Zoom has been known for its video expertise since around the time of the coronavirus pandemic. The company now wants to tap into its talent for putting on a show.
Starting this week, Zoom will begin a partnership with podcaster and independent journalist Naeema Raza. She is the creator of the program “Smart Girl Dumbquestions,” which seeks out leaders in business, science, and culture to answer seemingly invincible questions. Raza on Tuesday premiered a new interview series designed for social media, in which she spotlights “solopreneurs,” or people who start their own businesses. He will also run a six-part series on his program, set to debut in August, exploring how technology is reshaping work and leadership. In October, Raza will be attending Zoomtopia, Zoom’s annual user conference, and will be bringing her content to the event’s main stage.
The partnership may just be the harbinger of some of the new ways so-called “creators” will collaborate with big marketers at a time when independent editors and reporters are increasing their appeal in the marketplace of ideas. Young people are “particularly likely” to receive news from influencers, according to Pew Research data. Some 38% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 do so regularly, more than four times the 8% of people over 65 who do the same.
“It’s important to us to be the brand that people like Naima and other creators want to work with,” Kimberly Stolin, Zoom’s chief marketing and communications officer, said in a recent interview, as creators have more influence among the consumer groups most likely to be willing to try the products and services they purchase. “We want to be the partner of choice.”
Raza entered journalism with a background in documentary filmmaking, producing a piece that was featured at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. She launched “Smart Girldom Questions” last February after working as a senior editor in the New York Times opinion department and on-air executive producer of “On With Kara Swisher.”
Stolin said such partnerships require new thinking, which some advertisers may not be accustomed to. Raza’s work on Zoom wouldn’t be authentic if she wasn’t left alone to pursue programming as she sees fit.
“I need the audience to trust me,” Raza said during the interview. “We need to work with editorial integrity.”
Conversations about the future of work are a regular part of Raza’s programs, and she says it’s not uncomfortable to have them with the help of Zoom. In “Smart Girl’s Stupid Questions,” Raza regularly examines “how we live, how we work, how we lead, how we build families and partnerships in a world that is really changing, both technologically and culturally.”
The only change people should notice in the way Raza handles work on Zoom is that nothing has changed. “Editorials are shaped by me. I’m asking questions that I would naturally ask. I’m talking to the people I’m going to be talking to. And what this partnership with Zoom allows me to do is expand the possibilities of my content,” she says.
Stolin said if Zoom wants to be a place that creators trust, it needs to be willing to make concessions to the creators it works with. Zoom “had to get used to having creators be our spokespeople and share their stories. We like to write five-page summaries with guardrails and north stars, but you really have to educate yourself. We gave influencers one-sentence summaries, and that was a big change,” she says. “And we had to completely let go of the control that brands usually like to have.”
Stolin said Zoom is not retreating from traditional commercials, but believes it needs to shift to new tactics as digitally savvy consumers discover services, products and brands in different ways. Commenting on the popular new AI interfaces, she says the “purchase process” is changing and is now “driven by a discovery process that starts with ChatGPT or Claude.” “We have to focus on being found, existing, believed, and liked. This is a new level of marketing.”
If the new partnership works well, other combinations of creators and marketers could become very common.
