Good morning. Another creator film has entered the chat. The Amazing Digital Circus’ finale episode grossed $19.5M in theaters during opening weekend, while Obsession and Backrooms both crossed the $200M mark—becoming the highest grossing films of all time for their respective studios. 

The YouTube to cinema pipeline is starting to look a lot more like a highway.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

This week, consulting firm Accenture’s marketing group, Accenture Song, acquired the agency arm of creator talent company Whalar.

Whalar founder Neil Waller called it “the largest creator economy transaction.” For reference: Publicis Groupe bought influencer agency Influential in 2024 for a reported $500 million and social management software company Later acquired Mavely for $250 million last year.

Between the lines: With this acquisition, one of the world's largest consulting and marketing firms with ~$70B in annual revenue is effectively declaring that creators are more than just talent for bigger marketing budgets—they’re invaluable resources for consultants themselves.

"The signals creators see through what they do day in and day out is some of the best insight that anyone can get around specific verticals, audiences, and communities," Sean Lackey, Managing Director, Americas Marketing Practice Lead at Accenture Song, told us. "That is critically important at a macro level for the partners we work with."

What it means for creators: More opportunities. The deal accelerates a shift away from one-off brand campaigns toward creators as long-term strategic partners for brands capable of engineering customer experiences, consulting on product strategy, and plugging into enterprise budgets. 

"This is not a slow evolution—this is the creator revolution, and you need to hop on board or your brand simply is not going to exist," Whalar co-CEO Jo Cronk told us.

Important details: 

Worth noting: Consulting firms have been changing the way they relate to the creator economy. Deloitte and BCG have ramped up creator research, and McKinsey recently brought on YouTube and Spotter alum Monica Khan as a senior advisor. Accenture Song's purchase of Whalar is its third creator acquisition in two years.

Soccer creator and retired professional player Brittany Wilson Isenhour has over 30 brand activations this month related to this year’s FIFA World Cup, earning half of her revenue for the year with just this event. 

Here’s what soccer’s busiest summer means for a sports creator’s business →

“People in the US specifically are a little bit more interested in soccer than they have been in the past,” Isenhour told us. 

Brands are noticing: Official FIFA partner brands like Google, Coca-Cola, and Visa (in addition to unaffiliated brands like Nutri-Grain) are cashing in on Isenhour’s reach of over 1.7M followers cross-platform. Isenhour said that she’s earning mid-six-figures during the World Cup alone, and her year-to-date earnings have crossed into seven figures.

But what do you do when the World Cup is over?

As the US hype for soccer dies down later this summer, Isenhour and her team have two goals: 

“For us, we’re building really solid relationships with these brands [during the World Cup] because we don't see them as a one off, we see them as a three-year relationship [spanning multiple tournaments],” Underscore Talent’s head of sports (and Isenhour’s manager) Abe Santos told us.

Zoom out: The FIFA World Cup will be a massive revenue driver for creators, both in the sports world and on the periphery—from Brazilian creator Casimiro Miguel earning the rights to stream the games on his own YouTube channel to IShowSpeed releasing an official song for the event. But the sports creators who treat this moment as a launchpad, not an end goal, will have the most to show for it.

Sponsored by Cannes Lions

The most influential brands, talent and experts in the creator economy will return to the French Riviera this month for LIONS Creators–with the programme’s first-ever Headline Partner, Adobe.

From curated content sessions featuring Emily Sundberg, Steven Bartlett, Zoe Unlimited, Adrian Per and more, to designated networking events that’ll place you in front of decision makers, Adobe will be hosting key moments across the week designed to support those shaping the business of influence.

Happening from June 22-26 in Cannes, France, LIONS Creators is designed to put you at the centre of the global creative marketing industry.

There’s still time to be part of it—get your pass here.

From new Instagram Story metrics to Spotify’s livestream play, here’s what creators need to know from this week’s platform changes →

Meta unveiled Instagram Plus, a $3.99/month subscription with a plethora of new features—like creating Story lists for different segments of your audience, extending Stories for up to 48 hours, and searching your Story viewer list. It also lets you view how many times someone rewatched your Story, further solidifying the notion that Instagram is a dating app.

YouTube surpassed Netflix during 2025 in total time spent on the platform per user, according to a new report from analytics firm Digital I. YouTube users averaged 99 minutes on the platform, while Netflix trailed behind at 93 minutes. Last year Netflix was ahead of YouTube in time spent per user.

Spotify is looking to double down on live events. The music streaming platform recently introduced live event ticketing, holding seats at local events for top fans, and is in talks to host livestreams of music festivals (similar to YouTube’s deal with Coachella).