I will take a break from writing about politics for this week, despite Kamala launching a Twitch channel and the DNC reaching 67 million viewers (!!!)

No…today I want to talk about chicken and why creator reps and talent should care.

Chick-fil-A announced a streaming service with family-oriented content.

And why not?

Hot Ones, Chicken Shop Date, and who can forget “No Chick-fil-A Sauce?” girl’s recent viral moment. All chicken content with incredible reach.

But outside of that coincidence, this is the fulfillment of something we creator reps in digital have been preaching for decades: all companies are becoming entertainment companies.

So what does this mean for your branded content dollars moving forward?

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Chicken Out Some New Content

Details are scant, but Chick-fil-A’s new streaming service promises at least a game show, reality content, and original animation.

Will they include creators? Probably, but not definitely.

Chick-fil-A as a brand is kind of a star unto itself.

So why is Chick-fil-A putting their content eggs in the streaming basket instead of traditional influencer marketing?

My hot take: brands focused on top-of-funnel need to own their content.

The goal here isn’t to get you to buy chicken D2C-style through a link-in-bio.

They want you to love the brand, so when you’re driving by a restaurant you’ll brave the 45 minute line to buy their food.

If instead of spending $1m on shout outs from top influencers they spend $1m making three great shows (and, of course, they do it well), they may just pull off a Red Bull and make their brand mean more to consumers than just ‘chicken’.

And then they’ll rule the roost.

The X Shareholder Files

We finally know who YOLO’ed with Elon while buying Twitter.

This, of course, was done through a court order as the ‘Freedom of Speech’ champion has never liked free speech around his matters (his flight tracker, Don Lemon’s tough interview, suing the World Federation of Advertisers for, you know, exercising their free speech).

So what does this financing crew, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Larry Ellison, and Binance, tell us about the future of X?

My hot take: Elon is surrounded by diehard, ‘get richer by any means necessary’ investors who are tacking hard-right to protect their pocketbooks.

So if you’re a creator rep and your talent doesn’t align with that brand, it will be a tough road on X.

And, despite my tone, I think this is a huge opportunity for talent that is too risque for other social media platforms.

Even Elon’s recent “What political party are you?” poll showing only 15% as Democrats is telling.

Not to mention both Andreessen and Horowitz’s full-throated Trump endorsement.

The absolute wealthiest elites know something that we all know is true: conservatism is the best way for the wealthy to get wealthier, and modern conservatism has to be fueled by non-stop culture wars.

Brat Summer Turns To Demure Fall / The Death of Irony

The ‘demure’ trend is almost a month old but seems to be growing.

Now, fashion lines are embracing the literal sense of demure, declaring this autumn a time to embrace cozy femininity.

On-trend or cringe?

My Hot Take: as cringe as it gets.

The reason the initial TikTok by Jools Lebron went viral was how decidedly non-demure her look was, and she knew it.

When a brand launches a literal ‘demure’ collection for fall, it’s the equivalent of someone getting the format of a meme wrong.

Brands, creators, and reps: don’t use an internet trend unless you’ve done your research.

OPTIMIZATION:

Get Hooked on Hooks

Once you’ve been in the industry for a while and watched thousands of pieces of content with a critical eye, you can usually tell if a piece of shortform content will succeed or fail in the first few seconds.

Yet, most creators are terrible at self-reflection.

This is your hook, or how you introduce your story and make it compelling as quickly as possible.

The fun part: this isn’t a ‘right or wrong’ thing.

A hook could always be better.

Just like the first line of a novel could always be better.

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ may have popped more if it was ‘Best times? Worst times? This was both.’

That’s why I boil hooks down to three elements for simplicity:

1. Visual: Does the first image and movement have dynamism? A simple crash zoom in the first few frames does wonders.

2. Story: Does the premise get introduced nearly immediately, and is it something that would keep a viewer watching to the end? Text on screen can go a long way in shortform.

3. Presentation: Does the performance or style of the video feel compelling? Is it cheap? Authentic? Too AI-forward?

If you work with your talent to always think about these three aspects with every video, they’ll catch some major virals.

MONETIZATION:

You Don’t Have to Marry TikTok Shop

You can just date.

If your client has a TikTok account in the U.S. (or any other whitelisted TikTok Shop country), they may have already given you the “I don’t want to be a TikTok Shop creator” speech.

And they don’t have to be.

They can add the shopping bag if they naturally include a product within their video.

They don’t even need to have a strong call to action.

They can start to see if their audience is passive or aspirational.

If fans watch your talent to be like them, they may be surprised at how well they sell.

Then, they can go from grinding brand deals to controlling their own streams of revenue.

INDUSTRY HIRING:

Fixated (Hey! That’s us!) needs a Head of Talent Brand Partnerships, then you get to hammer me about field selection choices in our CRM!

TikTok wants a Creator Marketing Lead to find new ways to put the D’Amelio’s on billboards.

YouTube is seeking a YouTube Manager, Creator Vertical if you want to find new ways to ignore creators whose accounts were hacked.

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.