Our industry has matured significantly over the last decade, and we’ve developed some norms for what creators can expect from things like ad revenue shares from platforms. But brand deals are still a murky affair, with no clear-cut, industry-wide guidance telling creators how much they should be charging, what kind of treatment they should expect, and what to do if they don’t get paid on time–or ever.
Word on the Block is out to change that. Cofounded in 2019 by Charlie Erlikh and Seth Girsky, it’s a two-sided marketplace that negotiates deals between content creators and brands, with the goal of being a kind of “Domino’s pizza tracker” for brands, and an advocate for creators.
Erlikh, who spent seven years at private equity firm Baird before getting into the creator industry, tells Tubefilter Word on the Block turns down more campaign pitches from brands than it accepts, explicitly because of “poor pay.”
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“We don’t work with brands who refuse to pay creators a fair wage,” he says. Word on the Block advises brands on what’s “reasonable,” he adds, and lets them know that “low pay is detrimental to creator excitement.”
Brands that do offer to pay creators enough (Erlikh didn’t say what Word on the Block considers a “fair wage,” but said it’s brokered deals where creators were paid anything from $50 to $40,000, and gave an example of paying $1,000 for 25,000 views on a sponsored video) can pitch their campaign on its marketplace, and creators can apply to make sponsored content on platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for that campaign. Word on the Block currently has a roster of creators in the “high tens of thousands,” Erlikh says.
Once a creator is selected for a deal, Word on the Block team members will pair up with them and walk them through negotiations, helping to nail down final pay, number of deliverables, and more. This advocacy is a core part of his company’s business, Erlikh says, because it knows creators who strike deals without a manager or other representative can run into serious issues.
“The big problem from creators is that they’re at the mercy of the brand,” he explains. “They don’t have a lot of pushback or control.”
With a Word on the Block team member as advocate, creators have someone who’ll go to bat for them if things get dicey. There are numerous other brand-creator deal marketplaces, some of them even run by platforms like YouTube, but this particular aspect of Word on the Block sets it apart from most.
Word on the Block also keeps an eye on things as the deal progresses. Once the agreement is set in stone, it switches into the aforementioned “Domino’s pizza timeline” mode where it acts as a producer, making sure the creator delivers on time and that their deliverables adhere to the brand’s requirements.
It also handles creator payment in a way that sets it apart from other marketplaces, too. Once a creator has agreed to be paid a certain amount, Word on the Block will pay out that amount as soon as the creator delivers on their part of the deal. Then it’ll be the one to chase the brand for compensation.
“We take that risk,” Erlikh says.
Word on the Block earns its revenue solely from brand clients; it doesn’t get a cut of creators’ earnings.
So far, it’s worked with brands like Morgan & Morgan, Soundraw, Temu, BrandsMart, EnviroKlenz, and Caraway. One brand has been working with Word on the Block for 16 months, and is paying “hundreds of thousands per month” to work with the creators in its marketplace. At any given moment, Word on the Block has between 10 and 15 deals actively looking for creators.
Looking at the future, Word on the Block is keen for streams. It’s built “a lot of interesting technology for Twitch,” Erlikh says, including things like rotating branded banners, automated chatbots, and custom actions (like being able to have a chatter type “#win” and have something animated come up in stream as a response). “They could type ‘#abs’ and a CEO comes up flexing his abs, for a more playful brand,” Erlikh jokes.
He says streamer reactions to these tools have been great: “Creators say it’s the most engaged stream they’ve ever had. They’re begging to do it again.” And, on the other side, “The brand is getting unbelievable engagement,” he says. “It really shows strong results, and we’re focused on this project.”
Word on the Block is a Tubefilter partner.
