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MAINSTREAM TRENDS: A MARKETING GOLDMINE
Live streams, storylines, and equity deals - the trends everyone's watching but no one's using...
Niall Ratcliffe
June 22, 2025
In partnership with
Morning!
I don’t think England was built for the heat. I’m writing this in my apartment, which has decided to turn into a sauna this week. No breeze coming through the window, no air conditioning, just roasting unrelenting heat.
But I’m powering through because I have some interesting ideas I want to share with you. Plus some trends that not enough people are paying attention to right now.
Let’s get into it!
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY
No matter what time of day I open up the Twitter (or X) app at the minute, my feed is filled with clips of live streamers.
Their relationship chaos
A crazy stunt they’ve pulled
Or a guy barking at celebrities
I have never watched one of these live streams in my life, yet I’m constantly inundated with short clips of all of the things they’re doing. So much so that I could probably name a good amount of these top streamers at this point.
Now, when this kinda of thing starts flooding social media, there are 2 ways you can look at it:
You can moan that the world’s gone mad and that it’s crazy young kids are streaming their entire lives to the world.
You can identify the trend and find a way to use it to your advantage.
As a marketer, I’m all in that second option.
So what are the big, obvious trends right now? And how can you leverage them as part of your marketing?
That’s what I’m going to walk you through today. There are 4 key mainstream trends I’m seeing emerging, and it’s gobsmacking to me that more marketers aren’t experimenting with these.
Here are the trends and how I’d use them:
Trend 1: Streaming
It’s impossible to argue with the fact that streamers are currently at the top of the creator mountain. At first, we had bloggers, then reality TV stars, then Instagram influencers, then YouTubers, then TikTokers.
Today, it’s all about streaming.
Streamer Adin Ross with Donald Trump
The people blowing up, gaining millions of fans, getting all of the online attention. It’s streamers. They give viewers a live look at every second of their day, and clearly, people love it.
So why have I not seen any brands introducing streaming into their marketing strategy?
Well, probably because of the obvious reasons…
It’s a massive brand risk if something goes wrong and it’s live
It’s new and scary
They don’t have great personalities in their marketing team that could live stream
But companies are still trying to make polished, perfect content. Meanwhile, streamers are proving that raw, unfiltered, live content is what actually gets attention.
Think about it. When was the last time you saw a brand do a proper live stream? Not a webinar with slides, not a product launch with a script. Just... existing. Showing the behind-the-scenes mess. The real conversations. The failures in real-time.
Gary V was kind of onto this trend years ago with Wine Library TV, but somehow it really didn’t catch on.
So what could this look like for your marketing strategy?
For me, the easiest way to do this would be with a project that has a start and a finish within 24 hours.
If you’re a marketing agency → That may be building a campaign from start to finish.
If you’re a manufacturing company → It could be building a certain part or product from start to finish.
If you’re a traditional service provider (like a plumber) → It could be installing a sink live.
2 years ago, if you asked me if someone would watch a plumber install a bathroom, I would’ve laughed at you. Yet, that’s where the world is going.
People will tune in for the same reason they watch cooking shows - not because they're going to cook the meal, but because there's something oddly satisfying about watching a process unfold. Especially when things go wrong.
People want raw, unfiltered content, and I genuinely believe the brands that crack this first will become huge. Massive opportunity there.
Trend 2: Clippers
Talking of streamers, on Twitter I recently saw a clip of a famous streamer who goes by the name of “Neon” explain that he was spending $ 200,000 per month on “clippers”.
@atomlightningyt N3on tells Bradley Martyn about how he pays $200,000 a month to CLIPPERS 👀😳 #n3on #n3onclips #bradleymartyn #viral #trending #xyzbca
After I heard it, I was a little confused. What is a “Clipper?” and why were they getting paid $ 200,000 per month - clearly they were valuable?
After a bit of research, I found out that a “Clipper” is someone who takes a creator’s long-form content and clips it into short-form content and then posts it across social media.
Pretty simple? So why does he pay them $ 200,000??? That seems like an expensive social media manager.
But the reason he’s spending so much is that he’s not paying them to just post on his socials. He’s paying an army of them to post on their own pages.
Let me show you how it works with a “Business influencer” - Iman Gadzhi.
After a quick search on YouTube or TikTok, you’ll find endless Iman Gadzhi related pages.
You’ll see:
@imangadzhishorts
@imangadzhimoments
@imangadzhiclips
(And 100s more)
These are pages that clippers will set up to share the content of this person.
With just 1-2 pages, the impact isn’t seen. But let’s say you had 10 clippers who post 4 short-form videos on 5 pages every day.
That’s 200 short-form clips going out around this person EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Quickly, you’ll start seeing them everywhere and more people will be drawn to them. It’s essentially brute forcing your way to getting attention.
So why aren’t brands doing this? Well, they are.
There's an app called Locket that is using this strategy to climb up the app store. Well, almost, they take a very similar approach with UGC creators. Here's what it looks like:
Step 1: They get an army of UGC creators
Step 2: They all create 4-5 TikTok accounts
Step 3: They all have to post twice per day across those accounts and they give them hooks and formats to use to increase viewership.
It's a very similar volume approach.
I think we'll start to see this more and more in companies' marketing strategies, especially when there's a key person of influence at the helm.
Imagine this: You get your CEO or CMO to start a vlog or podcast. You have an army of clippers firing out content. Very quickly that person will be shining millions of eyes onto the company.
Trend 3: Creator Equity Partnerships
We've all watched Skool explode after partnering with Alex Hormozi. What started as just another community platform has become a billion-dollar company.
It's the exact same playbook as Logan Paul and PRIME. Great business + passionate creator with skin in the game = explosive growth.
So why can't we do this for every company?
I had a conversation with a marketing director last month who was complaining about influencer marketing not working anymore. He'd spent £ 50k on various creators over the past year, and the results were pants. Barely any sales, minimal engagement, and zero long-term impact.
And I hear these stories every week.
But we’ve been looking at influencer marketing all wrong. We're still stuck in the old model: pay someone to post about your product and hope for the best. But the real opportunity is in true partnerships where creators have skin in the game.
Think about the difference in motivation. If I pay you £ 5k to post about my product, you'll create one piece of content, post it, and move on. But if I give you 5% equity in my company, suddenly you're thinking about how to make that company succeed long-term.
(That’s without mentioning that by having a creator promoting the brand long-term, their audience is able to slowly become more and more educated on your company.)
And this doesn’t just apply to fancy tech brands.
Imagine you own a chain of car garages. Why wouldn’t you want to partner with a car mechanic influencer who would come on board and consistently promote the brand to his audience?
Your marketing is solved
He has a business attached to his work
It’s a win-win.
The challenge is finding creators who are actually passionate about what you do. Not just looking for a quick payday, but genuinely interested in the industry.
We’re already seeing this happening a lot, but I think we’ll see even more of it over the next few years.
Trend 4: Series & Storylines
We’ve all shamefully binged way too many episodes of a season at some point, and we all know how popular seasons are nowadays. The reason seasons are so popular is that you’re able to get deeply connected with characters and the storyline.
Yet most companies approach content like throwing darts at a board.
Create a post
Check the metrics
Iterate
Repeat
Each piece exists in isolation with no connection to what came before or what's coming next.
But what if we treated our marketing like a TV series?
The smart companies are already experimenting with this. They're creating "social shows" - episodic content that unfolds over time.
Take Mid-Day Squares for example. They documented their entire journey to $ 100M in revenue. Every high, every low, every behind-the-scenes moment becomes content. It's their business story told in episodes.
And it works because people get invested in outcomes. They want to know what happens in the next episode.
Instead of hoping people randomly stumble across your next post, you're giving them a reason to actively follow your journey. You're turning casual viewers into invested audiences who genuinely care about what happens next.
Most brands are still playing the old game of isolated content pieces. But I think we’ll see a lot more brand social shows over the next year.
🌱 THE GREENHOUSE
Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:
TL;DR
Trend 1: Streaming
Trend 2: Clipping
Trend 3: Creator equity partnerships
Trend 4: Social shows & storylines
I’m super interested to see how many of these trends actually translate over to the marketing world. I think 3 and 4 are already happening, let’s see if 1 and 2 do too!
Hopefully you found this useful, if you did… please share it with a friend - it helps :)
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
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