Global creator company Jellysmack has announced that it is launching its popular Creator Program in Australia and New Zealand and prioritising the region as a key growth market within the $US100 billion ‘creator economy’. The VC-backed technology startup has hired a new country manager based in Sydney and is building a team to raise brand awareness and sign the most influential creators to its growing roster.
The Jellysmack Creator Program leverages the company’s proprietary AI technology and first-party data to help individual video creators grow their audiences across multiple social platforms. Once a creator joins, Jellysmack uses its suite of tech tools and team of experts to edit, optimise, and distribute videos onto Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube on behalf of the creator, thereby establishing new revenue streams. The Creator Program currently has more than 350 creators as partners, including megastars PewDiePie, MrBeast, Bailey Sarian, and Nas Daily.
Combined Jellysmack-managed content boasts 10 billion global monthly video views and a cross-platform reach of 125 million monthly unique U.S. users, or nearly 45% of all Americans, making it the largest digital-first U.S. company in monthly social media viewers.
Jellysmack has appointed former Google and Taboola executive Ezechiel Ritchie as its country manager for Australia and New Zealand as it builds an ANZ team. Ritchie brings rich experience in brand partnerships, advertising, and digital content and leverages his deep expertise with content and creators to establish meaningful partnerships.
Ezechiel Ritchie
The company has also signed 10 of Australia’s top video content creators to the Jellysmack Creator Program, including: HowToBasic, JoshDub, How Ridiculous, Jazza, Mully, Self Sufficient Me, Tannar, Vincenzo’s Plate, Cupcake Savvy Kitchen, and SAMMIT.
Jellysmack announced its international expansion strategy in May this year, after the company secured funding from leading tech venture capital company, SoftBank. Jellysmack has since appointed former YouTube executive Youri Hazanov as head of international and is also building a presence in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
Jellysmack APAC general manager, Laurent Hulin, said: “I am thrilled to announce that we now have a dedicated, experienced local team to serve and support our current and future creator partners in Australia and New Zealand. Jellysmack straddles AI and the creator economy to help video makers embrace their passion, build new audiences and amplify monetisation, and we are looking forward to fast tracking their growth locally and internationally.”
Ritchie said that the ANZ market has been very receptive to Jellysmack, with the ability of local creators having global appeal. For example, 59% of How Ridiculous’s 6.4 million YouTube subscribers are from the U.S.
“A couple of things are unique to the ANZ region: social media platforms’ monetisation is among the highest globally, enabling creators to make a living from creating content. Second, their content is exportable to bigger markets, such as the U.S. and U.K., translating to our ability to generate incremental audiences and revenue. It is a key priority for our business to set-up local operations to support and help grow Australian and Kiwi content creators across all social media platforms so they can maximize their growth, engagement, and revenue,” Ritchie said.