WTF is a ghost creator?

Forget AI-generated creators. There’s an army of people making content based solely on briefs. These “ghost creators,” or creators-as-a-service, are suddenly under the spotlight, but some marketers have actually been using them for years. 

A September 2 Semafor article detailed how ghost creators are being used to rack up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube channels dedicated to politics by hiring actors to read repetitive scripts (seemingly generated with LLMs) about political figures. The article stated that Virelox, a content company reportedly co-founded by a man named Chris Chan, offered services to companies to help them go viral by spinning up creator accounts. 

According to alleged posts from Chan, as of last August, the company released “2,500 organic videos every week for businesses, achieving billions of views every month.” Virelox reportedly had more than 106 YouTube accounts by April of this year. 

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How 11 retail media networks are trying to differentiate themselves to advertisers

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail.

After the launch of many different retail media networks over the past few years, all these new divisions of various consumer-facing companies are now fighting for ad dollars. That brought many of them to New York City last week.

Advertising events company Ascendant Network on Wednesday held Showcase, a retail and commerce media upfront for commerce media networks, ad agencies and brand marketers. It featured 15 presentations from the advertising businesses of retailers, financial companies and e-commerce platforms, from The Home Depot to Albertsons and even PayPal.

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