to see more creators become their own, self-sustaining empires. Think of Australia’s own KIC (Keep It Cleaner) brand, run by Steph Claire Smith and Laura Henshaw. The co-founders first met as models straight out of high school, and now operate a health and wellness empire featuring workout guides, content, recipes and events.

If one thing is clear, it’s that marketers need to seriously think about how they can funnel this wave of success for their own brands, and avoid being left behind with every new product launch.