Miami-based Mavn is bringing SOBEWFF into the creator economy era
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The Mavn app puts everything in one place for content creators and festival organizers. Photo: Courtesy of Mavn
For Miami native Olivia Ormos, this year's South Beach Wine & Food Festival is more than an impressive milestone for an event she grew up attending. It's a personal triumph.
State of play: Ormos' company, Mavn, which launched in 2023, partnered with the festival ahead of the 25th anniversary to streamline and manage the festival's growing number of interested content creators.
- "It's full circle for me," Ormos recently told Axios.
- "Knowing that I could come in and be an asset to an already incredible festival that's been a pinnacle of the [Miami] culture and community [...] it's been great."
Why it matters: The festival has worked with content creators for nearly a decade, but the Mavn partnership underscores how the food and beverage industry — and how people engage with it — has changed in its 25 years.
- Moreover, it could signal a shift in how the city's other major festivals and events engage with Miami's influencer market.
What they're saying: "The creator economy is the modern-day word-of-mouth," Andrea Moreno, the festival's assistant director of marketing and communications, told Axios.
- "I think we've reached a point where instead of hitting Google search, [consumers] first go to their favorite content creator" to research a restaurant or bar, she said.
How it works: Previously, creators applied to attend the festival through an online form, requiring organizers to sift through hundreds of creators' online presence manually. Now, creators apply directly through the Mavn app.
- The app then vets the influencers and compiles their data and stats for festival organizers, who can approve or deny entry.
- On the dashboard, festival organizers list the deliverables required for each event (example: two social posts during, one after), which the creators can see before applying to that specific event.
- Later, everything that creators post is pulled into the Mavn dashboard so organizers can keep track of the data and reach of each creator.
Follow the socials: "It allows [organizers] to pick the right people for the event, so they're not just giving away thousands of dollars of tickets to people" with the wrong audience, Ormos said.
Flashback: One of the first creators to apply for festival credentials in the mid 2010s was Samantha Schnur, of The Naughty Fork, Moreno said.
- Now, a decade later, the Miami-based creator is hosting one of the festival's new tasting events, Naughty Bites.
- Meanwhile, FoodieCon, one of the festival's premier events, launched four years ago after organizers realized the appeal for creator-centric events.
The bottom line: "Our festival lends well to these creators because we have amazing visuals, amazing activations and content they can pull from the weekend to share with their viewers," Moreno said.
- Creators are providing "authentic recommendations in real time," she added. "Mavn was a great point of entry to really connect with them."