Transforming the Professional Trajectories of Celebrities
We are increasingly seeing the line blur between celebrities and influencers. Influencers have become celebrities, and celebrities are becoming increasingly active on social media to interact with fans and grow their careers. Gushcloud manages three key celebrities in very different stages of their talent lifecycles, and they are seeking a digital artist and repertoire (A&R) strategy for each of the three talent to build and amplify their digital presence.
Students take on the role as talent manager of the talent. The goal is to grow the talent digitally to increase their fame and wealth. Students are to imagine the talent’s growth and monetization path via the following deliverables:
• Research comparable talent and the path they took to grow and monetize. Draw parallels to the talent.
• Define the celebrity’s narrative/core proposition. What do they stand for? Why are they important? To whom?
• Come up with a digital content strategy to grow their online presence / channel.
• Come up with monetization strategies specific for the talent. How can they make money in the short term, medium term, long term?
‘The Business of the Creative Industries’ coursework fosters students’ entrepreneurial mindset by giving them frameworks, tools, and opportunities to develop the professional trajectory of entrepreneurial digital talent (influencers) in Asia. Apart from fostering students’ entrepreneurial mindset by giving them frameworks, tools, and opportunities to develop the professional trajectory of entrepreneurial digital talent (influencers), this course and project further cultivated students’ innovation mindset by inviting them to find and exploit the ‘white space’ in the digital talent’s business models and digital content strategy.
The students had ongoing project consultations with the project sponsor and the instructor throughout the semester. The key insights differed for each of the three celebrities. They conducted extensive online research on their chosen celebrity’s target audience and ‘comparables’, core proposition/narrative, and social media content. The project itself interweaves frameworks from different disciplines (i.e. business models, digital content strategy, cross-cultural nuances, transmedia storytelling) with industry practice. In addition to teaching about business models, digital content strategy and transmedia storytelling, the course invited interactions from TikTok and YouTube practitioners to offer the latest insights on how digital content creators could effectively leverage their platforms to get the desired results internationally.
For the final deliverables to Gushcloud, students:
• Defined their chosen celebrity’s target audience, core proposition/narrative, and social media content.
• Conducted research on comparable celebrities and the paths they took to grow and monetize their brand assets.
• Developed a digital content strategy to grow their celebrity’s online presence and reach.
• Developed IP monetization strategies specific to the celebrity.
"This SMU-X Overseas course familiarized students with the key characteristics and business models of the fast-growing creator economy and the individual creators that work within it. It gave them a real-time opportunity to apply relevant theories and frameworks to optimizing the success of three real-world celebrities managed by Gushcloud International, one of the region’s top celebrity and social media influencer management agencies." -- Mark Chong, faculty instructor for COMM361
“I learnt a lot about different business models and how to properly apply them to fit the client appropriately. Additionally, I gained insights about the creative economy and how creators and agencies work together. Things such as the white space between, within and beyond were things I never really thought about until Prof Mark taught it to us. It was also interesting to learn about Korea and the culture with respect to the creative industry.”
- Student of course COMM361
You can watch one of our student's experiences: