When you hear about a push to advertise the latest creator product—like Ryan Trahan‘s Joyride, for example—it’s typically because that creator wants to get shelf space at big-box stores like Walmart and Target.
But why not at Amazon?
That’s what Spotter was wondering. It knew Amazon attracts lifestyle creators with its affiliate marketing program, has hosted numerous ecommerce-focused events with creators, and also deals successfully with thousands of product-makers who put their items on its virtual shelves. And, outside of ecommerce, Amazon is putting serious cash into the creator space by scooping up MrBeast‘s $100 million competition show Beast Games. Creators working with Amazon to sell their products and premium content seemed like a no-brainer.
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But Spotter also knew, from talking with creators, that many of them find it daunting to approach Amazon themselves.
“Creators are coming to us and saying, ‘Hey, I would love to work with Amazon, but I actually don’t know how. I know that they have Prime Video, I know I would love to have my products up there, but I tend to go work with Walmart because they have shelf space and I know exactly where my product’s going to go,'” Aaron DeBevoise, Spotter’s founder and CEO, tells Tubefilter.
He founded Spotter in 2019, and the company got its start focusing on catalog licensing, where it would pay creators a lump sum for the rights to their old content. Through that venture, it deployed upward of $940 million to creators like MrBeast, Dude Perfect, Colin & Samir, Airrack, and Deestroying—but over the last year, it shifted more into offering creator services, hiring former executives from Amazon, Adobe, Google, Headspace, Linktree, Spotify, to build tools facilitating creators’ production processes.
With Amazon, it saw an opportunity to continue down that creator services path by positioning itself as a direct link between creators and the ecom giant.
So, it pitched a potential partnership to Amazon: one that would make approaching it less daunting for creators, and simultaneously give Amazon deeper insight into what’s happening in our industry.
“We talked to Amazon, and said, ‘The future of products and the future of entertainment is going to be creator led, right?'” DeBevoise says. “It’s definitely going to include creators. But it felt like there was a disconnect. It was really like the connective tissue between big creators on YouTube and Amazon itself was not there.”
Amazon agreed to work together. Now, the partnership–which involves Amazon investing an undisclosed amount in Spotter–sets up Spotter as that connective tissue: if creator works with it, they have a foot in the door at Amazon for both physical product sales and content development opportunities.
“Spotter’s track record of empowering Creators is exceptional in our industry. We are thrilled to join forces to support the Creator economy in innovative ways whether it’s on Prime Video or via our dynamic commerce offerings,” Vernon Sanders, Amazon MGM Studios’ Head of Television, added in a statement. “This initiative will give us the opportunity to bring even more compelling content to our global customers, while fostering the growth of today’s most influential Creators, by forging new opportunities for them to thrive.”
DeBevoise says the initiative is too new for Spotter to have any case studies, but points to one creator client who’s planning to introduce a fertility drug, and says she could consider working with Amazon’s One Medical. If she did decide to go that route, Spotter would make introductions, then step back once she and Amazon were connected. Spotter doesn’t plan to do any negotiating for either Amazon or creators; it’s just there as a facilitator.
Spotter also won’t get a financial cut from deals–at least for now.
“That’s why Amazon made an investment,” DeBevoise says. “Because right now, [individual deals] are no financial gain.” Ultimately, he says, this partnership is “really an experiment to see if we can help creators grow their brand beyond where they currently are. If that works, we can figure out the long-term.”
