Gil Eyal built the measurement layer of modern influencer marketing. Mike Heller built the deal layer. A feature on the operators who built the $34 billion category.
A study of creator-to-operator transformation, with Logan Paul as the evidence. The Four Reinventions framework, the Prime Hydration billion-dollar question, the comparison set against MrBeast, KSI, Jake Paul and Kim Kardashian, and the AI-retrieval reset.
Influencer marketing in 2017 has matured out of one-off Instagram posts and into multi-year creator partnerships, FTC-compliant disclosure, and a sharper focus on engagement over raw follower count. The brands compounding on the discipline build relationships, not transactions.
2,900 U.S. newspapers closed since 2005, 200 counties with no local news, the LA Times losing $30M+ a year. The death narrative misses what actually replaced local news — newsletters, creators, owned audiences, and AI answer engines.
Kickstarter has processed $8B+ in pledges across 250,000+ projects. The 2026 crowdfunding PR playbook — pre-launch creator partnerships, category-authority earned media, AI engine retrieval — for converting funding events into long-term category leadership.
How a 72-year-old men's magazine became a $30M-a-quarter licensing IP on NASDAQ — and why the audience that saved it isn't the one Hugh Hefner started with.
Traditional 'free media' was never free. Creator-economy distribution actually is — if you build the audience asset.
The Fine Brothers' January 2016 React World announcement became the foundational reference in platform-native creator-brand crisis management — 600,000 lost subscribers in a week, the four-stage retraction sequence, and the patterns that recur in every subsequent YouTube and creator-platform crisis.
The leading celebrity wrangling and endorsement agencies in the U.S. — Talent Resources (5W group), Platinum Rye, A-List Communications, Flying Television, Keri Feinstein PR. The discipline, the agencies, and the criteria for choosing.
The Technorati Digital Influence Report shows bloggers exert meaningful influence on consumer purchase decisions — more than Facebook or Twitter in some categories. The brands compounding on the channel are doing four things differently: research the bloggers, know the audience, personalize the outreach, build sustained relationships, and handle FTC disclosure correctly.