From Side Hustle to Strategy with Becky Owen

Becky : Creators are great at couple of things. They're not great at everything. And what they struggle to do, and I've spoken to a lot of creative founders, spoken to a lot of people that work with creative founders, is they struggle to self-reflect and say, what am I great at? So what am I gonna stay doing?

What am I terrible at? Oftentimes it's the finances same. I need someone to come and help me do this.

Chris: Welcome to, we Built this brand where we pull back the curtain on the people, the ideas, and the sometimes challenging process of building something that matters. Today I'm joined by Becky Owen, the Global Chief Marketing Officer, a billion dollar boy.

One of the world's leading social and influencer marketing agencies, as well as the head of 5 2 9, which was built to elevate creators to the forefront of the industry while supporting their careers and even catalyzing growth for the entire creator economy. Now, Becky has had quite the career journey prior to coming to work at Billion Dollar Boy in 5 2 9, working with companies like Meta and Disney, just to name a few.

And in this episode. We're gonna dive deep into her work as an intrapreneur with 5 2 9, as well as the company's recent research, paper Muse Volume two, the Real Impact on the Creator Economy. And this paper is all about AI and its impact on creators, marketers, and the consumer base. So if you are curious about how that impacts you, I definitely recommend checking this episode out.

And definitely checking the show notes for the link to the paper itself. It's fascinating and it's very in depth. I think you'll really get a lot out of it if you're trying to figure out where to go with marketing in this brand new year. So this is a really wide ranging conversation with a lot of hot topics to discuss.

So I'm not gonna delay this any further. Without further ado, here's my interview with Becky Owen, a billion dollar boy and 5 2 9.

Well, Becky, welcome to We Built This Brand. It's great to have you with us.

Becky : Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I'm so happy to be here.

Chris: Absolutely. It's a pleasure to, uh, to get to talk to you today about your time with being the chief Marketing officer at Billion Dollar Boy and, um, everything you're doing with 5 2 9 as well.

I'm really excited to dive into this today and, and also the report that. Man, I just, I don't wanna give too much away, but I read it and I've been thinking about it a lot since I read it, so I can't wait to just have a chat about it today. So, we'll, we'll dive right in. Typically, where I like to start is just to get to know you a little bit better.

So tell me, tell me where you got your start and what led you to Billion Dollar Boy.

Becky : I mean, this is such a good question because. In so many ways. There's things that feel so unnecessary to talk about, but I guess they're all part of the journey. I started actually in recruitment. I always start there because I never intended to add end up in advertising or marketing, and I can tell you that it was a gift to move over.

But I think for me, my career really started, I would say when Maker Studios, I dunno if you remember Maker Studios, but it was one of the first MCNs in creative marketing. It came over to Europe and I knew Renny Reman, who had done a lot of work, um, scaling another company called Go Viral. And that was when going viral, was putting your TV ad on a network of small.

Publishing sites and we disguised that as going viral. So we scaled that together. That got bought by a OL and he went over to make a studios. And it was just at the start of like, I think 2014 where creators were being interesting, like they were interesting in the market, but they weren't taken seriously.

And he asked me if I wanted to come over and do sales there, and I said, yes. 'cause I was currently doing data and that was not fun. So creators and YouTube sounded much more exciting. And so I'd say for me, my career really started there because not only was it something I suddenly realized this was something I was really passionate about, but also it was timed with the birth of a new industry.

And so my career rose. Almost at the speed of how fast creative marketing has risen. And now obviously I've been at uh, maker Studios that I did got bought by Disney and I worked there across digital partnerships across the film studios. At which point I met Meta and I was putting a lot of work on Instagram and Facebook 'cause they asked me to move over there and lead creators.

'cause no one was doing creators. There's like a. Clear commercial strategy at Meta at the time. And then at Meta I was hiring agencies all the time to do the work that we were producing. And that's when I was, um, always hiring Billion Dollar Boy. And I met Ed East, the CEO and founder. And then he was like, have you thought about coming over to an agency?

I wasn't sure to be honest with you, but he sweetened the deal. By saying there's something else though that we think you could do. We think there's a missing gap with the ecosystem and how creators are being looked after. And what if you came and you were CMO of the agency, but you also explored how to fill this gap?

And so by that point, I was like, okay, cool. That's, that's a whole different ball game. I get to build something from scratch. So I'd say in a whistle stop tour. That's it. I'd say it all starts from Maker Studios though. 'cause I feel like getting into creative marketing is really when everything unlocked for me,

Chris: when you think about the history of creator marketing, 'cause you, you, you say creator, not even influencer.

And I think that's a great way to put it because it's, it's around a long time. I remember back in the, the very first podcast I was ever a guest on the very first podcast I ever even really listened to. Back in 2006 was a guy talking about micro celebrities and he had this whole theory about how like you could be a celebrity to this very small group of people.

And at the time that was a novel concept for me. And I'm sure for you at that time it was, you know, when everything was kind of coming up, it was still a very novel concept and people were like, well, how do I, how do I get people to influence change in this area or. Byproducts. I mean, it was all, you're right, it was all very commercial driven at first.

So, um, it's a fascinating space. So tell me, tell me about that, like that early time doing the, the creator marketing. Like, what was that like? Or do you have any, any memories from that time of like, Hey, this is when it really came to me that this was gonna be the future?

Becky : I, yes. I have so many amazing memories.

I was really lucky. Maker Studios was an incredible company and an amazing people there. I always say. It was never easier, and my job every year since has become harder because credit marketing has become more sophisticated, more accountable, and budgets have increased. But we didn't know what we were doing, so we were working largely, I will say with gamers.

PewDiePie, Dan, TDM, they were huge YouTube gaming creators. And the integrations were just simple because by then there was low saturation. At that point. We didn't, we weren't consuming content from hundreds of thousands of creators. Uh, we weren't that savvy on this. Uh, so it's actually all we had to do is have a little bit of integration of gameplay on a, you know, an app.

And that was acceptable. We tolerated that as consumers, so creativity was actually very minimal, and the impact was huge because. It wasn't as saturated it is as it is today. And I think the moment that I realized that this was really the right bet for me and the co economy was gonna take off is we also managed at that time a lot of creators AdSense accounts.

So we repackaged and sold the inventory around their content and we got to see how much they were making on YouTube. And I won't say the numbers, but the numbers will shock you. Like, and I can't even imagine what there'll be now, but the fact that there was so much money going there just from audience viewership.

Like that to me said, this isn't what everyone else thought. At that time, by the way, everyone else thought it was just hooter nanny, like it was gonna disappear. It was a distraction. It was the poor man's marketing. No one took it seriously. I was very much considered an outsider from the marketing ecosystem, but when I saw these numbers, because that was audience behavior led numbers, that's when I knew that this is, this really is the future.

Chris: That's definitely, I mean, you had the insider track, so that's gonna be very helpful in, in knowing what's to come with that. So that's really cool. So then that gross, now you're where you're at at Billion Dollar Boy, you've also founded five two nine. I would call that, you know, you're an. Intrapreneur, you've built something within another business.

It's like, you know, kind of like a sub-business within the business. You're not going out on your own and building something else. So tell me, tell me what is 5 2 9 and, and in fact, let's back up a step further because we've mentioned Billion Dollar Boy and there may be some listeners going, I have no clue what this is.

So tell us what Billion Dollar Boy is first.

Becky : Great question. So, billion Dollar Boy is one of the largest. Social agencies that works in the creator and social space. So it's been around, this is its 12th year in operation. Uh, it's largely, uh, north America and Europe. We've got offices all over Europe, London, and New York.

And we work with the leading brands in the world to help build those brands on social. And our belief is now, if you wanna win on social, you have to be creator first. Be that building your brand with creators in collaboration with them. Or looking at how creators are actually doing it and getting those models and those, um, modes of operation and applying them to your actual brand output.

So that's what Billion Dollar Boy is. We, we consider it now a bit of a group. So we have the agency which meets all the needs of the brands. And then we have, and I love how you, what did you call it? Inter Entrepreneur?

Chris: Intrapreneur.

Becky : Intrapreneur. I love that because. It has actually been a gift to be an entrepreneur because I've been able to forge something, have all the anxiety of building something from nothing, but have this nice comfort blanket of the fact that I am a part of a group and there's lots of people I can talk to when I'm losing my mind.

But yeah. 5, 2, 9. If billion dollar boy meets the needs of brands, 5, 2, 9 meets the needs of creators. I can go into 5, 2, 9 if you like. I just wanted to pause.

Chris: Yeah, that's a good pausing point because it kind of shows you the, the, I guess the yin and yang of how your business is, is built and created. So tell me, tell me a little bit more about 5 2 9, you're, you're helping with the creator side.

Are you helping with new creators? Are you helping with existing, is this like a way to develop your pool? Like how, how do you see Five to nine? Tell me a little bit more about it.

Becky : So 5 2 9 was for me, the drive was born when I was at Meta, so I was leading creator innovation and solutions there. And I was working with all the biggest brands.

And my job there was to help them crack creator marketing. And so I'd work with the CEOs and CMOs and filter down to the teams, and we devised the systems that they should build internally to really get the most of this. And part of that is we would do the campaigns with them as well to ensure. They were set up.

So in that time, I worked with hundreds of creators on so many different campaigns. And what I noticed was I was in this incredible world of meta where I had so many opportunities, so many perks in my career to support me working with the biggest brands in the world that had so many opportunities and perks and systems.

And then I was on the phone to creators who were anxious alone. Panicking. They had all this responsibility of massive, massive companies bearing down on them saying, do this, do that the other, and they're on their own in their bedroom and they're freaking out. And I realized that the only reason I have my job is because of creators.

This industry meta is propped up because of creators, yet there is zero infrastructure or support. Given to them. And so I wanted to do something at Meta when I was there and you know, there were things that we could do that were more guiding principles, but because of Meta's stance that, you know, the people operating on the platform want their responsibility, I couldn't do what I wanted to do.

So five two nine was really born out of this. Gap and this hole in the credit economy that I was like, let's close the gap. Like everybody else can't get all this infrastructure and support and security. And then the people that make it possible are totally isolated on, on their own. And so that's what we did.

We did a ton of research, what are the needs of creators and you know, we really found that it was structural. A lot of the anxiety, the fear, the kind of. When the role becomes overwhelming is because there's no system structure or process surrounding them, and then the ones that we're trying to slap onto them are from other industries entirely.

And this is a brand new industry. It's got its own rules. It's a totally new beast, and we have to create the rules. For the credit economy. So that's kind of the impetus of 5 2 9 and why I was like specifically passionate about it. And then Ed, billion Dollar Boy, he saw that there was this big gap as well.

He didn't know what it was. He just said, there's something here, can you just work it out? And I was like, well, yes, because I'm passionate about this. And then it's been two years. And it's been a wild ride, but it's, it's, it's been incredible and the work that we've got to do with incredible creators, like we've had 350 creators come through our spaces, our events, our funding in 2025, which has just been incredible.

Chris: Wow. I, I can identify with that because in doing the podcast production side of things, one of the early. Things we ran into was people who said, I've got sponsors. How do I deal with sponsors and what, what can we do to like manage that and handle that? And those challenges come up for young creators once you start hitting a certain level of awareness in an industry and all of a sudden it's like.

I don't even know if I'm promising in something that's fair or if I'm taking advantage of them or you know, what's going on here. And it could be a very challenging place for any creator. We've definitely helped a few walk through that, that chasm of, oh, how do I get my first 5,000, 10,000, $50,000 deal?

And those are. Those are scary moments for those people. Like they don't know what's gonna come of it. They don't know if they're really promising what they can promise, and you know, they, they need to make money on it too. So like, all those things are things you don't think about when you just start a podcast as a hobby or for, you know, a very personal, passionate reason.

And all of a sudden you're faced with. Business responsibilities.

Becky : I know. And the interesting thing with that, the charging model, you know, I saw a lot of fees when I was at Mesa and I either saw people were overcharging, like, good for you, or surprisingly severely undercharging themselves because they were so afraid to claim their worth.

Like if someone was looking at them. That was enough. They were so excited that they got someone's attention and they were giving this stuff away, like, don't undervalue yourself. And I think that's quite common for those that are just on those cus in those cusp areas of making it.

Chris: Yeah. I always, I always try to encourage people if, if you find yourself sending out a price and you get an immediate, okay, you've probably done something wrong or you could probably ask for more on the next pitch.

And I think it's just a matter of figuring out where that limit in that line is. But yeah, that's. That that, yeah, I've seen that for sure too. So tell me, where did the name 5 2 9 come from? Because I think of when I think of. 5, 2, 9. My brain flips it to nine to five. You know, I'm from East Tennessee where Dolly Parton is.

So I hear working nine to five and that, yeah, that's just where my brain goes. So tell me, what is 5 2 9? Why that name?

Becky : So it's inspired by nine to five. I cannot take credit. Alex Williamson, we have to credit him for it, but it is about turning your five to nine. To your nine to five. So your five to nine is technically it's your hobby hours.

So when you clock off and you get to do the stuff that you love or you're crazy and you're getting up at 5:00 AM and you're doing the stuff you love before your 9:00 AM So it's about how do we help creators turn the hobby hours into their nine to five AKA? How do you make it sustain you financially?

It's very, I mean. Names are funny, aren't they? Because you build them from a very intellectual, thoughtful place, but they're just also, it's just a collection of numbers, but there is a very clear theory why people call it lots of different things. We also just thought it look cool on a sign, so,

Chris: and I noticed it's TWO too.

It's not TO. So is that. The number two important as well.

Becky : You know, there's a, it's a club, right? It's a community, it's a gathering of people. And we looked at what are other really cool places out there and how do they structure their names, and how do you have something that's literal but also ambiguous?

Like we have these really cool hats. That just that have the 5 2 9 on it. That's our logo, but also it's kind of a logo that you want to wear because it does, it's not saying like food to go or whatever. It's not a literal articulation of the product or service. So we wanted to have the kind of meaning of hobby hours to your main hours, whilst also feeling consumer friendly and like you'd actually wanna wear this logo on your body.

Chris: He kind of brands it more than just saying it Exactly and being blunt about what the title of the name is. I get ya. When I was outta college and working, I had a friend who was an artist and we, we joked for a while about building a studio together and when we looked at studio names for art, art galleries, art studios, everything was like, I remember one Gallery 21 C or.

Art Gallery 39 40 A and I was like, why don't we just name our, our gallery letters followed by numbers. Or numbers followed by letters or something like that. And yeah, so I, I get it, that that clicks for me. I get the brand you're going for there. It's that kind of cool feel.

Becky : Yeah, I think it's just something that we'd, we would like people to want to associate with that doesn't feel too on the nose and literal, like, you know, Exxon Mobile or something like that.

Chris: So you've got the name, you've got this business. Where did you first receive what I call the moment of validation? That's that moment where you know, okay, this isn't just an idea, this is something that's really gonna work for our business. Where was that for you? So

Becky : I mean, for 5, 2, 9 specifically, I would say one of our first partnerships with Microsoft.

And the kind of aha moment was that they wanted to create the opportunity around 5, 2, 9. So we kind of went into pilot phase for the first year and then gathered kind of momentum, started speaking to people and it was when people, different people and different brands. There's some that I can't talk about right now saying we are gonna design the need.

To meet and partner with you because we didn't realize we needed it, but we're seeing that, that we are now, and I think that's a very one. It's very difficult when you're building something brand new because you are predicting a consumer behavior and a market behavior, and I felt very clear that that's where everything was heading.

I've been on the inside, I've seen all the signals. And the aha moment has been when, definitely when Microsoft and LinkedIn Substack have all come to us and said, we wanna find the ways to partner with you and we are gonna create the opportunity because you are key. And the Microsoft one actually was specifically amazing because.

We were a named partner, so it was 5 2 9 and Microsoft. And so when you think about it on the other way, with Billion Dollar Boy, the agency, you know, we make everybody else look good. That's the job we're, you don't even know we're there if we're doing our job well unless you're on my LinkedIn, you don't know billion dollar Boy was there.

You just know that it was great work. Whereas 5, 2, 9, when Microsoft said we want our logos next to each other, the brand, the co-branding together is. What we wanna bring to the market. Uh, we did it in New York. That was a massive aha moment because that's a major, major brand wanting to be side by side with you.

Chris: Yeah. That, that's gotta feel good too.

Becky : Yeah, for sure.

Chris: You've taken all that time. I'm sure you have some pictures of that, those logos together and things like that.

Becky : Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I've actually, you probably can't see it, but they're on my bookshelf behind me as well.

Chris: Yeah, see, I just, I, I just knew, I just, I could see it back there.

No, I'm kidding. But I don't have that big of a monitor, but, but that's really cool.

Becky : Yeah, that's a five to nine one. I dunno if you'd like to know the billion dollar boy one.

Chris: Yeah, go right ahead. I'd love to hear the one for Billion Dollar Boy as well.

Becky : I think so there's two, I would say one when I wasn't a billion dollar boy, but I was hiring billion Dollar Boy.

And I think it's interesting 'cause it's an aha moment of a few agencies in the economy and it was COVID. And so I was at Meta during COVID. Obviously everything went into panic stations with advertising and marketing, and everything was rethought and the worst case scenarios were planned out. And I remember being on the other side of the platform being like, hang on, creators.

Creators are the key. This is how we continue doing what we're gonna do. And then interestingly, conversely, that's what Billion Dollar Boy. Identified and saw. So create a marketing moved, I would say significantly in COVID from a silo, a Bolton, to your mainstay. And since then it's had this like uptick of trajectory.

So I think that was a massive aha moment. And billion dollar Boy was there and available and kind of really got. Really grasped that. And then I think more recently, I will say 2025 has been huge for us. We've won like some really exciting and humbling Agency of the year awards. We won Adweek Social and Influencer Agency.

You're the ward and And these are ones we enter them, right? Everyone enters them and you just hope that you know who you are up against. Like some incredible powerhouses and, and when you're seen to stand up shoulder to shoulder with them, I had to say it is those moments that are aha moments now, it's like being seen to be equal to some of these really amazing social agencies, massive agencies that just dominate the industry.

Those are real aha moments for us.

Chris: No, I, I totally get that. There's something about winning some recognition for your business that just takes you to another level, makes you think about things in a different way. I mean, I can just on a personal level, relate where I had a craft beer podcast for years and we ended up winning best podcast in our region for two years in a row, and we were just like.

Whoa. We won something and me and my co-hosts were like, we've never won anything like this before. This is amazing. So it's just, yeah, it feels, I understand that feeling, I guess, is what I'm saying there. I can see how that's a huge win for you all. So congratulations on that, by the way.

Becky : Thank you. Jill Awards are really weird because I think people either hate them or love them.

I think some people, and I understand like some people have disdain, like chasing, like, are you chasing the award? Are you chasing good work? But. Personally, I believe they all can't come if the, the work isn't good. But also I think about it for the team at Billion Dollar Boy, that it's very rare that you have a moment where you actually feel really good about the work that you're doing.

And I think your example there, you're doing it out of passion, right? You're doing it out. Love the viewership numbers. I'm sure feedback from your community was really sustaining, but you wanna be the best you do. I say you are the best. That's human and you work so hard and you give your all, and there are days when you just think, why am I doing this?

This is grueling or thankless or hard, but it is moments when you think, oh my gosh. Like, okay, we're doing it and we're actually pretty good. It is. It is a really great moment.

Chris: Yeah, I think, I think people do chase the awards. That can be the challenge. In the inverse of that too, of, I know especially locally, there have been, you know, like the ADDIE Awards and things like that that we do locally here in the states, and they're, they're big for the region.

Like the, the agencies make it a big deal where it's like, well, if you don't win an ADDIE this year, that's a bad thing. And it's like job performance related as opposed to just being something that you should be proud that you put in the effort and you got something in return for it. So. Yeah, that can definitely become the negative side of that.

So let's, let's dive in just a little bit more. I want to get to the report soon. You, you talk a lot about how five to nine is helping, you know, creators turn their, not five to nine, into their nine to five. How does that translate? Like who do you see be successful in these programs and, and how often do you see people burnout in these programs?

If, if you can talk to that.

Becky : Yeah, it's really interesting and I've, I've actually been thinking about it a lot because I'm seeing so much, there's a lot of chat right now on LinkedIn about creators of the new entrepreneurs and creators, the new brand builders, and yes and no, and I would say the last year I've changed my thoughts.

On it. Uh, so I think 2024, I might have answered it slightly differently to how, you know, I've been around 350 creators this last year in the US and the uk. I would say only a few creators actually, percentage wise, want their own brand. What they actually want is to be more influential in brand building.

That's the more common thing. So you'll have some really ambitious individuals that want it because. For two reasons. One, they've got a great idea and they're entrepreneurial and they deserve it. Another is, everyone else is doing it. Am I an idiot if I don't do it? And then you have this other massive group that's saying like, I get my passion and my topic.

I get my community. I have so much intelligence and insight. Give me a bigger seat at the table brand because I can help you. That's actually the entrepreneurial spirit that we're seeing. I'm seeing more of, but then you are seen as groundswell and it is a significant number. It's just not every single creator, which I feel like we're just starting to say of creators that, that want to launch brands or feel like they should turn whatever they, they have into a lasting legacy.

And the the biggest pitfall that we see here is that creators are great at couple of things. They're not great at everything. And what they struggle to do, and I've spoken to a lot of creative founders, spoken to a lot of people that work with creative founders, is they struggle to self-reflect and say, what am I great at?

So what am I gonna stay doing? What am I terrible at? Oftentimes it's the finances. Same. I need someone to come and help me do this because I am not the, the one trick pony, and that's when they really fall over themselves is they don't identify their strengths and weaknesses and they don't get support and then it fails.

And I think that. This kind of belief that as long as you have an audience, you can build a brand and you can sell a product on your own back 'cause you've done so much already on your own. That belief is kind of the kind of a red herring and a lot of creators have been burnt by that.

Chris: Yeah, I could definitely.

Definitely see where that stalls people out and causes people to fail, especially when you're just, it's something as a side hobby that you know, or a side hustle that turns into this giant monster that you now have to control. And, and we've seen online, like I feel like the trend last year, especially early in the year, was, I'm quitting YouTube.

And I'm stopping doing this to the point where everybody made it. I'm quitting YouTube video. I don't know if you noticed that or not. Maybe. Maybe. I'm thinking of 2024, but I feel like it was a lot

Becky : the, was it the poster image where they're crying, I'm quitting and, yes.

Chris: Yeah. And it became like an April Fools joke and you just had to watch it because you were like, man, why is Marcus Brownley quitting?

Like, what is he? Oh no, he's not. He's just not doing that one thing anymore.

Becky : Or he is a bit fed up because it's really hard. And it's harder than anyone realized.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, creator burnout's a real thing. And I mean doing it all the time by yourself. And we've seen clients that have, you know, tried to do so much that eventually it's just like, I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders if I don't finish this.

And being able to put them in a position where they can feel supported and makes a huge difference.

Becky : For sure. A couple of things came to mind there. We, um. I don't know if you know Grace Beverly, she's a serial entrepreneur. She's got like four or five brands, really successful creator, and I asked her, you know, do you think it's easier launching a brand as a creator because you've got your community baked in?

I think Kim Kardashian recently said on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, she doesn't know how she would launch a brand. She didn't have social, so is it easy now? And she said, it's so much harder. Because there's no grace period and everyone knows you, sees you waits for you to fail. So if you think about me launching 5, 2 9, I actually say to my team, there was a thousand roads that we could walk down.

Two of them were right. We probably had to knock off those 998 before we found the two. But it's okay 'cause no one's looking and it's very different for creators. So that's it. It is really hard and it's very personal, and there's no, I mean, I think as a founder that you are weirdly connected to it anyway, but I think it's even harder on your creator.

And then the other thing is, you know, creators, they are entrepreneurial and they are doing more with brands. They absolutely are. Uh, they're getting equity investment, like they're getting like ca they're sitting at the cap table, like there is. There's other ways that we're seeing that creators are becoming dominant in this industry other than just launching a brand in their own right.

And I think that's the pivot that I've seen, and that's what we're starting to help creators understand is like, what's your longevity here? You don't have to have your own brand to have longevity or success as a creator. There are other ways you can be influential in brand building and that. So I'd say that's a pivot that we've seen in 2025 and what we're going into 2026 is that's what we're really helping creators with.

Chris: That's interesting. Yeah. I hadn't thought about taking equity, but I guess a lot of times these creators now are partnering with newer brands, newer technologies, newer solutions, and so there's a sometimes a risk to their brand to take it on. So why not get some equity out of that to be the face of a.

Whatever that technology or whatever that solution is, that they're, you know, presenting to people, whether it's something as simple as AI, or I say simple as ai, something as complex as ai or something as simple as like, you know, a new camera lens or something like that.

Becky : But it benefits the brand because they're moving from transactional one-off deals to like this creator is now intrinsically invested in the health of my business.

So it's twofold. It creates long-term career health for the individual and they get to. Exercise their entrepreneurial spirit in a safer way, and then the brand themselves. You know, there is a, you know, transactional cost that can happen with marketing and creators kind of rotating through. So it's, it's a really smart way that this industry's starting to evolve to

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Well, let's move on because you, you all recently did a study called Muse Volume two, the real impact, uh, on the Creator Economy. And like I said, I got to read through pretty much all of this. I think it's like a hundred pages of like a, it's, it's very long, but you know, they're, they're, they're very colorful pages with lots of pictures, so that made it easy.

Um, hopefully that helps.

Becky : That was the goal, Chris. We entertain you every step of the way.

Chris: Yeah, it kept me, it kept me drawn in and so I found it really fascinating because there's just like, AI is so new. I mean, it's been around for longer than I, I keep feeling like last year was the big year for ai, but like.

Really, it's been the last two to three years. And so seeing that growth, seeing that change, and seeing what you all have tracked, I have found really fascinating. And then I've also seen since, you know, reading the report, things that are corroborating what you're saying, and also some things that might be counter just in personal, an we'll call it anti data.

It's not nearly as detailed as what y'all did, but we'll get into it. But my initial takeaway from the report is that there's a huge gap between the consumer sentiment for AI and the creator and marketer. You know to that are taking on ai. We've even seen this recently. We had a AI company come to us and they were talking about doing a podcast and their whole business was doing AI assets for companies.

And we see, we see that marketers want use it, creators want to use it to make their job easier. And I think that. In that respect, it becomes a challenge because the consumer doesn't always want it. When it's obvious. When it's there, that flag gets raised. So I guess like before we dive in too deeply, when we talk ai, are we just talking about generative AI in the sense, are we talking about generative ai, like video and photos and text?

Or are we talking about AI in some other context here? I just wanna make sure I don't get too, so in this one,

Becky : it's specifically how it's showing up in advertising the credit economy. We do have different ways that we've. We talk about it in advertising, there's the quiet ways that it's helping behind the scenes, and then there's the really visual ways that it's helping.

And I think the consumer, you know, sentiment it very much is around the visual way that it's helping.

Chris: Because that can look really fake or, you know, lead to a lot of suspicion, you know, celebrities using it or allowing their likeness to be used. I think y'all used the example of, who was it? Jake Paul doing everything that he's done that was just, yeah.

Crazy that someone would go, yeah, you can use my likeness to do whatever you want with it.

Becky : It's brilliant though, I have to say like the day that it happened, at first I was like, oh man, I bet he's annoyed. Like. He is like in all these ridiculous scenarios. Then you have to remember it's Jake Paul, and then he was part of it all.

Like I ha like, it was just brilliant. I loved all of it because everyone was talking about it, I don't think in the right way, but everyone was talking about it. So that's some good Mark.

Chris: You said that your data shows, one thing that I found interesting was that it showed that creators and marketers are still very bullish on ai, even though consumer sentiment has seemed to fractured, you know, how do you explain that gap?

Becky : Well, I think with anything in marketing, advertising, social, I do think we kind of always have this pendulum swing where I think we get really excited and I think marketers. We get very, very excited. We get shiny object syndrome and we wanna jump on whatever's gonna make our job feel more interesting, or it's driven by panic that we're gonna be outdated and redundant and on the shelf.

So I think what happened is, and I, I absolutely did this, is we all jumped on it and we wanted it everywhere and anywhere, and we wanted to prove that we got it and we understood it and we're smarter than you. And I think we pushed the pendulum all the way. As as far as it can go in terms of current capabilities.

And then what happened is it saturated everything? I think what was very interesting is even meta releasing meta vibes, we push it so far and that consumers were not ready for it and so we just oversaturated them and so now the pendulum is swinging all the way the back. This happens all the time.

Eventually it's just gonna find its middle ground. But I think us as marketers, we just shoved it as far as it could go. Partly because we love new things, partly because we're anxious and consumers just didn't want it. And was it, you know, too soon for the technology? I don't know, but I just think we're in the massive recalibration phase.

I think it's normal. I think AI isn't going anywhere. I just think we just gotta recalibrate. A little bit before we get this kind of boring, normal, I think around ai.

Chris: It just, it's crazy to me that this is last year, it feels like it's years of information and technology advancing so quickly that it's just like, holy cow.

That was just last year that, you know, chat, GPT came out with this model that allowed everybody to have like Studio Ghibli effect, right? And all of a sudden that became overused. Oversaturated Disney now is partnering with chat GPT, which. We hasn't even come out yet, and I'm a little afraid for that, but you know, when they allow their likenesses and their art to be used, it's

Becky : both.

It's, I, I mean, yeah, say when I was at Disney and like the, um, sponsor, the people that license the ip, that floor at Disney, they're gods because that's a hundred percent profit's, the most protected part of the business. They're the heroes of among the heroes. Like if you talk to anyone at Disney, like who are the gods?

It's the people that monetize the IP because it's their most valuable asset and it's profit, profit, profit,

Chris: it's, it's wild. But what that has led to, and, and again with the Disney thing, I think it'll be something similar. We'll see this trend of um, basically the sea of sameness where everything just kind of looks the same kind of.

Feels the same, and it's gonna feel less authentic if you use that Studio Ghibli look or the new, you know, maybe you're hanging out with the Disney princesses on a cruise or something, you know, look, that's gonna be whatever that popular video trend will be like the one going around right now where people are doing movie set to movie set with, you know, different celebrities that they've always wanted to meet.

All those things are just. Leading to this sea of sameness. So in my opinion, you know, this is one of the driving factors in why consumers don't trust AI or get tired of AI now versus a few years ago. What, what do you think about that?

Becky : Yeah, I think so. I think I've got, I guess, a bit more of a complex answer to it that I really do feel like the sea of sameness came from the promise that AI could make all of us creatives.

And I think it tapped into this like frustrated artist in many of us. Like the only thing that held me back from being an artist is that my hand can't do the work. But I can type it and now I'm an artist and I think it maybe exposed this kind of weird arrogance that we all thought that we could create now and everyone should see our work.

And on mass we've been exposed as a world of people that just are not that interesting. When it comes to creating, we're not that creative. So in, in many ways when people are saying it's threatening artists. So I think it's shown how precious and rare true artistry is. 'cause the sea of sameness comes from just lazy prompting.

And I work with an incredible, um, AI filmmaker called o Omar Karem, and he did an experiment for me. He's great. I mean, he's off the wall, he's an ex copywriter. He knows how to. Bring things to life in a very unique way. He used like three or four different tools and wrote in like he was doing a deodorant ad, wrote the prompts all slightly differently and the output was all exactly the same.

So the sea of sameness really has come from the fact that I think we all were just so arrogant to think that we were artists now because we've got chatty BT on our phone, and it's just highlighting the fact that AI is not the workhorse that we think it is when it comes to creativity and true imagination.

Real negotiation. I mean, that's that whole thing of how many prompts did it take to do the Coca-Cola ad when actually if you just set up and did a two day filming session, would it have been, you know, a lot less painful? So I think that's where the sea of sameness is coming from, and I think we can't, we need to stop being so arrogant.

With what we think we can do on our own, our artists,

Chris: I saw a, um, a YouTuber recently do a video where he compared like, he's like, here's the Coca-Cola ad. He replicated it, shot for shot, doing AI by himself over like two days. He, he themed it differently. He didn't, you know, copy coke. Exactly. It was all about cameras and stuff like that.

But I mean, what he did was not like, you could tell there was more that no more work that went into the Coke had to a degree, but not much difference and yeah, that's just crazy that. One person can have that impact versus, you know, an entire team of people working around the clock to create things. Now granted, that was also created by Koch, so I'm sure there were approvals and all type, you know, you know, the PR and marketing process behind the scene.

For a big video project like that, it's

Becky : storyboarded forever fast and for sure. I, I think also that the CocaCola lab was so interesting because it's almost like its strategy was just ai. Like the strategy was ai, the strategy wasn't a feeling, a concept, a story like, you know, we wanna tell this story about our brand, the strategy of that Coca-Cola ad, because it wasn't.

The best was it's made with AI though. That's why, that's why people are gonna watch this ad is 'cause it's made with ai

Chris: and just, just from a personal level, Coca of course is a big American brand and I don't, I don't live too far from where. You know, the first bottling plant of Coca-Cola ever was. But you know, there's a lot of sentimental aspects between Christmas and Coca-Cola over the years.

Just the Santa Claus with a Coke bottle is so iconic. I think the fact that they've done AI ads around Christmas is also a big part of the problem. They do it around a holiday season when we wanna see something emotional and sentimental, and then what we get is this AI ad that doesn't look great. And I think that that's, that's also part of the problem.

If they had experimented another time of the year where people weren't paying attention, I think it probably would've gone over a lot better.

Becky : Yeah, and I also think just as you're talking, you know, there's KFC have been very honest about their use of ai and you know, they've kind of merged AI and you know, real creativity.

But I guess kind of to your point, they've used it irreverently in very experimental ways and they're not. Damaging a property that we love. And actually, as you say that, you know, we've seen a lot of marketing missteps recently around properties that people love so much. Logo changing, like all that stuff, like the heritage, the stuff that we connect with when we change it for no reason.

You lose, you kind of stretch a brand too far outside of why people love it. And I agree. I mean, here in London, like everyone says Christmas starts when you see the Coca-Cola ad. There's also a John Lewis ad, but you know. Yeah.

Chris: And what if John Lewis was now ai?

Becky : Well, the Brits. There'd be an uprising.

Chris: Exactly. Exactly. That's a, that that is a that is a great point. Um, and you mentioned branding. I mean, you talk about uprisings this year with, um, cracker Barrel.

Becky : Cracker Barrel is the one I was thinking of. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. I, I had a feeling that's where you were, what you were alluding to, and again, being a southerner.

That's just, you know, part of traveling in the South is stopping at a Cracker Barrel. I don't know if you've been to one yourself, but you'll know it's a very kitschy experience and the fact that they wanted to make it look like the inside of a Pottery Barn and not a Cracker Barrel. It just everything about the design changes they wanted to do and everything else, like, you know, you've gotta leave some danger.

In a cracker Barrel, there has to be a giant saw where it's rusted to death hanging up like 50 feet in the air. And you know, there has to be all these things that make it feel homey and local. That's why people go there is it feels comfortable and you take that away and. You take the man and the cracker barrel literally out of the drawing and what do you even have?

Yeah,

Becky : it's really interesting 'cause we've had quite a few, I feel in the last couple of years, where brands have really stretched their identity so far in the hope of modernization and future proofing, that they totally alienate their existing consumer. And it's a really interesting case of how far do you need to stretch to main, just make sure you're not outdated.

'cause that's the biggest fear I think, more so than ever is as, as consumers. We want the comfort of what feels real and what we remember and what's nostalgic and isn't maybe digital or cold or copy and repeat. I, it is, it is really interesting what's happening right now and I do think it's driven by a lot of people feeling.

Nervous that are we gonna be outdated soon and what's the next innovation that's gonna come around the corner and come, you know, Uber, like what's the next Uber that's gonna destroy whatever.

Chris: We've worked with startups for years, so there's always, you know, we are like this or we are the next that in technology.

And right now everything is like, we're the next open ai. We're the next unicorn in that field. And yeah, AI becomes quite big. So to that point, what is some practical guidance for adopting AI responsibly? Protecting this creativity and consumer confidence, what, what do you all see as the important things to think about?

Becky : I think, to be honest, it comes down to a very simple role, which is, is it genuinely helpful right now, is AI genuinely helping us do something and is it useful and is the use. Clear from a consumer, the creator, and the brand if, and that's, I think where we've lost it a little is we've been using it in a way that we're not sure if it's useful.

And that use can be, is it entertaining, is it better? Have I done something that I could not afford to do or is physically impossible to do? So therefore I've created something really exciting. Is it helping me do things faster? Like it has to have use baked into it. Ai, using AI alone is not the strategy.

So I think if you can't identify why you are using it, um, outside of efficiencies, because also that's a bit of a red herring that's coming from, like I've spoken to quite a few CMOs and they're saying to me the pressure. From the business is to use AI to cut costs because it makes everything, you can do the same but faster with less people.

Not that use, but you, you've really gotta think about how is this useful for the consumer that's gonna watch it for the person who's making it and for us as a brand. And if you can't answer that it, you're probably just using it out of panic. And so walk away.

Chris: That is a great way to put it because there's this fear of like, oh, it's nice and shiny and, and I can use it to help me come up with ideas or design this thing and then.

It ends up, you know, taking you more time than you would've done otherwise to get it done. I've had multiple examples of that just in trying to use it for different things here at Humble Pod of like, oh, well I can use it to automate my, my email workflow in the morning and check my emails for me. And then I find out that, oh, chat UBT again disconnected from Google and it gave me, I kid you not, it gave me imagined emails.

In an imagined schedule because it didn't have the information. Instead of telling me it didn't have the information, it just made it up and it's like, here's your schedule for the day. You have a call with Acme Company, and I'm like, I do not have Acme Company anywhere. What are you talking about?

Becky : That's wild.

The other thing that I, I've noticed and I've had to kind of be really strict on myself on this is if I know something to be right and then chat, GPT tells me the opposite at first. I defaulted to well chat GP t's, right? And I'm wrong, which is the problem, like chat. GBT doesn't know it all. And I actually was chatting to chat GPT over Christmas when it did my 2025 wrapped.

And I was asking like, what do the top users like do? And it actually said like, you know, they do the work separately and they put it in and they ask, what's the weaknesses here? Like, are there any holes here? And I think that's really important. I think if we just outsource everything, I think we risk making ourselves more stupid or or risk creating insecurities around our own instincts.

And specifically in marketing. Marketing is all instinct. Like it is. Like you can make a data system or whatever around marketing as best you can, the best marketing you'll ever see. You can tell came from somebody had an amazing instinct that no one else had. So, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's an aid, but it's not, it's not replacing anything like we thought it would back in 2022.

Chris: Yeah. I always get scared when I use it for larger projects or things where it's like, I wanna create an outline. Like, I'll be completely honest, I used it for this interview.

Becky : Don't worry, we'll do.

Chris: Uh, we probably do. And, and you know, the thing that I get scared about when I do that is it creates detailed questions.

And if I didn't write it, I don't think about it the same way as if I wrote it myself, if I did it myself. And I have to remind myself that like, it's not always helpful to have chat GPT. 'cause when I first did it, it dumped a bunch of stuff. I ended up rewriting half of what, what I was given by chat because I was like, this just doesn't.

Flow, it doesn't make sense or I'm not gonna remember to ask this question in this way 'cause it's hyper-specific and I've gotta verify everything that it quoted and everything that it said. And it's just, it's very frustrating at times. But it can be useful. It did save me some time and, and where I really have used it.

Efficiently, at least personally, is meetings, being able to come out of a meeting and go, Hey, what are the key notes from this meeting? What are the key highlights? Did Becky say anything that I need to remember for our interview so that I don't trip over myself or say something I shouldn't say? You know, those things are really helpful.

But yeah, it's just a, it's a wild tool that can be overused. Um, I mean, we're even talking about AI psychosis now as a thing. Executives, which is the wild thing. CEOs are starting to come down with AI psychosis because they're just like, oh, well Chachi BT said this is the best thing to do. Oh my gosh.

Becky : Yeah.

Well, I think that's it. It everyone says it's the quality of what you put in. Because also, you know, in that example, for example, like you are here, Chris, because you've built a podcast based on your natural ability to interview people, craft a story, and so. There's remove, like remove the heavy lift, right?

So that the good, the stuff that I'm really good at, I can just focus on that. I just think the problem is chat, GBT or whatever you're using always wants to do more. It's like, should I do this then for you? And like, oh well, okay. Alright. And we just have to remember that we are, there's only one of us. We are not gonna turn into a computer.

I voice note it now. I, I put in as much detail as possible and then I say to it, don't rewrite, don't reformat. Don't assume my meaning. Just help me structure this so that it's just a little bit more linear or a little bit more robust. Are there any weaknesses? Is there any research that can help me make this a little bit better?

But we have to contain it because I think it's gonna make us. Less impactful or at worst case, crazy. So I don't know.

Chris: Yeah, it can definitely, it can definitely do that. Or or worst case, you know, waste a bunch of time. I just as an experiment, used it for a full script on a podcast where it was just a solo episode we did recently and the amount of stuff I had to go back and redo.

Just because it was like it imagined, like I gave it the scripts and it still imagined stuff for me because I said I needed it at a certain length. It pulled excerpts that didn't exist and just, yeah, it was wild. We ended up making a really good episode out of it and I was really proud with the end result.

But like the amount of time that that. Just the same time as if I would've done it myself.

Becky : And also the emotional frustration because sometimes it's like talking to a toddler. It's like asking a toddler to write your dissertation is that would be really annoying to do, and that sometimes I get really irate with it.

So I don't want to give that emotional labor to chat GBT.

Chris: That's, that is another great way to put it. So let's, let's think about it this way, just as we, as we wrap up this paper and this research for you all, you know, if you were writing like a short AI code of conduct for creator of the economy, what would maybe like the top three rules be for that?

Becky : So number one is AI itself is not the strategy. So for the creator economy specifically, AI isn't a strategy. If you want to work with an AI creator or use ai, understand how it's gonna help the content be better, be more entertaining, do something within your budget constraints that you couldn't normally do, or, you know, help that creator achieve more than they ever were able to do on their own.

It's gotta be naturally beneficial. And then, you know, I saw this thing saying strategy is knowing what to take out. And I think what happens is with ai, we just add more in, 'cause it always offers more. So then really work on strategy and the strategy being know what to remove, what to take out, and what to pause on.

Chris: Mm. Okay. Those are great.

Becky : I was really on the spot then, Chris, so

Chris: No, but I, I think, I think those are, that's great guidance because I think a lot of times thinking about thinking about AI as a strategy versus a tactic, like you think about, 'cause I've, I've learned over the years, like when I was going through my MBA courses and things like that, like tactics versus strategies.

A lot of times I would get confused on thinking like, Facebook is a strategy. No, Facebook's not a strategy. Facebook is the tactic. That you use to support whatever strategy you have in place. And in thinking about it that way, even, even at a base level, if that's all anybody took away, I think that would be a key.

A key piece of that.

Becky : I think so. And I think it can, it can create incredible content. We've had amazing success with building content that is. The only, you know, Pixar Burbank could do for billions of dollars, right? We can do that stuff now. Creators, anywhere in the world can do brilliant, exciting, thrilling, creative work.

Now that's great and let's explore that. But that's because the creator is now unlocked and they were always a creator and they were always brilliant. So I think it's just being aware of that and yeah, it's, it's a tactic. It's, I think we just thought. But also everyone wants the headlines, right? So everyone wanted the headline of, we made this with ai.

'cause then you're the innovator. So the headlines are done. Let's get into the boring middle. Awesome.

Chris: So where can people pick up this study if they wanna look at it for themselves and dive into it more than we have today?

Becky : Billion dollar boy.com.

Chris: Excellent. Awesome. Well, as we wrap up, one of the things I always like to ask at the end of the interview is, you know, what brand do you admire the most right now in, in context of everything we've discussed today?

I'd just love to know what brands you're looking at as brands you admire.

Becky : I love this question. It's actually really hard to answer because I have. Different reasons to like different brands. So one that I really love, I love everything they're doing right now. I love Adobe, uh, because I really feel their investment in the creator economy and in creatives, and it doesn't feel superficial.

It actually. I dunno, I'd love to know like what directive or decision they made, but everything feels very genuine and creative first, and like it's built from a very human place. The stuff that they've been doing, um, and you know, someone in the creative economy. I love it. That makes me very excited. I actually just today went down a rabbit hole around the Lemi brand.

It's not Chloe Kardash, Courtney Kardashian's, Lemi. So there's these gummy vitamins and they just went on to TikTok shop. So they're in era one. As this premium brand for a very long time, they went into TikTok shop and I think they did 13 million on TikTok shop, all through gathering like creative content, putting into TikTok ads, optimizing for sales, um, which I think is brilliant.

I've loved that. So I've just been watching everything that LE's been doing recently, and I like that because it's kind of, it's culture first. It's, you know, leaning into TikTok shop. In a really cool way. It's giving up on this premium need, prestige, need to be an era one and allowing actually to be in the hands of creators and community.

I think that's a really interesting pivot. So I just went on a, you can go on it afterwards, but I just went into a rabbit hole of that earlier and like the power of TikTok shop. I thought it was quite cool.

Chris: Yeah, TikTok shop has gotten me a number of times,

Becky : same. It's, I, I've also got loads of clothes here that don't fit me from TikTok shop that I don't know what to do with, but you know, it's fine.

Chris: I got a really cool t-shirt the other day from there, so yes, you're

Becky : doing better than me. I've failed.

Chris: Yeah, no, I, I understand. Sometimes you're just not sure. 'cause it's like, oh, this looks funny, but is it gonna be a wearable shirt? Is it gonna last? Is it gonna

Becky : But it was two pounds. $2. Who cares? Exactly.

Chris: Exactly. Yeah. I've got a washcloth coming of all things. I, I go to the gym. In the mornings and stuff, and I, right now I'm just doing everything by hand and I was like, I need something for the gym. And they marketed something to me. I was like, what? This is amazing.

Becky : That's great. The latest thing that I bought, I don't, I dunno if this would be on your feed, Chris, but there are these little sticker books with like where you make sticker scenes and they're tiny, like there's like Capy bearers and everything, like you need to build these little interactive worlds of stickers that TikTok sold to me and.

I did that last night in bed for like an hour, so that was good.

Chris: That's adorable. No, my, my kids might like that though.

Becky : Your kids would like that?

Chris: Yeah. They love sticker book stuff. Yeah, but I get the most random, random things marketed to me too, so I know what you're, you're talking about. Mine's more like car, random car stuff.

Like I have a car HUD that keeps coming up on my feed right now and I'm like, I don't need that. That's silly, but I kind of want it.

Becky : Well, I mean, is TikTok the new QVC? That's what I wanna know.

Chris: I think so. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways in in, I've actually found myself, especially over the holiday season, with a lot of downtime and kids watching tv and not much to do, like, you know, scrolling through TikTok to the point where it's just like every other video is an ad sometime.

Becky : Yeah. I'm not sure how, like, in a way. The final point to this, I've been thinking about it like, I like it because it's just the average person, again, talking about products they've bought and that's how influencer marketing, it's just the girl next door just with my salary, my lifestyle saying I bought this mascara.

And that's what made it so influential. And in a way, TikTok shop is just, I mean, it's your grandma around the corner telling about these jeans that she bought and it's, it's just really interesting 'cause the average person is. Shop seller and tiktoks al chaotic algorithm is sending me everybody, not just MIDI and mega creators selling me their products.

So it's quite interesting.

Chris: It definitely makes it fascinating. We've actually got a, um, you mentioned QVC, we've. One of the things regionally for us is we have the, um, jewelry TV was out of our, like they, they're headquartered here in Knoxville, Tennessee, where we are. So we've seen that industry come up and grow and stuff over time.

So it's fascinating to see it now shift to TikTok, and I'm sure you see even them shift some of their content and marketing to TikTok and other places. They

Becky : must do just well just 'cause of the share, like Lemi vitamins doing 13 million just from moving. Like the numbers are talking, so

Chris: it's insane. Yeah.

TikTok is wild, what they're doing. Well, very cool. Well, very cool. Well, Becky, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I have loved this conversation. It was really great.

Becky : Me too. No, thank you so much Chris. I really appreciate it and we've covered a lot, but all the stuff I love, so it's wonderful.

Chris: Excellent. So where can people connect with you? Billion dollar Boy. Find out more about five to nine.

Becky : So follow 5 2 9 on Instagram. That's where we do most of our um, updates, which is just 5 2 9 Global. That's our handle. You can find me on LinkedIn, Becky Owen, and then I would follow Billion Dollar Boy on LinkedIn as well.

Those are your best places.

Chris: Awesome, alrightyy. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Becky : Thank you, Chris. We'll speak to you soon.

Chris: Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand. Don't forget to like and subscribe on your player of choice. You can also keep up with the podcast on we built this brand.com.

If you like this episode, please give the podcast a five star review and make sure to tell all your friends about it so we can continue to build this brand.