As the demand for branded content in Hollywood continues to grow, United Talent Agency is building out its entertainment marketing division to support it.
UTA’s entertainment marketing division, which opened in 2017, now has more than 80 employees and has made strategic acquisitions, including buying up the marketing consulting firm MediaLink in 2021 and buying the Gen Z marketing outfit JUV Consulting in 2024, the latter of which has been renamed Next Gen and folded into the entertainment marketing division.
As it’s grown, so has its stream of business: The UTA entertainment marketing team has doubled revenue in the last two years, Austin Schumacher, a VP in the division who joined the company in January, said.
Schumacher is one of two recent new hires focused on further bolstering UTA’s entertainment marketing division. Tiffany David, another executive with a history of working in branded entertainment and advertising, also joined the company in January. Schumacher and David joined the company at the start of what is expected to be a busy year, the former told us.
“Brands are continuing to think more and more about how they can broaden their reach through entertainment and tell their story through the lens of culture, whether that’s a content partnership or an experiential activation or a long-term partnership with talent,” Schumacher told Marketing Brew, adding that the team is “anticipating more growth in 2025.”
Nose to the grindstone: Before Schumacher joined UTA, he worked at Lyft, where he helped create its entertainment division in 2018. (Lyft was a client of UTA at that time.) After that, he served as Coinbase’s first VP of brand, and he has been an advisor at companies including Kernel Foods, Dimo, and Faherty.
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David, meanwhile, was a talent manager for comedian Craig Conant until January, and previously worked at the agency 1000heads, where she oversaw Google Pixel’s creator advocacy program.
Schumacher and David will report to Julian Jacobs and David Anderson, who are both partners at UTA and co-heads of its entertainment marketing division.
I’m a Barbie girl: The new hires come amid continued interest in branded and brand-supported programming as Hollywood tightens its belt financially and as it emerges from a content void following the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes and pressure on the streaming side for their businesses to be profitable. “In the midst of chaos and the tightening, I think that we’re seeing more streamers be open to co-creating with brands than ever before because of the budgets and because if the brand can come in and help,” Jacobs told Deadline in September.
After the success of titles like Barbie, brands have been increasingly interested in getting involved with Hollywood, Jacobs previously told Marketing Brew in August.
Streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have also leaned into the branded content opportunity. In 2023, UTA’s entertainment marketing division worked with Netflix to promote electric vehicles from its client GM in Netflix programming and in a Super Bowl ad. And last May, Amazon made its own push into branded content.
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