Many big brands steer clear of livestreaming because it can be unpredictable. Expedia decided to go all in with a year-long partnership with top streamer IShowSpeed.
“We knew that this was going to be a risk, but it was like we were weighing the risk and reward,” Lauri Metrose, Expedia’s chief communications officer, told us on last week’s episode of Scalable. “We let him do his thing.”
The first phase of the partnership kicked off in April with a 15-hour livestream in which Speed, whose real name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr., visited multiple Caribbean countries in one day.
The livestream reached more than 400 million people and drove increased searches for those destinations on Expedia. In the days following Speed’s trip, searches for Sint Maarten jumped 70%, compared with 50% and 35% for Guadeloupe and Dominica, respectively, according to the company. It’s not clear how many of those searches resulted in bookings, however.
In later phases of the partnership, Expedia is focusing more on bookings, including travel experiences.
Travelers spent an estimated $1 trillion on experiences last year, making it one of the biggest opportunities in the industry, according to data from travel news and research firm Skift and McKinsey. Experiences are particularly popular among young travelers, with Gen Z preferring to save money on expenses like flights, local transportation and food before trimming their spending on experiences, according to McKinsey.
There also doesn’t seem to be a clear market leader for experiences. Still, Expedia ranked fourth among top marketplaces for booking travel experiences, behind Airbnb, TripAdvisor and GetYourGuide.com, according to a separate Skift survey from June 2025.
In late June, Speed was featured in an Expedia campaign where he raced across the US with a bright yellow Expedia-branded mannequin. Viewers could book every activity he did, including a massage or jet boat trip, through a custom website called speed.expedia.com.
Metrose said the third phase of the partnership, which is currently in the works, will combine livestreaming with booking. Even so, there’s a limit to how much Expedia can rely on livestreaming to generate sales.
While Expedia makes most of its revenue through its consumer business, growth is being driven by its B2B travel business, which powers bookings for other companies, such as credit card rewards programs or travel agencies.
In the second quarter of this year, B2B gross bookings rose by 21% year-over-year, compared to 8% for its consumer business. B2B revenue grew by 23%, compared to 14% for overall revenue. It’s less likely that business partners are choosing Expedia because of livestreams or creators.
Among consumers, buying via livestream is growing in popularity: 37% of respondents in a recent Adobe survey said they had made a purchase after seeing a product in a livestream. But most of those purchases were for categories like clothing, beauty and accessories—and many were impulse buys. Travel is a high-consideration, high-ticket product category and it’s not clear how willing people will be to reserve a flight or hotel room from a livestream.
Metrose acknowledged as much, noting that even as the partnership moves toward bookings, driving sales was never the main point of working with a mega creator like IShowSpeed.
"When we walk into a partnership with somebody at his level, that’s the gravy. It’s not the end goal,” she said. “Just even how many more viewers we have is such a big part of it…There’s no funnel anymore, so you have to be able to integrate everything into one.”
Tune into our full conversation with Metrose, where she also discusses an upcoming employee influencer program and how the company handled Speed passing out during the livestream, in this YouTube video, embedded below.
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Creator Moves
YouTube’s reported pressure campaign against creators signing deals with Netflix may just be working. Nick DiGiovanni, a food creator with about 46 million YouTube subscribers, allegedly told Netflix he would like to revisit the deal they announced in July, per Bloomberg.
Under the terms of the deal, new episodes would be available on Netflix the same day they go live on YouTube. DiGiovanni hasn’t made a final decision yet, Bloomberg reported. Read more about creators’ Netflix dilemma here.
Alex Cooper’s podcast network Unwell is adding four new or returning shows, covering history, lifestyle and internet culture. All four shows will run on YouTube, which has recently been a focus for the company, from reality competition “Unwell Games” to microdramas. We also suspect it’s because Unwell hopes YouTube will help sell the new slate to advertisers.
One of the new shows, “Petticoat Revolution,” is under fire from another independent podcast called “The Right Answers Mostly,” which claims Unwell mimicked its concept, tagline, cover art design and merch. Read more about Cooper’s business, which was recently valued at $500 million, here.
Sammi Cohen is launching Social Commerce Network, or SCN, a new livestreamed business news show on YouTube, X, TikTok and Instagram. SCN, which will broadcast three times a week for two hours, will include news and interviews with business leaders in consumer, tech, retail and other industries.
Cohen, who also has a podcast, will co-host SCN with Alaina Hartley, a former investor at Greycroft who now runs a consumer brands consultancy. More creators have expanded into livestreaming as a way to try to stand out in algorithmically-driven feeds—especially after the rise of TBPN, whose success many hope to replicate.
What are Erling Haaland and MrBeast up to? The Norwegian soccer star, who skyrocketed in popularity during the World Cup, and the world’s top YouTuber have seemingly been teasing a potential collaboration. That includes two recent collab posts on Instagram: One is a photo of Haaland and MrBeast with the caption “2 YouTubers” and a video where the pair recreates Haaland’s viral AI-generated “flinch” meme.
Political Download
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Saturday that introduces criminal and civil penalties on creators who don’t disclose paid political ads. While existing laws required influencers to disclose they were being paid, violators didn’t face legal consequences, according to NBC. The new rules come just ahead of the midterms and as influencers have become a growing part of political campaigns and strategies.
Jake and Logan Paul visited the Pentagon and addressed troops last week. They also met with Vice President JD Vance.
During the visit, Jake was photographed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. On Instagram, he wrote that the brothers’ trip to DC apparently “really pisses some people off” and “whether people like me or hate me I’m going to keep showing up.”
Disney Dispatch
• Disney signed a deal with kids creator Like Nastya, one of the biggest kids channels on YouTube with more than 450 million subscribers across 25 YouTube channels. As part of the deal, Like Nastya will develop an original animated preschool series and new content for kids and families.
The move follows Disney’s deal with Dhar Mann Studios, which also primarily develops kids and family content on YouTube, for 20 original episodes.
• Last week, Disney hosted its “Created in LA” event with creator Jon Youshaei. The two-day event included a red carpet premiere of creator videos in the El Capitan Theatre and speaking appearances from Kris Jenner, Khloe Kardashian, Dude Perfect, Dhar Mann and Adam W.
• Karandeep Anand will become Disney’s new chief technology officer on Oct. 2. Most recently, he was CEO of Character.ai, an AI chatbot service where people talk to customized characters.
Get our full take on Disney’s creator moves in a recent episode of Scalable, available now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts!
Brand Buzz
Old Navy said its campaign with MrBeast resulted in a 22% increase in traffic to the brand’s kids’ section online in the days after launch, according to data it shared with Marketing Dive. Overall, the MrBeast videos garnered over 100 million views globally and 1.4 billion impressions on YouTube, and also boosted Old Navy’s views and engagement on other platforms, such as TikTok.
Hidden Valley Ranch, owned by The Clorox Company, turned fans into creators through a “Ranchbassador” program. The selected fans spent seven weeks traveling to multiple countries and capturing reactions to people trying Ranch dressing. The program had 6,000 applicants though it’s unclear how many were ultimately chosen. In a blog post, Clorox said more than 600 pieces of organic content were created by ambassadors. (Turns out Ranch wasn’t just a favorite of foreign fans at the World Cup!)
Talent Tracker
The Recording Academy, best known for the Grammys, is hiring a director of YouTube strategy to grow its presence on the platform. The starting salary is $110,000 to $120,000 per year.
Mike McGarry was promoted to Patreon's first-ever CMO. Previously, he was senior vice president of marketing.
Andy Bonillo, the general manager of US data security at TikTok, left the company after five years. He was one of the key figures within the company during the TikTok ban fight in the US. Next, Bonillo said he’ll advise founders and executive teams, including Cloaked and Cranium AI, on topics including cybersecurity, tech, national security and AI.
Alyssa Dombrowski is joining Unwell as director of communications. Most recently, she was senior director of global communications at talent management company The Team. Cooper is the latest major creator to hire a senior comms leader.
Emma Rhoades-Brown is now head of sales at Creator Access, a London-based media sales platform focused on YouTubers. Before that, she spent 12 years at Google, most recently as a senior client partner for its entertainment division.
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