Yahoo used to be synonymous with the internet. Now, the 31-year-old company is turning to creators, celebrities and social media to help it get back into the zeitgeist.
“Yahoo has high awareness, but it’s really about relevance and getting back out there and inviting a new generation of Yahoos into the family,” Josh Line, CMO of Yahoo, told us on Thursday’s episode of Scalable. For Yahoo, that primarily means younger audiences, some of whom may never have even heard of the brand.'
The company’s strategy includes some unexpected marketing partnerships. Take Cardi B. The singer starred in a Yahoo Mail campaign built around the idea of “FOMSI,” or fear of missing something important. She promoted a new AI feature that flags information a user may have missed in an email.
And for this year’s National Caviar Day, the company teamed up with manufacturer Marky’s Caviar for a social media campaign that played off the idea of “bumping caviar” because it reminded the Yahoo team of bumping emails to the top of someone’s inbox. It even sent caviar tins to some B2B creators.
“Sometimes the connection is a little loose,” Line quipped.
Loose or not, data suggests that Yahoo’s approach is working. Over one-third (37%) of US adults said they visit a Yahoo site at least weekly as of September, which is the highest percentage since 2015, according to new data from research firm CivicScience. Adult Gen Z and millennials were the most likely to use Yahoo on a weekly basis or more, at 46% and 42%, respectively.
Even so, Yahoo still has ways to go to regain the ground it’s lost since its early days. Close to half (47%) of respondents in CivicScience’s survey still said they visit Yahoo sites rarely or never. Daily usage remained down slightly from 2015.
Financially, the company’s valuation has cratered since its heyday at the height of the dot-com boom. In 2000, Yahoo was valued at about $125 billion.
When Verizon bought the company in 2017, its valuation had dropped to roughly $5 billion. In 2021, private equity firm Apollo Global Management bought Yahoo for the same price and now operates it independently.
And these types of quirky campaigns can also only take Yahoo so far. The company has also had to modernize and expand its products, including a new AI search assistant called Scout and a revamped weather app. (To promote the launch of the app, Yahoo cast “Summer House” star Kyle Cooke as its “weatherboy,” a nod to his beverage brand Loverboy.)
Yahoo is also facing tough competition for advertising dollars. That’s a big reason why the company has been growing its presence at Cannes Lions, the international advertising festival held each June in the South of France. This year, the company also partnered with Substack writers including Alex Heath and Emily Sundberg for events at its splashy beachfront activation.
Heath and Sundberg are a very different kind of partner than Cardi B or Cooke. Line considers those writers to be “authorities in their areas” who can help the company build trust, especially around AI products.
Despite these differences, everyone that the company has worked with is what Line considers “a Yahoo.” What makes someone a Yahoo?
“They've gotta be self-possessed, self-aware,” Line said. “And sometimes we use this phrase internally: Down to clown.”
On Thursday’s podcast, Line also explains why the company sells a line of fake tech products on TikTok Shop and why it wiped its social feeds two years ago.
During the episode, we also go deeper with another legacy internet company turning to creators. Lauri Metrose, chief communications officer of Expedia, discusses how the online travel company is modernizing its brand through creators—including a high-profile partnership with IShowSpeed.
Tune in on YouTube, Spotify, Apple or anywhere else you get your podcasts.
VidCon’s Merger Is a Sign of the Times
VidCon, the annual creator economy conference, is combining with LIONS Creators, the creator program of Cannes Lions, which attracted over 13,000 media, marketing and tech professionals this year.
VidCon is also leaving Anaheim, Calif. and will be folded into the Insight to Impact festival, which will take place in Denver next month before moving to Nashville in 2027.
The change was inevitable. VidCon has long overlapped with Cannes Lions and has been losing ground as more creators and industry leaders opt for the South of France instead. After media and events company Informa bought both brands in 2024, it didn’t make sense to keep two competing events at the same time each year.
In many ways, the creator economy is getting exactly what it’s been asking for: inclusion and legitimacy in the wider business world. For so many years, VidCon was the center of the creator economy, but felt separate from traditional media and marketing.
Now, the two are linked in a move that’s also symbolic of how media and marketing have evolved. This year, advertisers will spend more than $44 billion on creator ads, per the IAB, with growth outpacing that of traditional media.
But it also feels like the end of an era, and we can’t help but feel nostalgic! Kaya’s first trip to VidCon was in 2019, where she witnessed firsthand the intense fandom around creators.
Still, one thing we won’t miss is the culture shock—and jetlag—from arriving at the Anaheim Convention Center near Disneyland after spending a week on the beach in Cannes.
The Round Up
Spotify is expanding its partner program to more than 35 markets around the world, including Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Poland and Spain, allowing audio and video creators in those places to earn money from their work.
Pinterest announced new advertising tools this week at its Pinterest Presents event, including Visual Search Ads, A/B testing and Priority Products, which lets advertisers highlight key product groups within a campaign.
CNN Creators announced its new facility in Doha, Qatar, which includes a studio, newsroom and production center. The show had been broadcasting from a temporary facility since launching in October 2025. The initiative taps existing employees, rather than independent creators, for the show and other social media-friendly content. Read more about how legacy outlets are adapting to the creator economy here.
Stanford is launching a course this fall called “Mastering the Creator Economy” for MBA students, focused on the business ecosystem supporting creators. The move comes as other universities are also taking the industry seriously, launching their own programs this fall. Syracuse University’s new Center for the Creator Economy rolled out its first minor, while Arizona State University is offering a content creation major for students within its journalism school.
Notes.fm, a music royalty collection platform for independent artists, raised $5 million from record producer Benny Blanco, country singer Zach Bryan and other investors.
📊 By the Numbers: 34%
That’s the percentage of monthly podcast listeners who have attended a live podcast event, according to new research from podcast monetization platform Acast and Differentology.
The report also noted an 80% increase in live podcast event attendance in the US between 2024 and 2026.
For creators, hosting a live event isn’t just about the money—sometimes it’s actually a money-losing endeavor. But the ability for creators to get their fans to show up in person is a huge testament to the strength of their businesses.
For podcaster Maggie Sellers Reum, selling out an event in London was the moment she knew that her show “Hot Smart Rich” was a brand, rather than just a podcast.
“Yes, people show up for the content, but when you have people show up for each other in the community, you have a diehard fandom,” Reum told Jasmine on stage at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit earlier this week. Read more from their conversation here.
Today in TikTok
• TikTok parent company ByteDance’s revenue increased over 30% to $120 billion during the first half of the year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. AI spending pressured its profit, but revenue was boosted by international advertising, livestreaming and TikTok Shop.
• TikTok announced new measures around AI-generated content, including better detection systems. The goal is to identify accounts that post spammy AI content that crowds out original creators.
• Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, became Asia’s richest person for the first time, according to Bloomberg. The 43-year-old is worth more than $105 billion.
Podcasting News
Threads added new tools for podcasters, including a display banner across profiles and posts, so listeners can more easily find the show. Creators can also feature their favorite episodes and make their podcast links appear as a tappable card.
The “Giggly Squad” comedy podcast, hosted by former “Summer House” stars Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, is moving to SiriusXM in a multi-year deal. The show was previously hosted by Acast. The podcast will still be available across platforms.
Casey Newton and Kevin Roose are partnering with NPR to distribute and sell ads for their new video podcast “Machine Gods,” which focuses on AI. The two independent journalists previously hosted a similar podcast for the New York Times called “Hard Fork.” NPR told Axios it’s interested in brokering more deals with outside talent, and is open to deals that allow creators to keep their IP.
Disney is adding two more podcasts to Hulu and Disney+, as it joins other streaming services in ramping up podcast investments, The Ankler reported. Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata’s “Best Friends” show and Miles Bonsignore’s “Perfect Person” will be available on both services next week. They will be exclusive for 24 hours before they become available on other platforms.
Bobbi Althoff is bringing back “The Really Good Podcast” with a new season on Sept. 30. She initially launched the podcast in 2023, and it quickly garnered attention for her deadpan approach with guests like Drake, before she shut it down in 2025.
Creator Moves
The Female Quotient, a media and events company focused on professional women, signed with CAA. It’s interesting to see CAA signing more companies, not just individual creators or talent, including Betches and Mad Realities, which produces short-form series for social media. (Scalable is also represented by CAA).
Mary Beth Barone’s rom-com series “Hard Feelings,” which stars the comedian, is headed to Hulu. Social media creator and actor Benito Skinner will co-star.
Brand Buzz
“Zoom fatigue” may now be a thing of the past, but so is our total reliance on video conferencing for business meetings as more people return to offices. A big marketing push from Zoom, which has seen slower growth since the pandemic, aims to show that it’s for more than just virtual meetings.
Creators, celebrities and social media are key to telling that story. The new ad campaign with actor Kate McKenna plays on our frustrations with Zoom to showcase its new AI capabilities. The company is getting a lot of positive buzz on social media for the campaign.
Meanwhile, the company has also partnered with Nayeema Raza, host of the “Smart Girl, Dumb Questions” podcast, on a new interview series about solopreneurs. Raza will also take part in the company’s annual Zoomtopia conference.
Talent Tracker
Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner of Forerunner, was named to Gap’s board of directors. Green is well known for her early investments in direct-to-consumer companies such as Warby Parker, Away and Dollar Shave Club. She’s also backed creator economy companies including Agentio and Stan.
Jamie Drew is now Gap’s head of strategic partnerships and growth. Before that, she spent six years at Paramount and 15 years at Nickelodeon. The move is another signal that the legacy fashion brand is putting entertainment at the center of its strategy: In January, the company hired Pam Kaufman as its first chief entertainment officer.
David Deng joined Netflix’s content programming strategy and operations team focusing on nonfiction content, including podcasts, unscripted and documentaries. Previously, he led product and revenue strategy for creator advertising partnerships at Amazon.
Kimberly Wu started at Whalar Group as its first SVP of strategic partnerships and growth. Most recently, she was head of global agency and marketing partnerships at TikTok.
