Platform-Driven Brand Deals Help Category

In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Leanne Perice, founder and CEO of Made by All, one of the creator economy's most distinctive talent management firms. Leanne shares how she built the company from the ground up over nine years, starting with a single $1,000 deal in 2014 and growing it into a global powerhouse that doubles revenue year over year. She explains how her early career at a celebrity endorsement agency gave her the blueprint for what great talent management looks like, and how she applied those lessons to an entirely new generation of digital creators. From signing Vine stars before the term 'creator economy' even existed, to opening a new office in Dubai, Leanne has built Made by All on the belief that creators deserve the same strategic investment as Hollywood's biggest names.

Leanne also introduces her framework DASI (Distribution, Attention, Storytelling, and Impact) to explain what creators truly offer brands, and why so many marketers are still only tapping into the first letter. She opens up about the CMO turnover crisis slowing momentum in the creator space, why she launched Made by Us as a social storytelling studio, and why she believes YouTube's long-form monetization is the best opportunity in the market right now. She also gives her take on platforms like YouTube and TikTok brokering brand deals directly, the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley financial models, and what brands still get wrong about building a presence on social media. This episode is a must-listen for anyone at the intersection of media, marketing, and the creator economy.

Key Highlights

• 🚀 From $1,000 to Global: Leanne closed her first creator deal in 2014 for just $1,000. By 2015 to 2017, those deals were stacking to $10K, $15K, and $25K a week. Today, Made by All doubles its revenue annually and has just opened its first international office in Dubai.
• 🎯 The DASI Framework: Leanne coined the term DASI to capture the four things creators offer brands: Distribution, Attention, Storytelling, and Impact. She argues most brands stop at the 'D' and miss the deeper value creators can deliver when treated as true partners rather than just reach vehicles.
• 🎬 Creator Hollywood: While streaming platforms like Tubi and Netflix are building bridges toward creators, Made by All is betting on the reverse: bringing Hollywood-level IP and infrastructure to the creator world. Leanne describes this as 'Creator Hollywood,' a model she has been building the financial and conceptual vision for over the past eight months.
• 📣 The CMO Turnover Problem: Leanne points to constant executive turnover at major brands as one of the biggest obstacles to sustained creator partnerships. Her solution is relationship-first thinking, including getting creators in the room with senior brand teams and building personal connections that outlast any single campaign or budget cycle.
• 📺 Betting Big on YouTube: Leanne is pushing all of her clients toward long-form content on YouTube, calling it the best monetization opportunity in the creator space today. With more ad slots per video and growing ad revenue, she sees YouTube's long-form model as the foundation for sustainable creator businesses, especially as the platform increasingly dominates living room screens.
• 💡 Made by Us: Leanne's newest venture inside Made by All is a social storytelling studio that positions top creators as creative directors for brands. Rather than just placing clients in sponsorship deals, Made by Us helps brands develop viral content strategies, serialized IP, and stronger owned social platforms using the expertise of creators who understand audiences from the inside out.
• 🏆 The Power of the Collective: One of Leanne's standout success stories involves six Made by All clients who traveled to Las Vegas for a UFC fight with Paramount. They fulfilled their individual contracts, then spontaneously created one extra post together just for fun. That single unplanned post generated over 1.5 million likes, 30 million views, and 20,000 comments in the first 48 hours.

Resources & Next Steps

• 🔗 Follow Leanne Perice on LinkedIn
• 🌐 Explore Made by All
• 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts

Chapter Timestamps

00:00 Cold open: Creator economy and building household names

00:53 Intro: Mike sets up the episode

01:00 Meet Leanne Perice and Made by All

01:32 The origin story: nine years and one thesis

02:20 What makes Made by All different from a talent agency

03:10 Holistic creator management: more than just deals

04:30 Leanne's career path: from middle school dream to Hollywood

05:20 First job at a celebrity endorsement agency

05:50 Signing Vine stars before 'creator economy' was a term

06:10 The first $1,000 deal and stacking to $25K a week

07:00 How marketers have evolved in dealing with creators

07:40 Introducing the DASI framework

08:00 Made by Us: creators as creative directors for brands

09:00 Brand spend and the challenge of executive turnover

09:40 Going global: opening the Dubai office

11:10 Hollywood vs. creator economy: two separate financial models

11:50 Building the bridge to Creator Hollywood

12:40 Why Hollywood is still holding on but change is coming

13:20 Alarming speed of the creator world vs. legacy media

14:10 Brokering brand deals: management vs. agents

15:00 Cold calling and building brand relationships since 2014

15:50 Weekly email blasts to 5,000 brands and agencies

16:30 Why management has an edge over agents in the creator space

16:50 Streamlining brand deals with AI and tools like KOMI

18:00 When creators should lead the creative brief

19:00 The Made by Us social storytelling incubator

19:30 CMO turnover and the need for relationship-first brand strategy

20:00 How intentional creator relationships unlock better campaigns

21:00 Success story: UFC fight with Paramount, 30 million views

22:00 Qatar Airlines, Abu Dhabi, and global creator deals

22:20 The NFL's creator-first approach as a model for brands

23:00 YouTube and TikTok brokering deals internally

23:40 What Leanne wants to see improved: local and global platform metrics

25:00 YouTube's rise in the living room and long-form monetization

25:40 Pushing creators toward long-form content strategy

26:20 TikTok and Instagram moving into TV: will it work?

27:00 Short form on TV vs. the intentional social media experience

27:30 What brands still get wrong about social media

28:00 Closing thoughts and final takeaway