Marc D’Amelio, Chief Executive Officer, D'Amelio Brands
In conversation with: Alyson Shontell, Editor-in-Chief, FORTUNE; Co-chair, Fortune CEO Initiative

CEO Initiative 2022 - The Creator Economy Playbook: How To Build A Brand (And A Fortune)

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The Creator Economy Playbook: How To Build A Brand


CEO Initiative 2022 - The Creator Economy Playbook: How To Build A Brand (And A Fortune)


when your family includes two of the biggest influencers on Tiktok, why settle for endorsing brands when you can start and sell your own. That's what the family of Dixie and charli, D'Amelio have done. The two tick talkers pulled in nearly $30 million last year and their father, Mark heads up the newly founded D'Amelio brands. The family plans to develop and launch their own fashion, beauty and lifestyle lines. Mark joins us to share his insights from the top of the creator economy with our ceo audience will delve into value proposition of top tier social celebrities and surface the opportunities and risks of building brand equity on social platforms. Please welcome Marc D'Amelio, chief executive officer of the Emilio brand in conversation with fortune editor in chief. Alison Chantelle. Alright, you guys, these conversations have been heavy, It's been a long two days. We are here to lighten the mood. We've got some Tiktok stars, the monetization strategies you all can tap into with the mastermind behind it all, Mark, um, Mark, thank you for being here with us today. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So for those of you who are not on Tiktok, um, I can tell you for and just joined Tiktok were 92 years old, cut us a break. Um, but your daughters have been on it and they have been very successful. Dixie is 21 charlie is 18. Um, as a family, you all generated an estimated $70 million over the last two years and charlie has 100 and 45 million followers on Tiktok? I have that. Right. So when did you first realize that your kids were not normal teenagers on social media very late? I thought they were very normal and they were very normal. We're just living in the suburbs in Connecticut and Charlie. In the summer of 2019, she was just posting some videos on an app called Tiktok and I kind of heard in the background and next thing you know, she had 100,000 followers and 500,000 followers and then we went out to L. A. And it's been a wild ride since then. Did your wife and you just like your ears perk up one day and be like, wait a minute, how many followers do you have? Like what, what's happening? Can we get a peek? I didn't know. Uh, I didn't know it was as big as it was just because there were other, there were other apps like vine came and then went. So I was like, it was so new that and I didn't even realize it was real at first. And then I started asking around and, and, and started to talk with people who were in social media and said, is this anything yet? And I got mixed, I get mixed Mixed answers. Some people said there's people that have millions of followers and can't move the needle selling products and there's people that have 50,000 followers and do really well. So, and so this isn't what you anticipated. I mean from what I understand you and your wife actually tried to not give them phones for a long time and not have them on social media. So what happened? No, we were we were we were we did we we, I think we got them phones and and computers pretty pretty uh early on. I was always uh I always believed like my mom always gave me a lot of freedom and with that I didn't abuse it. So I I looked at it if you if you you got to monitor it, but I gave them T Apple computers, phones, whatever. They were always pretty good with it. You guys make the decision to move to L. A. It's a family joint decision. You're like, let's give this a shot. Fame can be fleeting. Tiktok could be fleeting. We don't know. Let's go, let's go all in right now. Um you move to L. A. And then how do you start figuring out this monetization? Um Playbook for something that's so brand new. Yeah. I think one thing I've learned in business and I learned it as when I started my own clothing brand is I tried to do everything. I try to be a designer, tried to be an accountant and and I learned pretty easy pretty quickly like to get surround yourself with professionals. And I saw the red about the horror stories of parents involved in their kid's Hollywood careers and I certainly didn't want to be the person that got in the middle of that. So we hired, first was an attorney, then a business manager, then managers then, uh then we got signed with Uta as an as an agency and Uta was interesting because they weren't just looking at charlie, they were looking at all all by that time from october of 19 to january of 20 when we signed with UTA, we were all on social media, tiktok and they looked at us as a whole package and they and they signed us, my wife myself, my older daughter Dixie and charli all together. So just so everybody understands sort of how the business works. So dixie estimated to have made about 10 million last year charlie, 17.5 million. Um they were paid an estimated $200,000 per eight minutes Snapchat Snapchat episode of charlie versus Dixie um brands like amazon and Duncan pay up to $250,000 just for them to post about it. Um so that's, that's a lot. Uh and they're one of the first episodes of your Hulu show um you're presented with binders of things for all the kids to do from different platforms to different platforms to different platform and your wife stops and says like where's the time for them to be kids. So how have you balanced that in with all their business initiatives. Is that even possible? Yeah, that's extremely difficult because you're dealing with as a, as a parent, I understand that this opportunity could be short lived, I mean, um of age that I've seen, 50 charli d'Amelio, 100 charli d'Amelio before my daughter and there's probably more than that and I knew there's a, there's a very potentially short window of opportunity. So we want to go after that, but then we also want to Protect them and make sure that their mental health is fine. So I battle with that all the time. I battle with my dealing with with at the time, a 15 year old young lady who just doesn't want to get out of bed or is it, is it bigger? And I have to protect them from all the vultures and the people circling around in Hollywood and also protect them from themselves sometimes where they might not want to do something that we think is probably a great opportunity. Yeah. God, that's parenting snafu. Yeah. Well, um well there's a lot to dig into their, but um before we kind of go in that direction, I just wanted to ask you a little bit more about the playbook, um we have a lot of c suite in this room, how do you best, what's a great example of a partnership gone right with your daughters? How do you pick and choose opportunities? How do you know when they're gonna be great brand alignment? Yeah, I mean, I think first it starts off the one thing that, that we had the luxury of and the privilege of is we weren't desperate for this opportunity, it kind of came to us and with that when you, when you pick deals from a position of strength that always makes it easier. So it was basically our, our agent was just saying what charlie, what do you like? And she said I eat Taki, The next thing, they should have a talk deal and she was, she and Dixie used to drive to school together in Connecticut and they would go and get some donuts coffee every morning and those are some deals that we just willed into existence just because she really liked like the, like the brand, my husband and I also Dr. Duncan, but we don't get paid 250 k to do it. Maybe we're doing something wrong, I don't know. Um so you have a lot of ventures going on, you're taking a piece of the pie and a lot of cases um these are joint ventures, so like there's a Hollister clothing line called social Dreamer um when does this kind of teaming up with a brand in an influencer works best and what have you learned from kind of that joint partnership and joint venture? Yeah, I mean I think it works, that's that, I think it works for a lot of companies depending on who the influence for most companies, depending on who the influencer is, it's worked great. I mean we know that for Dunkin donuts, they sold out of cold brew nationwide. We know for um from, from a campaign she actually had had a drink that charlie named after her and we were hearing throughout the country that cold brew coffee was sold out because it was in that. So that was interesting. Invisalign is a publicly held company I think in 2000 ceo came out and said mentioned charlie is changing the market cap of uh of a huge company so it works and uh But it started, we just gradually did it, it started off as someone asking her to do a $50 uh post for a music uh for a song sound and then it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger to where we are now. Now you also have launched a new company called Emilio brands and I would normally be suspect because it's pre launch pre employee and has $100 million valuation um the sign of normally a disaster in Silicon Valley. However, um it seems like the money was easy to come by. What's your plan? Um what are you gonna build there? So I think I've kind of looked at at this into different buckets, I still think we should do endorsement deals with Fortune 500 companies or brands that we can help elevate them where they can help elevate us amazon is a perfect example um Duncan has also been great charlie and I just did a deal with with ford that that should be launching in the next few weeks. So those are, we're still going to continue to do those things and then we, as we did other deals, we found that there is an opportunity for us to actually start something from the, from the ground up and I have experienced with that. I started my own, you know, my own clothing brand when my wife and I first got married, um I've been very entrepreneurial and I've been involved in all types of different brands so, and, and we've learned that both of my daughters, although they're extremely polite and on set, they kind of listen to all the people around, they do know how to market to their generation and, and so I have, I have everything now, we have everything now that they didn't have when I started my clothing company, when I started my clothing, government had great ideas, great designs, I just didn't have the ability to get to the, get to the public and there was that retail barrier also that people don't talk about, you had to go if you wanted to sell the Macy's or Bloomingdale's, you had to compete with ralph Lauren and all these big companies now we can just, we have the consumer base that and we nurture them, we know how to to communicate with them. So I think we have a great opportunity to start two or three brands under this D'Amelio brands umbrella and do some something pretty cool. Is this sort of like, I mean look, the Kardashians have done this famously to extreme wealth. You have kylie cosmetics, um all the millions of brands that I do. Are you taking a chapter out of that playbook? Yeah, I think, I think whether it's Jessica, Alba Reese Witherspoon, I think they've all shown that they can create brands and, and be successful and, and I think we're probably the first ones to do it pre anything. But what's cool is we own, you know, we, I think we sold 6% we raised $6 million on $100 million valuation. We could have raised, we could have raised at a higher valuation valuation and we could have raised more money if we wanted to. But but it was more for me, it was more like shark tank. I wanted to get these incredible investors with us. Like Michael Rubin invested um Jon Feltheimer from invested, eddy cue from apple invested. We have pretty, pretty wild roster of people invested in the company. And what is the secret you think to marketing to gen Z your daughters are obviously fantastic at it. But what's the secret, I will tell you 100% nowadays its authenticity. I think, I think back 10 years ago it was more trying to stage things and trying to make things look, I think I tell this story all the time and I'm sure people haven't heard it? But as a brand guy when my daughter charlie first started doing Tiktok, what was cool about Tiktok? And I think what was why it blew up so quickly is because it was so personal. Most kids were in their bedrooms or in their bathrooms, taking videos. And as a brand guy, I would think like your room would have to be spotless and I would say, I can't, I can't believe what I'm looking at. Your bed's not made, there's clothes everywhere. And she was just like, that's what the, that's what everybody wants. So I think there is something to be said for the authenticity. And I also see it when people see dixie and charli or, or us on the street, they have this attachment to us because it's so personal. They hold us in their hands and they're watching these things and they know our dogs, they know our what our house looks like. It's just, it's pretty wild. So to answer your question in a long winded way, authenticity is number one. And um, I'm gonna open it up to questions in a little bit to be thinking, um, allowed to ask anything. Um, but I had a question about just the creator economy in general. Um, there has been the number one job, um, that teenagers these days wants, they want to become an influencer, like charlie or dixie? How long do you think that's actually sustainable? Do you think there's gonna be consolidation of the industry? Um yeah, I mean, I mean, I think it is sustainable. I think, I think all the platforms seem to be kind of trying to figure things out, but I think it's incredible. I think it's, it's amazing that you, anyone could actually just pick up a phone and, and, and if they're authentic, start to build a following and I think it's here to stay um any questions from the audience yet? Yes. one here in the front. How do you not compromise authenticity when you're selling to ford and selling for amazon and selling for Duncan and selling for whomever else can rustle up the money? Yeah, I mean that's, that's a, that's a great question. We, we think less is more so, I mean we've had a ton of opportunity for all the things that we say yes to for everyone, we probably say no to 10. So, and, and we, we've, I've done a lot of work in the behind the scenes like Hollywood is a very strange place and, and they will chew you up and spit you out and it seems like it's easy for kids to get in there, hamster wheel of just deal after deal after deal and we've put a premium on, after learning, put a premium on making sure that we're not oversaturated, that the deals that we do or things that we, companies that we like, companies that we believe in and we believe less is less is more and you know, and I go out to our team and tell them that I would much rather do a deal that I'd rather do less um than, than more and, and I want my kids and our whole family to have a whole full life. And so it's just, it's a balance and not compromising and, you know, your values and just making sure that, that we're just looking at things the right the right way question up here in the front too high. Uh, this is really interesting mary Pat Kessler from the Project Management Institute. Um I find this really interesting and personal, my niece is also a Tiktok er and probably knows your family, Katy feeney. So, um, and I know that it's led to a lot of opportunity, but I'm wondering from your perspective, what what will you do when your kids don't want to do it? You know, that's another really good question. We talked about that all the time. I mean, this is a vehicle, obviously it's a vehicle to create um, you know, for income and wealth and all that stuff, but really it's more about creating opportunity for my kids to figure out what they want to do. You know, I don't, I don't foresee them being tiktokers for, you know, for, for the next decade, I think this is a, is a way to build and I say this to everybody. I say whether you're a doctor lawyer, um I think building your platform and being able to express yourself on social media just gives you a lot of, a lot of opportunities. But I'm constantly telling my daughters like, you know, where, where do you see yourself down down the road and if we have a show on hulu and one of the things that charlie did was kind of come, she when she had an opportunity to do anything, she let the noise and everything kind of break her a little bit and she even stopped what she was an incredible dancer. She stopped dancing and she came to me and said, dad, I think I'm letting you know all this, get to me, what, what do I, what do I do? I said, do whatever you want to do, what would you like to do if you want to try singing, you want to do dancing, you want to try acting. And this opportunity gave her those options. She just released a song she's on, has been on dancing with the stars when she and my wife are on dancing with the stars right now. So for me it's all about understanding that this isn't gonna last forever and take advantage of the opportunity and making sure that they could do, find out what makes them happy going forward. So mark, you touched on this a little bit earlier, but when your family is the business, it puts a lot of pressure on everybody. Another thing I was struck by just watching the first episode of your hulu, um is, you know, in the end of the first episode, Dixie essentially has an anxiety attack, there's the bullying she did a vogue um and she got such um negative feedback if you can even call it that on social media, she really broke down as a parent. Like how do you balance like ways? Like, is this opportunity worth it? Like, and also, then how do you think the platform should do a better job combating that? So, first of all, I I look at it like, uh as parents, the noise around us, as these people are, you know, charlie's the golden goose and like we were, I can't stress enough how normal and how great our life was prior to this. We're living in the suburbs of Connecticut. Both kids are in high school, my wife and I are going out on dates on friday and saturday night hanging with friends and covid happens. We go to California and be careful what you wish for because it's been it's been a wild ride. But we constantly have these meetings of us for and we say, are we, are we happier today than we were in our little town in Connecticut and, and the story is not fully written yet. Um it's tough, you know, but I do think it's similar to if, when you have a boy or girl athlete that's incredible and and their, you know, their star pitcher or star whatever and, and it's a parent's responsibility not to push, but to kind of help them figure out this opportunity and not to waste this opportunity. And that's what Heidi and I deal with all the time. Well, thank you so much for being here with us, Mark, maybe you can find them after you've got more questions that we really appreciate it and good luck. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you.

CEO Initiative 2022 - The Creator Economy Playbook: How To Build A Brand (And A Coins2Day)