Axios Event: Community connection drives brand growth and audience engagement

CANNES, FRANCE – Community-driven content is a powerful way to attract audiences and consumers, speakers said at an Axios event at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Why it matters: Content that shows authentic understanding and engagement with a specific audience is more likely to resonate in today's fragmented media landscape, and brands and platforms are factoring this into their strategies.

Axios' Sara Fischer, Kerry Flynn and Eleanor Hawkins spoke with TelevisaUnivision CEO Daniel Alegre, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy and Bravo's "Summer House" cast members Amanda Batula and Kyle Cooke at the June 17 event, sponsored by Mastercard.

What they're saying: "Twitch actually isn't about gaming at all. It's about connection with other people in [the] community … and it's really about entertainment," Clancy said.

The big picture: Advertising is about transference and creating connection, Clancy said, and Twitch aims to make brands appear as part of the content with which the audience is connecting.

• Two-thirds of Twitch's revenue comes from viewers supporting the creators they love, he said, underscoring the emotional connection between audiences and creators.
• "One of the ways those creators you love get support is through ads, so they appreciate, interestingly, the advertiser because it's actually supporting this entity, this person, that they have this emotional connection with."

Case in point: Batula and Cooke have launched successful businesses by tapping into their reality television audiences and the married couple's exposure on Bravo's "Summer House."

• The connection with the Bravo audience propelled the success of Batula's swimline, she said. "I was able to, because of that, create this swim line and get feedback and everything from the audience and from the fans and launch while the show was airing, and have this incredible group of people backing me up, and cheering me on, and supporting me," she said.
• Leveraging that organic audience support and launching something that connects with people also helped lead Cooke's Loverboy beverage brand to success, he said. "We've grossed over $50 million, having not spent a dollar on marketing."

Zoom in: "If there's one thing that we learned through the last presidential elections, is that the Hispanic vote is no longer a predominant party vote," Alegre said. "They're an issues vote."

• "When you advertise to Hispanics in English, it kind of gets lost in the noise. When you advertise to Hispanics in their own language, that really permeates. It happened in the presidential elections."
• The Trump administration was able to appeal to Hispanic voters leading up to the election by doubling down on advertising, he said.

• "So if you can advertise and convince people to vote a certain way, you can imagine how advertising can convince someone to use a certain kind of toothpaste or not."

Zoom out: The purchasing power of the Hispanic community in the U.S. is growing fast, Alegre said, adding it will soon be the third largest economy in the world from a GDP perspective. "You can't ignore this audience, and this audience is actually watching us," he said.

Content from the sponsored segment:

In a View From the Top conversation, Cheryl Guerin, Mastercard executive vice president of global brand strategy and innovation, explained the brand's increasing focus on experiential marketing.

• "We're constantly looking at what's next in experiences – where should we be going, what are the consumers thinking? And we were watching this trend happening, this blurring fiction with reality, I call it," Guerin said. "You saw everybody wanted to travel to where "The White Lotus" hotels are, and things of this sort."
• The fandom around Netflix shows inspired a partnership with the streaming service to create experiences for Mastercard cardholders in various locations ranging from dining to entertainment, she said.