• YouTube star MrBeast has a new competition show that will debut Thursday on Amazon Prime Video.
• BI viewed a copy of a contestant release form and other documents for the preliminary "Beast Games" round.
• An entertainment attorney said the documents were fairly standard but expansive in their terms.

Documents obtained by Business Insider reveal the terms that contestants of MrBeast's competition show, "Beast Games," were asked to agree to during a preliminary round.

The terms prohibit contestants from disclosing information about the show, which debuts Thursday on Amazon Prime Video. Contestants who break the agreement prior to the last episode airing must pay the producer and network $500,000 for each breach. After the last episode airs, each breach would cost contestants $100,000, the documents said.

The documents also ask contestants to agree that their portrayal in the program may be "disparaging, defamatory, embarrassing, or of an otherwise unfavorable nature," and may expose them to "public ridicule, humiliation, or condemnation."

Daniel J. Ain, an entertainment attorney at RPJ Law, said the terms are largely standard for a competition show, but some — like the threat of a $500,000 charge for each breach — are particularly expansive.

"The producers use every available tool to give them ultimate flexibility to make the show and protect themselves from liability," Ain told BI, calling the documents a "contestant agreement on steroids."

"Beast Games" is a 10-episode physical competition show in which contestants compete for a $5 million prize. YouTube's top star — whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson — is the host.

The show has attracted some controversy ahead of its release. A New York Times report in August cited "over a dozen" participants who said they didn't receive enough food or medical care during the preliminary round of competition in Las Vegas.

The documents obtained by Business Insider relate to the Las Vegas taping, where over 2,000 contestants participated in physical challenges designed to see who would make the show's official production round in Toronto.

The documents include information about the show, a contestant questionnaire form, and an outline of the show's official rules and protocols. By signing the form, contestants gave full consent to the use of hidden cameras and recording devices, gave producers full discretion to edit footage, and agreed to participate for no money. Potential prizes were the only form of compensation.

A person close to the production characterized the Las Vegas production as a "promo shoot" for the show and said Amazon wasn't involved. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

Read 24 pages of the documents below:

Note: BI omitted some pages from the document that included the contestant's personal information and a few pages with minimal or repeated information.

• The hiring trends among creator-economy startups can tell you a lot about the state of the industry.
• Creator Economy Jobs analyzed hiring posts from over 600 companies in 2024.
• Silicon Valley still has a grip on creator-related tech, while London could be the "next big" hub.

Being a creator isn't the only career path in the creator economy.

Creator Economy Jobs, a job listings platform founded by James Creech, analyzed hiring posts from over 600 creator-economy companies in 2024.

Across the board, creator-economy startups were generally hiring for roles in engineering, marketing, product, and sales.

"This year, the creator economy has definitely felt more energy and activity," Creech, who is also an investor and advisor to several creator startups, told Business Insider.

Since launching in late 2023, the platform has pooled over 1,000 job listings from creator-economy companies each quarter.

Creech's job site pulls listings from various third-party platforms and applicant tracking systems, like LinkedIn, Greenhouse, and Lever, among others. Some companies also list jobs directly through the site, Creech said.

While the creator economy — from Big Tech companies to startups — was hit hard by layoffs over the last few years, the post-hype-cycle industry appears to be landing on two feet.

Creech predicts that heading into 2025, more companies will emerge as strong players in the space and expand teams with hiring. That could prove true as a handful of creator startups have raised millions in 2024 — some, like newsletter platform Beehiiv, with the intent to hire.

Another trend Creech expects in the creator economy next year is corporate brands continuing to hire creators to fill in-house roles.

Here are a few takeaways on the state of jobs in the creator economy:

1. Creator-economy startups are in the market for engineers

"The most in-demand jobs are engineering," Creech said. "As we think about what types of companies in this space are growing and needing help, it's a lot of software businesses."

The majority of the engineering roles on CEJ are either backend or full-stack, Creech added.

Since the second quarter, the platform has had over 500 engineering jobs listed quarter-over-quarter.

The second and third most in-demand categories of jobs were in sales and marketing, respectively, Creech said.

2. Silicon Valley still has a hold on the creator economy

"We all think, 'Oh, the creator economy is Los Angeles,'" said Creech, who is based in LA himself. "When we started publishing these reports, the San Francisco Bay Area ranks the highest."

That's, in part, due to the sheer number of startups still building in the broader Silicon Valley area.

LA and New York City were the next largest US job markets throughout the year, Creech said. Meanwhile, international cities such as London, Bangkok, and Berlin have also been hubs for jobs on the platform.

"The international markets are growing really rapidly," Creech said. "We believe that the creator economy is a global phenomenon, and you're seeing people can live anywhere and build great businesses all over, and that's reflected in the fact that there are cool companies and cool jobs everywhere now."

Creech also identified London as "the next big creator economy destination."

3. These 6 companies were some of the most active job listers for 2024

When analyzing the top hiring creator-economy companies, CEJ excludes big platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest. The six companies below consistently listed new jobs within the creator economy throughout 2024, according to CEJ's data.

• Coda Payments, a monetization platform for digital products
• ElevenLabs, a generative AI and video-dubbing startup
• Impact.com, an affiliate-marketing company
• Lightricks, a content-creation and editing company
• Podimo, a podcast and audiobook platform
• Whatnot, a live-shopping company

Whatnot told BI that it would continue to prioritize hiring across all of its teams in 2025.

And Lightricks, which currently has 40 open roles, told BI that it plans to expand its teams in 2025 as it continues to build generative AI products.

ElevenLabs, meanwhile, said it plans to double its "core team" in 2025 with a focus on engineering and sales roles, while also expanding the company with hubs in Poland and India.

• Wall Street has fallen in love with the mobile adtech and gaming company AppLovin.
• AppLovin's recent push into e-commerce sent its market valuation over the $100 billion milestone.
• Some ad industry insiders question the sustainability of its run, however.

Shares in the mobile ads and gaming company AppLovin have been running wild — and advertising industry insiders have a lot of questions.

AppLovin entered the Nasdaq 100 in November, with its market value surpassing the $100 billion milestone and shares up more than 780% so far this year. It's a remarkable ascent for any company, but especially for one that had flown fairly under the radar until recently, even within the ad industry itself.

At its current valuation, AppLovin dwarfs even The Trade Desk, long considered adtech's star performer, which has a market capitalization of around $65 billion.

AppLovin — which helps app developers make money through advertising and find new users through ads — has grown its share to 42% of the mobile gaming market, per analysts at Piper Sandler.

But there's one key new development that's driving its stunning stock run: e-commerce.

Bullish analysts say AppLovin has room to grow further and do for e-commerce marketers what it has for gaming companies, taking on Meta in the process.

"In all my years, it's the best product I've ever seen released by us, fastest growing, but it's still in pilot," AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi said of the company's new e-commerce product on an earnings call last month.

With its stock riding high, some industry insiders also think AppLovin could make a transformative acquisition that would make it a household name.

Still, others in the ad industry say AppLovin's business model deserves some skepticism amid its meteoric rise.

22V Research analyst John Roque wrote in a recent note that AppLovin was the most overbought stock in the Russell 3000.

AppLovin declined to comment on a list of detailed questions about its business.

Investor enthusiasm goes stratospheric

Wall Street's interest in AppLovin soared this year as the company unveiled a plan to go after a new target customer outside the mobile gaming community: e-commerce advertisers.

The move opened up a total addressable ad revenue opportunity of around $120 billion, two to three times the size of the $40 to $50 billion mobile games user acquisition market, according to Macquarie Equity senior analyst Tim Nollen.

Nollen recently raised the firm's target share price for AppLovin to $450 from $270, citing its e-commerce push.

Cody Pfloker, chief marketing and revenue officer for Jones Road Beauty, which is testing AppLovin, said direct-to-consumer advertisers are excited by the prospect of a new player in the market.

"Meta has been the dominant customer acquisition channel for brands and while other platforms have come up like TikTok a few years ago, none are either as efficient or scalable," Pfloker said. "Nothing has been able to dethrone Meta."

AppLovin says it can reach a potential audience of 1.4 billion daily active users across mobile apps and connected-TV devices — an audience comparable to Meta or Google's apps.

Pfloker said part of the appeal is that e-commerce advertisers can easily repurpose their Meta ads into ads for AppLovin's mobile games and other apps.

AppLovin is only inviting e-commerce advertisers that spend upward of $20,000 a day on Meta ads to try its product, and it's incentivizing some of those buyers with $10,000 ad credits, multiple industry insiders told BI. They, like some others in this story, requested anonymity to preserve business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

Prescient AI, a marketing measurement company, ran an analysis in October that found AppLovin delivered a 1.5 times higher return on ad spend for its customers than Meta and Google Adwords, on average.

"A pretty startling thing is happening," said Will Holtz, VP of strategy and operations at Prescient AI. The top spenders are spending 25% to 30% of their budgets on AppLovin, he said, something Prescient hasn't seen before on a new channel, except for something like TV where people bulk up spending over the holidays.

What's more, Holtz added: "They're spending incremental dollars; they're not just shifting budget away from channels like Meta."

It's worth noting that the ads are full-screen and can't be skipped, which also likely boosts some performance metrics compared to other platforms. The results are also early and could fluctuate as more advertisers come on board.

Out-Googling Google

Despite the enthusiasm from some customers, others in the digital ad community have raised concerns about AppLovin.

Some industry insiders attribute AppLovin's performance to its cornering of every part of the mobile app ad transaction.

AppLovin operates AppDiscovery, the technology that advertisers use to buy the ads; the MAX mediation technology developers use to sell their ads; and the ALX exchange that connects the two. It also has Adjust, its ad measurement platform, and AXON, an AI engine designed to improve the performance of its ads.

This could give AppLovin a unique view of the market and allow it to see what different advertisers and buying platforms are bidding. Theoretically, AppLovin could use this intelligence to refine its own ad bidding strategies.

"It's one company for monetizing your app, growing your userbase, and then grading its own homework," a mobile ad veteran told BI. "They say there's a firewall and 'we don't talk,' but it's hard to prove otherwise."

If that sounds familiar, it's because it's similar to how people often describe the approach that helped Google dominate advertising on the web. A judge in Google's adtech antitrust trial is currently weighing whether that strategy, as well as its use of other auction tactics, amounted to Google operating an illegal monopoly. Google denies this and has said the adtech market is fiercely competitive and that its innovations have brought benefits to consumers, publishers, and advertisers.

Jeromy Sonne, the founder of marketing AI technology company Simbiant, has been monitoring the early AppLovin e-commerce results.

He said he'd seen an "extremely high correlation" between when AppLovin sees a spike in conversions and when Meta sees an increase in ad spend. He said he hadn't seen a similar trend when comparing Meta and Google or AppLovin and Google.

He said that made him wonder if AppLovin was driving real incremental value or whether its campaigns were just reaching the exact same audience as Meta in some way.

He said he'd also seen a "concerning overlap" where Shopify sales purportedly driven by AppLovin have a very high geographic overlap with where Meta ad website traffic was coming from.

Separately, Prescient AI's analysis found that brands spending between 25% to 30% of their digital ad budgets on AppLovin acquired fewer incremental new customers than brands in the 5% to 10% range. While reacquiring some old customers isn't necessarily a bad thing, the finding raises questions about the appropriate level of spending advertisers should devote to AppLovin, Prescient AI's Holtz said.

Other advertisers have questioned why AppLovin doesn't share granular data about exactly where their ads ran.

"It's a little bit of a black box — we have no idea where our ads are appearing," Pfloker said of AppLovin. "There's a lot to be excited about, but there's a lot to be skeptical about."

Could AppLovin become SnapLovin?

AppLovin recently paid more than $150 million to add developer Zynga's portfolio of games to its MAX ad exchange as part of Zynga's divestment of its adtech platform Chartboost, three people familiar with the matter told BI. This boosted AppLovin's already huge audience of gamers.

A spokesperson for Zynga owner Take-Two declined to comment.

Some in the industry think AppLovin could make an even bigger move. The company recently sold $3.5 billion in bonds, which Bloomberg reported were to pay down debt "and for general corporate purposes."

Could that include an acquisition?

Alex Merutka, an early AppLovin employee who now runs his own digital marketing company, Craftsman+, thinks AppLovin should make a bid for a social network — a particularly valuable sector of apps because users tend to be logged in, visit often, and share useful data.

People who use mobile games don't usually hand over data like phone numbers or email addresses, vital pieces of information for marketers to help connect their ads to outcomes, and to retarget users with ads.

AppLovin is already trading at a larger market capitalization than Snap, Pinterest, and Reddit combined.

Years ago, Snap held informal, early-stage talks about potentially acquiring AppLovin, a person familiar with the matter told BI.

Perhaps the roles could be reversed this time around. While Snap posted a revenue growth bounceback in its latest quarter, it's struggled to keep momentum amid fierce competition from the likes of TikTok. AppLovin could theoretically help optimize Snap's ad platform for performance advertisers to better compete with Google and Meta.

"If Adam was in control, Snap could be a $100 billion business — a $200 billion, $300 billion company — and AppLovin would be stronger too," Merutka said, referring to AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi. "There's a lot of opportunity there."

However, AppLovin execs said onstage at the Nasdaq Investor Conference earlier this month that M&A wasn't a near-term priority and that the company was keeping a close eye on its head count and margins.

"It's much harder than people realize, and it's exceptionally hard for a company that's structured like us," Foroughi said of M&A and the difficulty of absorbing different company cultures, according to a transcript provided by the market intelligence platform AlphaSense.

• Advertising took over the streaming-TV experience this year, and it'll only get bigger next year.
• Interactive ads that try to get viewers to shop or take other actions are gaining traction.
• This article is part of "Transforming Business," a series on the must-know leaders and trends impacting industries.

It's back to the future in Hollywood.

Streaming is starting to look like the TV days of old. Entertainment for the masses is back. Bundles are making it easier to consolidate subscriptions.

And ads seem to be everywhere.

Netflix, Disney+, and Max — which all started ad-free — now have cheaper ad-supported tiers. Amazon turned on ads in Prime Video this year, making advertising de facto for more than 100 million viewers in the US in one fell swoop.

EMARKETER expects streaming advertising to reach half of linear-TV advertising's size in 2024 and approach parity with it in 2027.

According to the analytics firm Antenna, these cheaper versions are gaining traction with viewers, too. In May, most new paying subscribers to five major streamers were choosing ad-supported tiers — a year earlier, this was true for only two streamers.

On Disney's latest earnings call, execs said that about 60% of new subscribers in the US were opting for its ad-supported tier, which accounted for 37% of its total US subscribers.

Ad-supported TV viewing also is on the rise through free services like Fox's Tubi, Paramount's Pluto TV, and The Roku Channel. According to Nielsen, those services plus YouTube made up 14.8% of viewing in July, up from 12.5% a year earlier.

"What's old is new again," said Jonathan Miller, a veteran media executive and chief executive of Integrated Media Co., which invests in digital media.

Miller sees ad tiers as a validation of the dual revenue streams that long supported cable. "Advertising and subscriptions have always been a successful model," he said.

Streaming ads are here to stay because — along with bundling, cheaper programming, and password-sharing crackdowns — they're one of the ways streamers can help make themselves sustainable.

Ads have also begun to directly shape the content streamers offer. Streamers are showing more sports and other live programming because of the big audiences and advertisers they attract.

For example, Netflix's highly anticipated Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on November 15 was a win for the streamer despite some tech glitches. Why? Because it showed Netflix's ability to draw huge audiences at once; it said that as many as 60 million households tuned in. That large audience bodes well for Netflix's NFL games on Christmas and its live WWE programming set to debut in January.

Viewers' tolerance for ads will be increasingly tested

Streamers that dipped a toe in the ad space are looking to wade in.

The ad load — or ad volume per hour of entertainment — has crept up over the past year, according to the measurement firm MediaRadar. There was an average of six minutes of ads per hour in September across eight leading ad-supported streamers, up by 9% from January 2023, when Netflix and Disney had just entered the ad-supported game. That's still far lower than cable, where ad loads can push an eye-watering 15 minutes or more an hour. Viewers are also more likely to tolerate ads in live sports because people are used to them being part of that content.

Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery recently said they'd start showing more ads to their streaming viewers in 2025, while emphasizing that their ad loads were lower than their competitors.

"On the ad-load side, we are light," WBD's streaming chief, JB Perrette, said of the streamer Max during the company's third-quarter earnings call. "We have a very light ad load compared to everyone else in the market, so there's room to grow on the capacity side."

The industry consensus is that streaming ad loads won't become a throwback to cable, though — at least not anytime soon.

For one thing, it's a buyer's market. Amazon flooded the market with ad inventory, which depressed ad prices for everyone. Streamers aren't incentivized to add too much more ad inventory because it'll just drive the price down more. Some advertisers are also wary of annoying viewers who are still getting used to seeing ads in streaming.

"The supply has grown significantly over the last few years," said Maureen Bosetti, the chief investment officer for Mediabrands. "It's created a marketplace for marketers."

Makers of streaming video ads are also becoming more ambitious. It's not enough for an ad to be seen — they'll try to get viewers to take action, whether by clicking a QR code or dropping a featured product in their shopping cart. These interactive ads could get higher price tags at a time when streaming ad prices have come down.

"As a consumer, I'm seeing more of them," Jessica Brown, a managing director of digital investment at GroupM, said of interactive streaming ads. "We're getting more pitches from the streaming partners. You can measure success in a different way."

Warner Bros. Discovery recently rolled out two such formats. "Shop with Max" identifies items in TV shows and films and matches them with relevant advertiser products that viewers can shop while they watch. "Moments" uses AI to figure out themes, sentiments, and on-screen elements that line up tonally with the advertiser's message.

Fubo recently announced four ad formats, including ones that show trivia questions or polls and product carousels. Fubo said such ads made people 47% more likely to purchase something compared with standard video ads.

"A big objective we have is to make a majority of ads have some form of interactive or engaging feature," Krishan Bhatia, an NBCUniversal exec who was hired by Amazon to lead its Prime Video ads push, said at a recent event. "What brands love about it is not just the fact that you generate a potential purchase off it but people are spending more time with your brands."

• Media and entertainment insiders expect an uptick in industry M&A in 2025.
• Comcast and Skydance Media's deals could unleash more activity.
• Insiders identified the deals they think are most likely to happen in 2025 and beyond.

With several buzzy media and entertainment deals already planned for 2025, industry insiders say next year could see a flurry of M&A activity.

Bankers and investors largely expect Trump's return to the White House will be favorable for dealmaking and are rubbing their hands together in anticipation of a big year ahead.

"Every banker that has pay-TV is crunching the numbers," said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Integrated Media, which invests in digital media. Miller sees media at an inflection point that could accelerate M&A. Now that streaming TV businesses are maturing, owners of linear TV channels can start to think about hiving off that no-growth business.

A big player here is Comcast, which announced in November that it would spin off most of its NBCUniversal cable channels, including CNBC, MSNBC, and E!, into a new SpinCo. That new entity plans to grow in part by acquiring other cable channels, so the move is widely expected to trigger other deals.

A second potential trigger of M&A is Skydance Media's long-awaited merger with Paramount Global. This will combine David Ellison's production company, known for hits like "Top Gun: Maverick," with Paramount's assets, including a storied movie studio, CBS News, and cable networks like MTV and Nickelodeon. Paramount is expected to get rid of assets alongside the merger.

Both the Comcast and Paramount deals are expected to close in the second half of 2025.

Another big theme that could pave the way for deals is the continued fallout of Peak TV's end, which industry insiders expect to continue to winnow the number of independent TV suppliers. Look for more production companies to shut down or combine, as in the recent merger of LeBron James' sports-focused SpringHill with Fullwell 73, the production company behind "The Kardashians."

While Big Tech has become a major player in entertainment and, increasingly, sports rights, don't look to them to be the savior of struggling media and entertainment companies.

"The tech companies have realized they could get the milk without buying the cow," said Alex Iosilevich, partner at Alignment Growth, which invests in media and entertainment. "You see it with the sports rights. You don't need to buy Warner to get the next NBA rights."

Business Insider spoke with half a dozen media and entertainment investors, bankers, and advisors who speculated about the deals they think could happen in 2025 and beyond. Some of the people were granted anonymity to protect business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

Paramount is widely expected to unload assets

It's taken as a given in the industry that Paramount will pare down, as it's tried to do for years, now that its Skydance merger is imminent and the company is poised to install former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell at the helm.

Co-CEO George Cheeks has said the company is evaluating sales of assets to shave $500 million in costs, which could include BET Media and the Paramount Pictures lot. (It's already been in talks to sell BET to a group led by CEO Scott Mills.) Leaders have insisted they're keeping CBS. But Paramount's networks face the same tough market as the rest of the linear landscape.

Some see Showtime as a prime target for Starz, the cable network that's shifting to streaming with its imminent spinoff from studio Lionsgate. Starz could be on the hunt for assets to help it bulk up.

Comcast SpinCo could be a buyer or a seller

NBCU executive Mark Lazarus, who will be SpinCo's CEO, has talked it up as a buyer. It certainly has options. It could look no further than Paramount, which has already hung a for-sale sign on assets, or Warner's grab bag of channels like TBS or TLC. Another potential target is AMC Networks, the prestigious but sub-scale network and streamer (though it specializes in the type of TV dramas that have largely migrated to streaming).

SpinCo could also be a seller. Some also think SpinCo could be bought entirely by a private-equity firm further down the road. SpinCo may have to wait a couple of years to sell itself to avoid a tax liability anyway.

WBD is expected to make a move

Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced that it would split into two divisions in 2025, signaling M&A options are on the table. One will house the growing digital streaming and studio businesses, and the other will consist of its declining legacy television networks. WBD needs the cash from its linear channels to pay down its still-considerable debt, but separating the good from the bad could help it sell some assets.

Industry insiders have predicted WBD could do anything from adding Paramount's linear channels or Comcast's SpinCo — considering Warners' debt, it could happen in a stock-for-stock swap — to selling properties like CNN that aren't core to its streaming business. And depending on how the Murdoch succession plays out, a longer-term play could be to buy Fox assets. With scale still the coin of the realm, Warners has to eat or be eaten.

Lionsgate has a valuable catalog

Now that Lionsgate is separated from Starz, it's widely seen as a candidate for sale, something Anson Funds Management, an activist investor, is pushing for.

"I don't think they'll be independent in 2026," one banker said.

There'd be no shortage of buyers for Lionsgate, as it's one of the last independent Hollywood studios out there. Its massive library includes "John Wick," "The Hunger Games," and "Twilight."

Paramount or WBD could snap it up for its library, though they wouldn't necessarily want its distribution or management business. Legendary Entertainment (home to "Dune" and "Godzilla") and its major investor Apollo Global Management, as well as Sony, were previously said to all be interested in Paramount, so they could be potential buyers for Lionsgate. Some also see Fox in the market for a studio, as it sold its TV and movie studios to Disney in 2019.

And while Big Tech has generally preferred to build than buy, Amazon has shown an openness to acquiring, having put down $8.5 billion for MGM Studios three years ago.

Don't count out Disney

That leaves the other legacy media giant: Disney.

About a year ago, CEO Bob Iger floated the idea of selling Disney's TV and cable properties like ABC, but he's since retreated from it. The company line was that Disney wouldn't get the price it wanted and that it'd be too complex to separate them from the rest of the company. Iger and Trump have also sparred in the past, and Disney could look to avoid deals that need government approval.

That said, Iger could change his mind, and now that its streaming business sees a path to ongoing profitability, he seems to have more options. Disney could entertain selling its TV networks like ABC, which it doesn't need to fuel its streaming business. And Disney, without its linear TV business, could be more valuable to a potential buyer, should it decide it's better off selling itself.

One industry player mused that Disney could sell Hulu+ Live TV, its cable-like TV package, and exit the distribution business.

Is Roku headed for a sale?

Roku has been a beneficiary of the continued shift of viewers to streaming, with smart TVs in 85 million homes. Needham recently got Roku in the conversation again with a note predicting it could be sold in 2025, now that Walmart has closed its sale of TV maker Vizio. Needham analysts think anyone from Netflix to The Trade Desk could be interested in Roku as a way to build their streaming ad business, while a retailer like Target could see Roku as a way to use TV ads to drive shopping.

Lara O'Reilly contributed reporting.

• TikTok faces a potential ban in the US if ByteDance doesn't divest by January 19.
• The ban could impact creators relying on TikTok for income through brand deals and e-commerce.
• Instagram and YouTube may benefit from a ban as creators shift their efforts.

TikTok creators and their teams are starting to take the threat of a ban in the US more seriously — and some wish they had begun preparing earlier.

TikTok could be yanked from US app stores as early as January 19 unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, divests. TikTok is challenging the law in court but was just handed another legal defeat this month.

While a ban might annoy many of TikTok's 170 million US users, it would be far more impactful for those creators who use it to make money through brand deals, its Creator Rewards Program, or other methods.

"Looking back, I wish I had encouraged my talent to focus on YouTube Shorts about a year ago — but no time like the present," said Estella Struck, founder of Viviene New York, referring to YouTube's short-form video product. Viviene New York is a marketing agency that works with brands and several TikTok-native creators.

"We're already preparing to diversify by focusing heavily on Instagram, YouTube, and even LinkedIn for short-form video content," Struck added.

Other creator-economy insiders expressed similar sentiments to BI about diversification. They generally felt that they could continue to build up audiences on other platforms or income through other gigs.

"The creator economy would take a blow, but it wouldn't be fatal," said Jasmine Enberg, VP and principal analyst at EMARKETER. "While over half of US companies use TikTok to work with creators and influencers, TikTok accounts for 17.2% of total spending."

Some parts of the creator economy could be hit harder than others, however.

Barbara Jones, CEO of Outshine Talent, said a ban "would be crushing for the e-commerce side," like those creators and brands earning money through TikTok Shop.

"Live e-commerce is really just getting started in the US, and TikTok Shop is leading the way," Jones said. "So, I think that side would be devastated. I think for content creators that make short-form content, they will be less affected."

'We are acting as if it may actually be gone in January'

Jones said she's gotten "a lot of calls of concerns and worry" about a potential TikTok ban.

Many creators and managers are putting together post-TikTok plans, even if they think there's a chance it could stick around.

"We are acting as if it may actually be gone in January despite, in my opinion, not thinking it will actually be gone," Sam Saideman, CEO of talent firm Innovo, told BI. "Best case, it doesn't go away."

Some ways of preparing are easier than others, Saideman said.

"Low-hanging fruit is to migrate fans to other social platforms," Saideman said. "Harder sells are to migrate those audiences to a place that is not reliant on algorithms such as SMS lists, email lists, or exclusive membership groups."

TikToker Joseph Arujo, who has over 830,000 followers, said he believes that even if TikTok is banned, it'll be short-lived, and ByteDance would be forced to sell.

"I think it's scary now that there is this deadline," Arujo said. "But I'm weighing out my options and going to other platforms."

Arujo isn't the only creator thinking about making changes. Justine, a content creator who has almost 260,000 followers on TikTok, said she isn't too worried about the potential ban but is thinking about "shifting a lot of focus" to Instagram and YouTube.

"I think regardless of what job you have, what role you have, having more streams of income, especially in this economy, is almost essential," said Justine, who asked her last name not be used for privacy reasons.

Creator Lauren Schiller, cofounder of the clothing company OGBFF, said that in the short term, she would post to Instagram reels, and then look to make longer-format videos for YouTube and post on her brand's blog.

A TikTok ban wouldn't impact all creators equally, Enberg said.

"A ban would be detrimental to up-and-coming creators and small businesses that rely solely or primarily on the app," Enberg said. "Big brands and established creators would also be disrupted, but can better withstand the upheaval as they're more likely to have diversified their channels and have large, engaged audiences on other platforms."

Megan, who asked her last name not be used for privacy reasons, is a stay-at-home mom who uses TikTok Shop as a side hustle to earn extra income through affiliate commissions.

"It's good to save, to take the trips, to buy Christmas gifts, to live a little more not so paycheck to paycheck," she said, adding that she earned nearly $8,000 in TikTok commissions one month.

She said she planned to allocate time to her other side hustles to make money if TikTok is banned.

The platforms creators and brands are turning to

"If there's a shift, I believe Instagram will likely take center stage, especially with its direct product-linking capabilities," Struck said.

Enberg said she thought Instagram and YouTube would be the biggest beneficiaries as they both have short-form video products that are natural fits for TikTokers.

"But even if a platform can replicate the technology, they can't force a change in culture," she said. "The type of viral, FOMO and trend-driven behavior doesn't exist on reels, even as the platform has tweaked its algorithm to better serve relevant content, including from smaller creators, to users."

Nya-Gabriella Parchment, cohead of brand partnerships at influencer firm Digital Brand Architects, said a lot of brands are betting on Instagram reels.

"It's easier to convert on Instagram, with ways to link out, so usually brands still use Instagram as their bedrock," Parchment said.

Parchment said creators are also interested in Snapchat again.

Arujo is one of them.

"Ever since the first threat of a TikTok ban, I decided I'm not going to rely on just this," Arujo said.

"Snapchat has been my No. 1," he said.

EMARKETER is owned by Business Insider's partner company Axel Springer.

• 2024 has been a solid year for creator-economy fundraising.
• Creator startups focused on AI, e-commerce, influencer marketing, and newsletters drew in dollars.
• These 17 startups raised at least $10 million in 2024 — totaling over $900 million.

Money is still flowing in the creator economy, even as the investor hype cycle has died down.

In 2024, 17 creator startups raised at least $10 million in new funding, totaling over $900 million. A large amount of that investment went toward creator companies whose work overlaps with trendy categories, such as artificial intelligence or social shopping. But tried-and-true business models like influencer marketing and newsletter subscriptions also scored new rounds.

"For the second year in a row, the trends kind of stayed the same. AI, community, and revenue diversification for all creators," said Ollie Forsyth, a former senior manager at the investment firm Antler who now writes the newsletter New Economies.

Startups that offer automated dubbing, AI editing, or generative AI features — such as Captions, ElevenLabs, and OpusClip — all raised hefty rounds this year. Social-commerce startups like ShopMy and Levanta captivated venture firms, alongside newsletter companies like Beehiiv, Workweek, and Substack.

A few startups — Agentio, Beehiiv, and Captions — that raised capital in 2023, when creator-economy investments were at a low ebb, also raised again in 2024. Meanwhile, some venture firms have consistently tapped into the creator space, such as AlleyCorp, Inspired Capital, and Volition Capital.

Investor interest in the creator economy surged when social-media consumption spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, but then fell off dramatically. It's now steady, Forsyth said.

"We're no longer in the hype cycle," he said. "Maybe it has lost its trendiness a tiny bit, but it's stabilizing, which is needed."

Business Insider worked with data providers PitchBook and Crunchbase to sort through fundraising data in order to highlight big creator startup rounds from 2024. We focused on companies whose products significantly impact the businesses of creators and their partners.

Here are 17 of those companies, listed in alphabetical order:

1. Agentio, an ad platform streamlining creator-brand marketing on YouTube, raised a $12 million Series A. The round, announced in November, was led by Benchmark and included returning investors Craft and AlleyCorp (the latter firms co-led Agentio's $4.25 million Seed investment last year). Agentio's Series A is being used to scale the startup's go-to-market teams and expand its product offerings beyond YouTube creator ads.

2. Beehiiv, a newsletter platform competing with Substack, raised a $33 million Series B this year — $32 million from venture capital investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Sapphire Ventures, and $1 million from a crowdfund. Beehiiv will use the money to expand hiring, build its ad network, and continue its M&A strategy (the startup acquired Typedream in May).

3. Cameo, a video shout-out platform for celebrities and creators, raised $28 million with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Valor Siren Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, and cofounders Steven Galanis, Devon Townsend, and Martin Blencowe. The aim of the raise was to build out Cameo for Business, an offering focused on connecting its creators with brands for promotional content, per a company spokesperson.

4. Already on its Series C round after launching in 2021, AI video startup Captions closed a $60 million round in July led by Index Ventures. The round included returning investors like A16z and Sequoia Capital, as well as new investments from Adobe Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, and Jared Leto. Captions will use its funding to grow its machine learning team and in-house research, and also shared plans to invest $100 million into generative video research.

5. ElevenLabs closed an $80 million Series B round at the start of the year, led by A16z, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross. Other firms, like Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, and SV Angel, joined the round. The startup announced at the time that the raise would be used to "refine" its products and safety measures in the deployment of AI.

6. Flip, a social-shopping platform set up in a TikTok-like feed, raised $144 million in a Series C round led by Streamlined Ventures with participation from advertising firm AppLovin, the companies announced in April. Flip planned to integrate marketing tech from AppLovin as part of the deal.

7. Infinite Reality, a tech company that owns talent-management firm TalentX, Drone Racing League, and other holdings, closed a $350 million fundraise from an undisclosed family office, the company said. The investment was meant to support efforts in hiring, with a focus on tech and product, as well as allow the company to pursue M&A opportunities.

8. Influur, an influencer-marketing platform, closed a $10 million Series A in November, led by Point72 Ventures and HTwenty Capital. The startup will use its funding to develop products like AI tools to help brands predict campaign performance and fintech tools for its users.

9. Levanta, an affiliate-marketing company that connects Amazon sellers with creators and other affiliates, raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Volition Capital. The company said the round would help it grow its business development team and improve its user experience.

10. OpusClip, an AI video editing platform that helps creators turn long videos into short clips, closed its Series A in April, bringing total funding to $30 million, per the company. Millennium New Horizons led the startup's Series A with participation from other investors like AI Grant, DCM Ventures, Samsung Next, GTMfund, and Alpine VC, among others. The company said it plans to use the funding to build its products and grow its team.

11. Passes, a subscription and memberships platform for creators, raised a $40 million Series A round in February from Abstract Ventures, Crossbeam Venture Partners, and individuals like Alexandra Botez, Emma Grede, and Michael Ovitz. The funding will be used for hiring and product, CEO Lucy Guo told BI.

12. Podcastle, a content-creation platform for podcasters, closed a $13.5 million Series A round led by Mosaic Ventures, with participation from returning investors Sierra Ventures, RTP Global, and Point Nine, among others. The company is using the funding to expand its AI and video products and grow its team with a new base in London.

13. ProRata.ai, a startup focused on helping creators and media firms get compensation for contributing to generative AI products, raised $30 million in a rolling Series A that closed in Q4, led by Mayfield Fund and other investors like Revolution Ventures, Prime Movers Lab, and Calibrate Ventures.

14. ShopMy, an affiliate and influencer-marketing company, raised an $18.5 million add-on to its Series A in March, closing the round at $26.5 million. The startup previously told BI that it raised from firms like Inspired Capital and AlleyCorp to grow the platform and attract more brand and creator partners.

15. Slushy, an adult-content platform competing with OnlyFans, raised a $10.2 million seed investment that closed in June. The round included investments from The Chainsmokers' Mantis VC, Electric Feel Ventures, and individuals like Jon Oringer (the former CEO of Shutterstock) and Sean Rad (the former CEO of Tinder). Slushy will direct its new funds toward developing its product, onboarding more content creators to the platform, and expanding into new markets.

16. Substack closed an investment round of about $10 million (the company directed BI to Axios' reporting on the matter) in the fall. Substack recently announced that it had 4 million paid subscriptions on its platform. It has worked to ramp up in-person events this year.
17. Workweek, a business-focused newsletter startup, announced a $12.5 million Series A round in June led by Next Coast Ventures. It's using the investment to build out a professional networking service for Workweek's subscribers.

• Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting its linear TV business from streaming and studios.
• Comcast last month also spun off its cable networks — except Bravo — into a stand-alone company.
• The moves illustrate a cable business in decline, with both repositioning for M&A opportunities.

Warner Bros. Discovery is separating its linear television business from its streaming business and film studios.

It follows a similar move by Comcast, which announced in November it would spin off all of its NBCUniversal cable networks except Bravo into a stand-alone company.

The new corporate structure will be complete by the middle of next year, WBD said. Unlike Comcast, WBD won't spin its assets off into a separate company.

A new Global Linear Networks division will house TV properties like the Discovery Channel and CNN, while the Streaming & Studios side will be the home of Max and movie studio Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group.

"Our Global Linear Networks business is well positioned to continue to drive free cash flow, while our Streaming & Studios business focuses on driving growth," WBD president and CEO David Zaslav said in a statement.

A source with direct knowledge of the matter said the move was meant to clean up the company's structure, which was formed in 2022 from the combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery. (Discovery itself was the product of its acquisition of Scripps Networks in 2017.)

This person said the company is still determining how the specific business units will be divided, and no leadership changes were planned.

The moves by both Comcast and WBD illuminate a cable business increasingly in decline. Their repositioning of properties could help them participate in potential mergers and acquisitions expected to reshape the media and entertainment industry in 2025.

Warner Bros. Discovery was supposed to create scale and value and help compete with Big Tech by mashing WarnerMedia's prestige networks like HBO and CNN with Discovery's lifestyle properties like HGTV. But its stock has sunk to about a third of its value at the time of its creation in 2022. (It was up about 14% Thursday morning on the news of the new organization.)

Industry observers say a Comcast-like spin wouldn't be favorable for WBD because it needs the cash from its linear channels to pay down the heavy debt it took on to form the company.

Still, they see WBD bulking up or shedding channels, with Paramount Global or Comcast seen as the most likely merger partners.

The announcement was met with mixed reactions from analysts. BofA Securities, which has long argued that WBD should sell assets or merge with another company, said in a note that it saw WBD's linear assets as a logical partner for the Comcast SpinCo, while its streaming and studio assets could be an attractive takeover target for multiple suitors.

Longtime ad industry advisor Brian Wieser said that as with the Comcast SpinCo, a WBD separation weakens the company on a few fronts, though. Without being tethered to the cable channels, he said, it'll be harder for WBD's streamer Max to grow its ads business, which is becoming increasingly important. The linear networks will lose leverage in distribution negotiations without Max and have trouble attracting talent if they're seen as a declining business, among other issues, he said.

In July, WBD reportedly floated the idea to investors of essentially undoing the 2022 merger to create the two separate divisions. And in August, the company said its TV assets were worth $9 billion less than it had anticipated just two years ago.

• The billionaire owners of the Nets and Liberty are hatching a media brand rooted in Brooklyn culture.
• BSE Global plans to launch a new brand in early 2025, focusing on the "zeitgeist of Brooklyn."
• The venture has money and expertise but faces a tough digital-media climate.

A trio of billionaires is looking to turn "Brooklyn" into a media brand in the vein of the youth and pop-culture outlet Complex.

Details have been trickling out in the New York media scene about moves by BSE Global — the parent company of the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and Barclays Center — to build an expansive media and entertainment company.

BSE plans to launch the new global media brand in early 2025 with a focus on "capturing and sharing the zeitgeist of Brooklyn," spokesperson Sheerin Salimi confirmed to Business Insider.

The money behind BSE comes from Alibaba cofounder Joe Tsai and his wife Clara Wu Tsai, along with Julia Koch. Koch, the widow of billionaire and conservative megadonor David Koch, bought 15% of BSE Global in June in a deal that valued the company at $6 billion.

Five people with direct knowledge of BSE's media plans described grand ambitions, saying the company envisions building a brand that is rooted in Brooklyn culture but can travel nationally and even globally. These people were granted anonymity to talk about confidential plans; their identities are known to BI.

Salimi confirmed to BI that the project is being called "Brand X" internally. One of the people with direct knowledge of BSE's plans said one potential name floated was "Boom," though Salimi said this is not currently under consideration.

Salimi said BSE is building complementary businesses alongside its teams and Barclays Center that tap into Brooklyn's spirit through sports, fashion, food, music, and the arts.

BSE has hired a slew of Complex veterans

BSE planted the seeds for a media push when it purchased in March the local outlet Brooklyn Magazine, which it relaunched in November as BKMag.

"They're trying to be like the voice of Brooklyn," a second person with direct knowledge of BSE's plans said. "There's a national opportunity that doesn't exist with Brooklyn Magazine. People name their kids Brooklyn."

BSE has explored several different approaches and considered building or buying a collection of lifestyle titles. The second person with direct knowledge of BSE's plans said the company also looked at buying Complex to accelerate its plans.

Under CEO Sam Zussman, a veteran of sports and culture agency IMG, BSE has brought on at least five Complex veterans. He also hired former longtime Complex CEO Rich Antoniello as an advisor.

Complex was started in 2002 by streetwear designer Marc Ecko and became a rare digital media success story, helped by its influence on youth culture and its long-form video series on YouTube. It spawned a festival called ComplexCon, product lines, and other ventures.

BuzzFeed acquired Complex in 2021 for $300 million and sold it in early 2024 to the e-commerce company NTWRK for about a third of what it originally paid. BuzzFeed kept Complex's food vertical, First We Feast, best known for its popular video series "Hot Ones."

BSE sees Brooklyn as a launchpad for ventures from wine to comedy

BSE's broad idea is to use Brooklyn's cultural capital to build a string of businesses spanning from hotels and music venues to wine, streetwear, and media. As part of a $100 million plan to enhance the area, BSE recently opened two membership clubs at Barclays Center with luxury touches like velvet furnishings and specialty cocktails and has launched a wine club. BSE has also looked at doing a comedy tour, said a third person with knowledge of the company's media plans.

Overseeing the media effort is DeJuan Wilson, who joined BSE in February as its chief products and experiences officer. Wilson is a longtime marketer who's worked at Endeavor, Coca-Cola, Nike, and SoundCloud.

Along with tapping Antoniello, BSE has hired other Complex alums including Aia Adriano, Complex's former VP of content; Stefan Breskin, a former social media director; Zion Olojede, its former head of sports; Erika Turner, its former VP of programming and development; and Lucas Wisenthal, its former international content development director.

Digital media is a troubled sector

Digital media has faced major headwinds lately, as Big Tech companies have siphoned much of the digital ad spending and squeezed publisher distribution on their platforms.

Even with BSE's deep pockets and well-connected leadership, some of the people with direct knowledge of its plans were skeptical about how far its commitment to media would ultimately go. Some also noted that the city is already served by many established outlets like The New York Times, Vox Media's New York magazine, and smaller local outlets.

Still, BSE's roots in sports could be an important asset at a time when athletes and teams are becoming even more central to media and pop culture. BSE's New York Liberty women's basketball team just celebrated its first championship, and its mascot, Ellie the Elephant, has become a fashion icon in her own right. The NBA's Brooklyn Nets, meanwhile, has built a big global fan base, partly thanks to its willingness to play games abroad.

Other media companies have been built around sports teams. There's YES Network, a regional sports network that's home to the New York Yankees, Nets, and Liberty, all well as producing other sports-related content; and Sphere Entertainment's MSG Network, which carries New York Knicks games and other sports-themed programming.

"I think BSE realizes they have a really strong brand they can build stuff around right now," said a fourth person with direct knowledge of the company's media plans.

• LinkedIn has been gradually rolling out a TikTok-like video feed.
• Some creators say making videos has supercharged their engagement on the platform.
• LinkedIn is encouraging creators to post "short" and "snappy" videos.

LinkedIn is taking aim at TikTok — and creators are intrigued.

Since the spring, the Microsoft-owned platform has been gradually rolling out a TikTok-style vertical video feed that features career advice, industry news, and other creator content. A LinkedIn spokesperson said "most" users now have access to it. Videos can also appear in the app's main feed.

Meghana Dhar, a creator with 15,000 LinkedIn followers, said her LinkedIn "engagement has just exploded" since she started posting videos. She added that LinkedIn moving toward video "indicates that they're taking creators really seriously."

Several creators, including Dhar, told BI that they often see much more engagement and impressions on their video posts than on their text or photo ones. Engagement refers to interactions with a post, such as a like, while impressions are how many people view a piece of content.

Dhar said, for example, that a recent text post she shared on LinkedIn got about 10,000 impressions, while a video of her talking to the camera hit over 2 million impressions. Marketing strategist Caroline Giegerich found that her LinkedIn video posts reached three times as many people as her text posts did.

A LinkedIn spokesperson said video posts — including videos shared from individual profiles and pages — get 1.4 times as much engagement on average as other posts on LinkedIn.

While the concept of LinkedIn video might feel strange to some users, it could be a key for the platform to cement itself as a core platform for creators, unlock more ad revenue, and keep people checking their feeds regularly. The top platforms for creators, such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, are all heavily focused on video.

"I am on a personal mission to make LinkedIn a daily habit for people," Jamé Jackson, a LinkedIn community manager, told BI. "We are so much more than just a platform for job searching."

This isn't LinkedIn's first attempt at video. In 2019, LinkedIn launched its live video product. In 2020, it launched a "Stories" feature, which lets users share disappearing videos (that shut down in 2021).

Still, there is some indication that this current, TikTok-like push might be what finally breaks through.

"Our investments in rich formats, like video, strengthen our leadership in B2B advertising and amplify the value we deliver to our customers," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the company's October earnings call. "Weekly immersive video views increased 6x quarter-over-quarter and total video viewership on LinkedIn is up 36% year-over-year."

LinkedIn's do's and don'ts for video

So, what makes a good LinkedIn video?

Jackson said to avoid creating content that "feels way too sales-y and promotional" and to keep the video to under two minutes: short, snappy, and actionable.

"The call to action is important because I always like to secretly tell people that the comments section is the liquid gold of LinkedIn," Jackson said. "The way you do that is by inviting people to the party, inviting them to the table after you've created that video, asking them to share in the comments things that they have learned."

LinkedIn has also seen an uptick in "faceless video content," where people aren't front and center, Jackson said, adding that it had generally performed well.

The platform has encouraged CEOs and executives to talk about breaking news as well, Jackson said.

Creators are using video to grow audiences but monetization lags

Creators generally say that compared to other platforms like TikTok and Instagram, LinkedIn is much less saturated — and that's an opportunity to build audiences.

"I've been posting on LinkedIn almost daily, certainly every weekday for a couple of years now," said Avi Gandhi, who has 23,000 LinkedIn followers.

Gandhi has recently focused on short-form video content, posting three to four times a week and often promoting his newsletter by calling out the name and including a link to subscribe at the end of the text post.

Career coach and creator Jahleane Dolne said she often uses LinkedIn to post podcast clips. While her largest following is on TikTok (about 34,000), Dolne said her podcast clips are a better fit for the LinkedIn audience.

Despite the audience growth for some creators, the ecosystem for making money on LinkedIn isn't yet fully developed. That may be changing, though. Three of the creators BI spoke with said they were either already working on LinkedIn-focused brand deals or actively reaching out to potential sponsors. And earlier this year, the marketing agency Creator Authority launched with a focus on LinkedIn.

However, the platform has not yet introduced a monetization program similar to those on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube that directly pays creators.

"If LinkedIn launches monetization for videos where you could start making money from the videos that you post, that would be huge," Gandhi said. "That would be incredible and that would make it all worth it."

• This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Hello. Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania on Monday and initially faced local gun and forgery charges. Our team has been covering this developing story — keep up with our coverage here.

In today's newsletter, the $13 billion Omnicom-IPG megamerger reflects a new era as Big Tech and AI upend the ad industry.

What's on deck:

• Markets: Nvidia shares fell after China hit the chipmaker with an antitrust probe.
• Tech: Former Google employees on being laid off from the tech giant and their advice for those in a similar position.
• Business: Rupert Murdoch lost a 'Succession-like' legal battle over future control of his media empire.

But first, a new ad-venture.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

The ad industry's new era

It's already been a big week for the ad industry.

Omnicom Group said it had reached an agreement to acquire Interpublic Group, a merger worth more than $30 billion that would create the world's largest ad conglomerate.

Across the pond at Paris-based Publicis Groupe, the party hats might be staying in the drawer. Just last week, Publicis recruited Snoop Dogg for a video to help celebrate the firm usurping London's WPP to become the world's largest ad holding company.

But it's not just about being No. 1. For ad industry insiders, the proposed takeover reflects an ad sector under threat from Big Tech and AI, writes Business Insider's Lara O'Reilly. By creating a larger company, Omnicom-IPG will have a bigger base to deploy data and technology, which could give it leverage to secure beneficial and exclusive deals with partners such as cloud providers.

Keep in mind, however, that in the short term mergers can be highly disruptive.

Concerned clients. Bruised egos. Job cuts.

Integrating two companies with 100,000 people combined, dozens of different agency brands, and hundreds of offices across the globe will not be a simple task. There will likely be synergies — including job cuts. "It will be harder to climb the career ladder. Superstar creators and creatives will also be in demand, as well as good strategists, in all disciplines. But, lots of other roles will become diminished," Simon Francis, who leads the marketing consultancy Flock Associates, told BI.

However, as Lara highlights, that could create opportunities for smaller agencies, especially as the merged company works its way through the disruption caused by integration, egos being knocked out of joint (it wouldn't be the first time), and potential client conflicts where the new entity suddenly works with two or more fierce rivals in the same sector.

"From an M&A perspective, it's only going to add fuel to the fire."

That's according to William Ritchie, founding and managing director of advisor firm WY Partners. "I'd expect there is going to be more competition for the best assets and more focus on building a streamlined data and tech-first offering which can compete," he told BI.

Private equity has been circling the ad industry, too. Apollo, KKR, and Blackstone have shown interest in media and entertainment. Industry insiders have speculated for months that WPP could be taken private — or at least some parts of it could be.

News brief

Top headlines

• What we know about Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League grad charged with murder in UnitedHealthcare CEO's killing.
• Jay-Z asks judge to unmask Jane Doe who said in a lawsuit that he and Diddy raped her when she was 13 years old.
• Trump says he's 'having dinner' with Jeff Bezos. It's the latest development in their long history.
• AMD downgraded after BI report on weak demand for its AI chips among AWS customers.
• Post-Assad Syria will be a new challenge for America's Middle East strategy.

3 things in markets

1. Nvidia stock drops as China probes the chipmaker over potential antitrust violations. China's government is looking into Nvidia's acquisition of chip design firm Mellanox, which it previously approved. Nvidia stock fell by more than 2.5% early Tuesday.
2. Microsoft and Amazon investors are eyeing pieces of the bitcoin pie. Shareholders at Microsoft and Amazon will decide this week if their respective companies should consider investing in bitcoin. The cryptocurrency recently blew past a $100,000 milestone that bestowed great gains on MicroStrategy, which saw triple-digit gains after buying up bitcoin this year.
3. Some advice from Citi's newly minted MDs. Citi appointed its largest class of managing directors under CEO Jane Fraser last week. Five of the new MDs told BI their best career advice and reflected on the bank's massive transformation.

3 things in tech

1. Life after Google. The past few years have been rough for those in the tech world as the industry faced historic layoffs. Eight ex-Googlers — including one who has since returned — shared what it was like to lose what some considered their "dream job," and how they found their footing after.
2. Inside MrBeast City. Jimmy Donaldson, the creator better known as MrBeast, shared photos of the "city" he built for his upcoming "Beast Games" show. He said it cost more than $14 million to build.
3. OpenAI's shiny new video generator is open to the public. Sora, which can generate videos up to 20 seconds long from written prompts, went live Monday. Its product lead said a team of about five or six engineers built the generator in months.

3 things in business

1. Murdoch's "Succession" battle. Life imitates art, or perhaps, art imitates life. Rupert Murdoch lost a legal case over the future of his media empire in a real-life succession battle on Monday. Rupert, 93, and his son Lachlan took on three other Murdoch children in court — and lost, for now.
2. Thinking outside the deck. For better or worse, slide decks have been at the crux of how Americans work in the nearly four decades since PowerPoint launched. But they've also faced a lot of backlash, including from CEOs like Elon Musk and Sundar Pichai. Does that mean the deck is in jeopardy? Next slide.
3. AI's pollution price tag. AI-related emissions will soon rival that of all the cars in California, according to a new study. In just six years, the study found, AI electricity consumption could pollute the air so much that asthma-related deaths could spike by more than a third. By 2030, researchers calculated, AI's health impact could total up to $20 billion.

What's happening today

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testifies at his corruption trial in Jerusalem.
• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks at Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit.
• Nobel Prizes, including the Nobel Peace Prize, are presented in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Insider Today team: Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York Milan Sehmbi, fellow, in London.

• Ad industry insiders say the Omnicom takeover of Interpublic Group could kick off more M&A.
• Insiders laid out who could be involved, from WPP to smaller holding companies.
• Private equity and global solutions providers like Accenture also could be consolidators.

The planned $13.25 billion takeover by ad holding company Omnicom of Interpublic Group by merger has industry insiders speculating: Who's next?

Other agency giants face similar conditions that led two of the six big ad-holding companies to seek a merger. There's the concentration of ad dollars with tech giants Google, Meta, and Amazon; the need for media-buying scale to maintain an edge with global advertisers; and the growing use of AI that threatens to wipe out certain agency tasks. The US ad industry has barely grown over the past few years. By combining, Omnicom and IPG are looking to ensure their continued survival.

Some industry insiders think the Omnicom-IPG tie-up is just the start of a massive reordering of the $70 billion ad agency industry and that it's only a matter of time before other holding companies are forced to acquire or be acquired as they look to bulk up.

"From an M&A perspective, it's only going to add fuel to the fire," said William Ritchie, founding and managing director of the media and technology advisory firm WY Partners. "As others vie for competitive advantage over the newly crowned world's largest holding company, I'd expect there is going to be more competition for the best assets and more focus on building a streamlined data and tech-first offering which can compete — notably with companies like WPP, which remains behind the curve on competitive advantage here."

Ritchie said he sees continuing interest in assets that specialize in using data, tech, and AI to inform advertising, as well as PR and communications companies. He noted KKR's recent move to increase its stake in FGS Global, a comms and public affairs firm.

The IPG-Omnicom combo will spark more consolidation for other reasons, said Andreas Roell, CEO of Evros Group, which advises on media, marketing, entertainment, and tech deals. Once the new group decides what it wants to be known for, it may discard the units that don't fit that new identity and also divest some agencies that have competing clients or culture clashes.

Other networks will have to look in the mirror and decide if they're strong enough to acquire weaker networks or acknowledge they're falling behind due to tech disruption, Roell added.

"My prediction is that 2025 will serve as a reckoning year for networks," he said.

Other holding companies could partner up

Starting at the top of the food chain, some industry insiders think the upheaval could force two other longtime rivals to come together: French ad-holding company Publicis Groupe, which has been outperforming its competitors lately, and London-based WPP.

"Mark Read has not done the job that he probably expected he would be able to do; [Arthur] Sadoun is doing a great job," Tom Triscari, CEO and founder of Lemonade Projects, a programmatic ad agency, said of WPP's and Publicis' leaders, respectively.

Such a combo might be tricky to align culturally, though. A proposed merger between Publicis Groupe and Omnicom famously broke down in 2014 after they failed to agree on multiple fronts, including which agency would be seen as the acquirer and who would be appointed chief financial officer. It would also need to pass regulatory muster. That could be harder to do if the IPG and Omnicom deal succeeds, reducing the number of big agency groups in the sector. And there would be so much complexity that Publicis might not see the upside.

Another top holding company that could be active is Havas. Its parent, France's Vivendi, just approved its split into four companies. This is set to lead to Havas being publicly traded as its own company. Havas has indicated that it has M&A in its sights.

A number of other smaller, independent ad-holding companies could help bigger players scale up, like Mark Penn's Stagwell, the Bill Koenigsberg-led Horizon Media, or the Martin Sorrell-founded S4 Capital.

David Morgan, executive chairman of TV ad-buying company Simulmedia, said Horizon Media could be in play since Temasek, the investment firm that bought a minority share in 2021, needs an exit at some point.

Digital performance shops like PMG and Kepler also could be of interest.

Private equity has been circling

The big holding companies could also be a target for private-equity giants. Apollo, KKR, and Blackstone have shown interest in media and entertainment. Industry insiders have speculated for months that WPP, which once ranked as No. 1 among agency businesses, could be taken private — or at least some parts of it could be.

"They all see the same thing — these assets are bloated and mismanaged," said an industry player who's had conversations with PE firms. They asked for anonymity to preserve business relationships. Their identity is known to BI.

Another group of potential acquirers is companies like IBM and Capgemini, which provide a range of business solutions. Tata Consultancy Services and Accenture Song have eyed ad agencies as a way to offer end-to-end services to clients. Tata was in talks to buy R/GA this year and Accenture acquired creative agency Droga5 in 2019.

When it comes to deals that are just about getting bigger, though, there's plenty of skepticism that bulking up will solve the problems agencies face.

"Agencies today are not losing to the tech giants because of a shift in power," said Jay Friedman, CEO of the Goodway Group, a brand consulting firm. "They're losing because the capabilities they have aren't fit for how brands need to buy advertising today. They need a better cost model overall, which is global and AI-driven."

• The Omnicom-IPG mega-merger will create waves across the ad industry.
• Mergers are highly disruptive in the short term, and opportunistic rivals could pounce.
• Ad industry workers should expect concerned clients and bruised egos as the two companies combine.

A coming mega-merger is set to make waves across the advertising world, especially among the millions of people employed by ad agencies globally.

On Monday, Omnicom announced a $13 billion agreement to acquire fellow US advertising agency business Interpublic Group. The deal would create the world's largest advertising agency holding company.

Industry insiders shared their thoughts with Business Insider on how the merger could impact individual workers at Omnicom and IPG, as well as in the industry at large. They said ad industry workers should expect disruption like job cuts and opportunistic rivals swooping in for concerned clients as the new Omnicom takes shape.

Prepare for job cuts

As with many horizontal mergers, job cuts seem inevitable.

Omnicom said Monday the transaction would "generate $750 million in annual cost synergies" as it consolidates its operations with IPG.

Steve Boehler, the founder of marketing and management consulting company Mercer Island Group, predicted in a LinkedIn post that "thousands" of people would lose their jobs.

Job security in the ad agency world has been increasingly hard to come by. Agencies often lay off entire teams when they lose a major client. US advertising, PR, and related services employment fell by 300 jobs to 522,900 in November, despite overall US employment rebounding, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

AI could also negatively impact the advertising job market. The research firm Forrester said last year that the rise of automation could lead to the loss of 32,000 jobs within ad agencies by 2030, about 7.5% of the total worldwide agency workforce.

Expect short-term merger turbulence and questions from clients

Merging two companies with 100,000 people, dozens of different agency brands, and hundreds of offices across the globe will not be a simple task.

"It's a massive integration risk," said Martin Sorrell, the executive chair of rival agency S4 Capital, who led WPP for more than 30 years. Sorrell has been an active acquirer of businesses throughout his career.

The companies could also dispose of assets. IPG announced recently that it would sell its digital ad agency Huge to a private equity firm and had said earlier this year it was also looking to offload R/GA, the agency famed for its work for Nike. IPG said the companies would continue to act independently until the deal closes and that during that time they would continue advancing strategic plans that had previously been announced.

Some clients will also have questions, particularly if the combination means their agency is working for one of their direct rivals.

On a call with analysts on Monday, Omnicom CEO John Wren downplayed the threat of client conflicts.

"Are there clients that we have to sit in the coming weeks and months and assure them that we still love them quite as much as we did prior to this morning? Yes." Wren said. "But clients are what drive us every morning when we wake up."

Egos will be bruised

A proposed merger between Omnicom and Publicis Groupe memorably failed in 2014 after the two companies couldn't agree on which executives should hold key positions, such as the CEO role.

While the Omnicom-IPG deal appears more straightforward, there will be some humbling as the company looks to reduce duplicative roles and some execs are looked over for the top roles.

On Monday's call, Wren said he wasn't worried about senior people looking to change their careers as a result of the merger.

If you're in one of these roles, you are in demand

Omnicom and IPG executives on Monday talked up the potential for combining their technology platforms, the use of data and analytics, and disciplines like media trading and customer-relationship management.

"Superstar creators and creatives will also be in demand, as well as good strategists, in all disciplines," said Simon Francis, CEO of marketing consultancy Flock Associates. "But, lots of other roles will become diminished."

Jay Wilson, VP and analyst for the research company Gartner, said job candidates looking to strengthen their résumés should consider that high-performing brands are looking for strong performers in areas like business strategy, strategic thinking, and data analysis.

"Advertising and marketing workers certainly need to upskill on Gen-AI skills as well," Wilson said.

Smaller independent agencies could benefit

As Omnicom and IPG work through the merger, there will be opportunities for rival agencies to pounce.

"Competitors will decide to target you and go through all your clients and your best staff, it's inevitable," a former Publicis Groupe exec said Monday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect career prospects. Their identity is known to BI.

Nimble independent agencies that aren't encumbered with legacy businesses could offer good career opportunities for people who don't want to deal with the complexity of a giant network.

"Certain people will make life or business-style decisions to say, 'God, I don't want to be in this oil tanker and I'd rather jump into a speed boat,'" said a former WPP veteran, who asked not to be named in order to protect their business relationships. Their identity is known to BI.

With fewer big holding companies to choose between, consolidation could drive up prices for clients, which could also present more opportunities for smaller rivals to undercut the incumbents on fees, the WPP veteran added.

• A $13.25 billion merger of Omnicom and Interpublic Group would create the largest ad-agency company.
• Industry insiders say the deal reflects an ad sector under threat from Big Tech and AI.
• A bigger company could have more leverage to make deals, but job cuts seem inevitable.

For ad-industry insiders, the US ad giant Omnicom's proposed takeover of its rival Interpublic Group represents the consolidation of a challenged sector and shows that the future of advertising will be rooted in data and AI.

Being big matters as the industry wrestles with disruption from the might of Big Tech players and the advent of artificial intelligence. While AI could make offerings more efficient, it also threatens to displace many ad-agency services and affect the prices they can charge for them.

First reported on Sunday by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by the companies on Monday, the agreement would create a company with combined revenue of more than $25 billion, based on last year's figures. The $13.25 billion all-stock deal would merge Omnicom's creative and media-buying agencies, such as BBDO and Omnicom Media Group, with IPG's McCann Worldgroup and Mediabrands.

The combination would create an entity bigger than Publicis Groupe, which has the largest market capitalization in the sector. Analysts expect Publicis will end the year with the most revenue, too.

The French advertising company, the sector's star performer, has outpaced rivals thanks to its simple messaging about an integrated set of services and as multibillion-dollar acquisitions in areas like data, IT systems, and commerce began to bear fruit. It also came out of the gate on AI, launching its internal Marcel platform in 2018, before generative-AI hype.

The combined company seeks to get an edge in AI, data, and media buying

Omnicom-IPG will be hoping to knock Publicis off the top spot — and not just on paper. By creating a larger company, Omnicom-IPG would have a bigger base to deploy data or technology like AI, which could give it leverage to secure beneficial and exclusive deals with partners such as cloud providers.

"Technology and data and thereby data-driven marketing has been arguably the largest driver of differentiation and growth for agencies for some time now, and one of the benefits of additional scale is being able to leverage major technology investments over a larger base of operations," said Simon Nicholls, a partner at the advisory firm GP Bullhound, which works on mergers and acquisitions within the ad industry.

Some industry insiders say both Omnicom's and IPG's investments have lagged behind those of their competitors.

One rival minced no words.

"It's a merger of two drunkards leaning against the lamppost as far as AI is concerned," said Martin Sorrell, a former CEO of WPP who now leads the digital-marketing company S4 Capital.

The so-called IPG engine is powered by a nonexclusive partnership with Adobe GenStudio. Omnicom — whose Omni AI platform doesn't lock clients into the Omnicom ecosystem — hasn't offered as many specifics as its key rivals have about how much it's investing in proprietary AI.

Still, the merger could benefit the pair in the future.

"This ushers in not just a new era of scale — it ushers in the opportunity to invest in where the marketplace is going, which is creative and tech powered by AI," said Laura Desmond, an ad-industry veteran who now leads the martech company Smartly.

Scale is also crucial in media planning and buying, the profit centers of many agency businesses. Generally, the more client ad budgets you control, the more leverage you have as an agency when it comes to negotiating deals with media owners.

Being bigger is also particularly important in the lucrative but often controversial practice of principal-based media buying, where agencies buy ad inventory in advance and sell it back in packages to clients. It's controversial because the agency doesn't disclose the price at which it originally bought the media to the advertiser. Agencies have defended the practice, saying that it still drives performance for brands — and that brands themselves are often pushing agencies for lower ad prices. A larger advertising agency would have a bigger market of clients to resell its ad inventory back to.

An opportunistic deal in a turbulent market

Some of the rationale behind the deal is opportunistic.

IPG has been trailing behind its rivals recently, having lost key client accounts like Amazon's media-buying business, General Motors, Pfizer, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola. Meanwhile, Omnicom's stock is at an all-time high.

"Wren is a wily old fox; he's no fool," Sorrell said, referring to Omnicom CEO John Wren's move to agree to the deal while Omnicom was on the upswing and IPG was floundering.

Omnicom said Wren would remain the company's CEO after the deal closes. The acquisition, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, is expected to close in the second half of 2025.

What the deal means for ad-agency jobs

The consolidation of the two companies is likely to lead to large synergies — including job cuts. Omnicom said on Monday that the transaction was expected to generate $750 million in annual cost savings. The research firm Forrester said last year that the rise of automation could lead to the loss of more than 30,000 jobs within ad agencies by 2030.

Simon Francis, an ad-agency veteran who now leads Flock Associates, a marketing consultancy and recruitment firm, predicted that in the ad-agency sector, "there will be even fewer big roles and lots and lots of junior roles."

"It will be harder to climb the career ladder," Francis added. "Superstar creators and creatives will also be in demand, as well as good strategists, in all disciplines. But lots of other roles will become diminished."

That could create opportunities for smaller agencies, especially as the merged company works its way through the disruption caused by integration, egos being knocked out of joint as roles combine, and client conflicts in which the new entity suddenly works with two or more fierce rivals in the same sector.

A proposed deal to merge Omnicom with Publicis Groupe a decade ago memorably fell apart after the pair couldn't agree on which executives would hold key positions, including chief financial officer.

"The lessons learned a decade ago are not going to be repeated," Wren said on a call with analysts on Monday morning.

Nimble independent agencies that aren't encumbered by legacy businesses could offer good career opportunities for people who don't want to deal with the complexity of a giant network. But industry insiders said it's probably not a good idea to bet on companies in the middle of the pack, especially for those working in in-demand specialties like data, tech integration, and commerce media.

"For the average worker, it's going to be all about scale," said Greg Paull, a principal of the R3 marketing consultancy. "Unless you are in a creative boutique like Wieden+Kennedy or Mother, the world's largest clients are going to seek out the world's largest holding companies."

• Omnicom is taking over the Interpublic Group to create the world's largest ad-agency business.
• The deal is expected to generate annual cost savings of $750 million.
• John Wren will remain CEO of Omnicom, while his counterpart Philippe Krakowsky will be co-COO.

Omnicom is taking over Interpublic Group in a deal expected to create the world's biggest advertising and marketing agency business, the US advertising company said on Monday.

The two had been in third and fourth place in the highly competitive ad-agency sector, but a combined entity would eclipse both London-based WPP and France's Publicis in terms of expected revenue and market capitalization.

Advertising industry insiders said the deal underscores the disruption faced by agency holding companies. Agencies face the dilemma of helping clients leverage tech while at the same time risking being displaced by AI and automation.

Industry insiders said the new company's added scale could bring benefits like the leverage to strike better deals with tech and media companies. It could also allow them to combine some offerings and eliminate duplicative roles. However, some industry insiders warned that merging the two companies could be highly disruptive in the short term, which could prompt their rivals to try to poach clients and key staffers.

Investors will receive 0.344 Omnicom shares for each IPG share they own. Omnicom shareholders will own 60.6% of the combined group. The deal is expected to generate annual cost savings of $750 million.

Omnicom was valued at about $20 billion at Friday's close. Its shares fell around 4% in early morning trading after the deal was officially confirmed. IPG was worth $10.9 billion at Friday's close, and its stock jumped by around 12% on Monday morning. The shares of competitor ad companies WPP and Publicis Groupe were also up following the Omnicom-IPG news.

The new Omnicom will have more than 100,000 staffers and offer services across media, precision marketing, customer relationship management, data, digital commerce, advertising, healthcare, public relations, and branding.

"Now is the perfect time to bring together our technologies, capabilities, talent and geographic footprints to bring clients superior, data-driven outcomes," John Wren, Omnicom CEO said in a statement on Monday.

Philippe Krakowsky, IPG's CEO, said the two companies had "highly complementary offerings, geographic presence, and cultures."

Wren will remain CEO of Omnicom, while Krakowsky and current Omnicom COO Daryl Simm will be copresidents and co-COOs of Omnicom. Three members of the IPG board, including Krakowsky, will join the Omnicom board.