Liam Chivers. Founder and Managing Director at OP Talent
BSc Psychology. Class of 1997
Liam Chivers: Founder and Managing Director at OP Talent
Liam Chivers is the founder and managing director of OP Talent. Founded in 2012, OP Talent is the first and leading YouTube management company in the UK. Liam studied Psychology at Swansea between 1994 and 1997.
Liam also met his wife, April at Swansea University. April was studying History & English. They live together in Nottinghamshire and have 2 kids.
Did you enjoy your time at Swansea?
My dad is half Welsh and was born in Morriston hospital, so I’ve always had that connection to Wales. I have good memories of the campus, there was always a lot going on and plenty of things to do. Years later, April and I moved up to Bryn Road. I have many, many great memories up there.
Let’s start at the beginning. What is an influencer?
An influencer is someone who has the power to affect the opinions of others because of their authority, knowledge, position or relationship with their audience. Someone that has a strong social media following in a particular context or interest area can influence the people that follow them.
Even though we manage influencers and that’s what we do as a company, I don’t call them influencers, that's quite a recent term the media has generated in the last few years. I've always called them creators because that is what they are at heart. It's their content and their creations that leads them to being influential. I think some people might say, ‘'I want to be an influencer’', but over the last ten years, that's never been the thing. The talent has always wanted to be either creators or YouTubers. They've not wanted to be influencers. Inevitably, people do look up to influencers on social media to guide them with their own decision making, as people engage with them. The reason an influencer becomes an influencer is because most people who watch them can associate with them. They're quite relatable as opposed to a traditional celebrity, who are quite unattainable and not accessible because they don't have social media access in the same way big YouTubers do. Influencers on social media are people who’ve built a reputation for their knowledge or expertise in a specific topic. They generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged people who pay close attention to their views.
What are the biggest challenges that you face in managing social media influencers?
OP talent began officially in 2012. In the beginning, the biggest challenge was educating brands about how to work with influencers. Obviously, we are looking to monetise content, build careers and do financial deals for our influencers by giving brands access to their followers and influence. However, sometimes brands view them as another advertising channel, saying, ‘’This is an ad campaign, we want this many millions of views etc.’, but it doesn’t work like that.
Ensuring the creators' voice and usual style comes through is crucial. Maintaining this consistency impacts on the content performance and campaign success, as well as the influencer's reputation.
Brands need to trust the influencers with their reputations so creating mutual trust and understanding is paramount.
The goal is to share the brand’s message whilst protecting the creator’s reputation. We make sure that the brand requirements suit the creators' content. Ultimately, they are a creator first, influencer second.
We work with numerous brands, agencies, and entertainment companies every day. We turn down a high percentage of deals, usually if they don’t align with the any of our creators. The challenge is ensuring both the brand and creator collaborate effectively and are happy with the outcome. Over the last few years, brands are improving in their work with creators, being open to new suggestions around content and promoting their brand.
No two influencers are the same. For example, we managed KSI for ten years. He wanted to do boxing, so we had to create a new influencer boxing industry. We took the boxing mainstream with a major sports broadcaster, so it was no longer on YouTube. Then he wanted to go into the music industry
Top gamer, Ali A, who we manage exclusively, was our very first signing back in 2012, just a couple of weeks before KSI. He's tried various things, but he just wants to be a gaming youtuber. He's hosted tv shows, written his own books, gone on small tours. It's all about “who do we partner with?” and we must learn these industries ourselves to protect these creators. If someone says, “I want to be a musician”, then you must research and align with the best people in that space. Same with the touring companies and boxing “Who are the best broadcasters, who's going to look after production?” You're juggling a lot of spinning plates and learning on the job most of the time, learning industries from scratch, because a lot of the things we've done such as influencer boxing were built literally from nothing, into the industry it is today.
At all times we need to be protecting the best interest of the talent in terms of the time, the financials, obligations and contracts. Those are the biggest challenges.
How do you identify and select the correct influencer for a brand or campaign?
We have the signed roster of talent who we always try and look to match with campaigns first. We also work with a lot of creators who aren’t signed, which we’re upfront about with the brands. If there's a project that doesn't suit any of our signed creators, we will help the brands identify and work with the best non signed creators. However, within our OP roster, I would say we have 99% of the approaches covered in terms of content and the demographic match. However, it’s sometimes the case that the creator isn’t interested in a particular brand or campaign, or their audience wouldn't necessarily engage with it properly. If we can't find the right match of creator and brand, then of course you need to keep looking elsewhere or decline the campaign entirely. Matching the creators with the brands is all down to demographics and interests. OP have that covered.
We also need to consider the budgets of the brand or the campaign. We’re not going to waste weeks of discussions on major creators who already have various other revenue streams and projects going on. If the budget's more suitable to a smaller creator or to someone who might just give it a bit more attention, then that’s the direction we will move in. The timing is also important. For example, sometimes creators are just like “you know I've had enough of doing videos for this week, or I want to go on holiday, or I've got this planned”. The timing's not always right. Ultimately, the correct influencer for a brand is someone who can find the right content, match the brand, while still getting the brand messaging in there without affecting the content adversely.
So, from a commercial perspective, influencers are trendsetting, but do you also see them playing a major role in amplifying diverse bodies and perspectives?
Yes, ultimately, you could call an influencer or the big creators, amplifiers. It’s what they do, and the crux of what ‘influence’ is. They amplify messages on their opinions or topic. They can support or oppose anything they believe in or stand against. Creators will only, and should only, comment or promote a brand campaign on a topic they know exceptionally well or as good as anybody else. Otherwise, you need to stay clear of big sweeping statements about political agendas, war or indeed any facets of life. The bigger influencers are very aware they have these voices and this power, and they could bring hate upon someone if they said something negative, or they could bring a negative flow of viewpoint towards a brand or a campaign if they say the wrong thing.
Influencers can drive social movement and activism. Do you see a greater role for them in this space?
Only those with a strong grasp, interest, or clear opinion and insight. Otherwise, they can't comment or give opinions without full context and appreciation of the area they are commenting on. They can get easily ‘cancelled’ or receive negative feedback themselves, damaging their own brand if they speak out of turn without complete insight. You can easily give a topic awareness, you can amplify that there is a discussion over something, but without necessarily giving your conclusion on it. Influencers can start discussions and amplify the voices.
Are there any ethical considerations that you consider when you work with influencers?
Yes, absolutely! You have to be aware that things can come back to the brand and promotional side of things. There's been a lot of money over the last few years in certain areas which aren't necessarily safe or credible. For example, cryptocurrencies, forex trading, or NFTs. There are companies and people trying to pay a lot of money to creators to promote their crypto coins or their NFTs, and a lot of influencers jumped on that. However, not one of ours went anywhere near those deals and they would never consider them. They wouldn’t go near them because they can't be sure that when they're talking about trading or anything financial that it's going to be a success or not. It’s not their area of expertise. They didn't make the NFT. They're not involved with the cryptocurrency themselves. They're not traders, they don't know forex. Several YouTubers out there did get ‘cancelled’, for promoting certain crypto and other campaigns which they thought may succeed. It was a good fee, it sounded quite cool, and they promoted it. They took a lot of money and then those things failed, and their fans lost money, therefore cancelling the person who promoted it in the first place. So again, it comes back to what fits the interests and experience of the creator and avoiding bad advice to their impressionable fans and followers. This is why we absolutely refuse to work with and promote crypto, forex and NFTs because, as a management company, we don’t have the experience in them and most creators don’t unless they are a niche crypto expert, NFT expert or a forex trading expert. Those people are fine to review things like that because they have the insight and knowledge. Big, widespread general entertainers with massive followings are not the right people to promote those things.
How do you feel that influencers are changing our culture?
They've been changing it for some years now. I've been saying to brands, entertainment companies and platforms that these creators are the modern-day mainstream. YouTube is the modern-day mainstream.
If you did a survey with a variety of students, asking what careers they want before university, they would want to be a doctor. Some people will say I want to be a footballer, or I want to be an astronaut. These days it's “I want to be a YouTuber”. Therefore, you have to say that YouTube is the mainstream now. It has changed culture and largely because of the creators always being accessible to watch and follow. You don't have to wait for a Saturday afternoon to watch David Beckham in a football match or wait for the next Tom Cruise film in six months' time to see him in the cinema. The YouTubes are always on, they're always accessible, and that's why people find them relatable and become connected to them. Culture has changed and it's due to the speed and accessibility of the content of the big YouTubers.
What are some of the emerging trends you see in influencer marketing, such as micro influencers or specific platforms?
There is a trend that says to invest money in the big macro-influencers, because we want millions of people to know about our brand or our cause. Although macro-influencers have a bigger general appeal and audience, they also cost more. The trend is leaning towards bigger influencers to attain widespread brand recognition, but smaller brands are turning to micro-influencers for more tailored campaigns within their budget. This approach allows for more selective targeting and ensures engagement with potential customers.
We work with some smaller influencers in quite specific areas which attract the companies that work in those smaller circles.
There are small platforms which smaller creators can go on and try to find a sponsor or a brand partner because they're a little bit more niche. But ultimately, in terms of trends and influencer marketing, the advertisers are pushing slightly more into all different corners of YouTube and social media to find those pockets of key customers or people who might be interested in their service.
Can you provide examples of how OP talent has facilitated unique collaborations and groundbreaking events within the influencer space?
The influencer boxing sphere is an incredible example of the creation of a unique industry. I would say the most famous and important boxing influencer event that we created was the KSI versus Logan Paul rematch in America. We took it off YouTube and used an elite sports broadcaster for the first time, which opened the mainstream doors to the likes of KSI. Indirectly, even though we didn't manage Logan Paul, it certainly set those two up well, to do other things. We handed KSI over to his music team because that's what he wanted to do. I did the first big creator documentary launch on Amazon. We did the Amazon Prime KSI documentary, all because of that door opening with that boxing match. Since then, we've done a lot of boxing, we manage a lot of other creators who do influencer boxing and it's been good fun. Then we did one of the world's biggest influencer tours, with DanTDM, a big Minecraft YouTuber. We used to manage Dan and he did a worldwide tour, including UK and America. He even went to Australia and sold out the Sydney Opera House in the second fastest time in history. Only Florence and The Machine sold out the Opera House faster than that. These are examples of numbers and figures only the top celebrities of the past could possibly have delivered and demonstrates how influencers are the new modern-day mainstream.
I'd say one of my favourite early brand deals is when we helped co-launch the Porche Cayman with Ali-A. Some would think it's a very unattainable brand for a 16 or 17-year-old YouTuber to work with. He raced around docklands with racing drones chasing him with lasers, trying to hit the Porsche enough times before it reached a finishing line. The whole video is very fast paced, and he obviously gets to the end first and defeats the drones, but it's very gamified. It was very in keeping with Ali-A's gaming content, it really appealed to his audience. People then said, but “why would any of Ali-A's audience, (whose average age was somewhere between 15 to 18 years old), afford a Porsche”. “Why would Porsche spend money on Ali-A to help launch this campaign?” Well, because it's ultimately a very important, aspirational piece. When I was a kid I had posters of cars on my wall, I had a Lamborghini. By Ali working with Porsche and Farrari, they’re creating these aspirations. Ali working with Porsche and saying, “this is a super cool brand, look at me working with them, with all this cool content”, it's future proofing that brand. With a huge demographic of millions of people who, in a few years’ time, may be able to choose between a Porsche or its competitors, they may just remember that. It was great content which helped Ali's channel because it was well produced, high production value and completely in keeping with Ali’s style. That was one of those early groundbreaking case studies which you can then show and share with any brand who says, “why should I work with that influencer?”, or “who have they worked with before?” They’ve worked with Porsche, which is a top tier brand. It’s always a useful case study to show their power. Google did a review of the statistics with Porsche on the campaign and on the video, and it was more successful than any of their tv advertising on the same product at the time. Google and Porsche then went on video to say, “this was incredible because of XYZ and here's our research behind it”. You put that with the content and the cool Ali-A content, boom. That is just super powerful. It was a definite breakthrough.
For aspiring entrepreneurs and individuals interested in entering the influencer industry, what advice would you give them based on your own experiences and insights gained from OP talent?
Whether you're a YouTuber or an influencer manager, you must be true to yourself and the creator. The content comes first, over any financial deals. If you’re offered a quick financial reward but the fit isn't there, the fans will see through it. Then the creator and the management will lose credibility very quickly. So content is key. Be consistent as a creator and always focusing on the quality of the content as the manager. Really though, it comes down to a lot of the similar traits to any industry. It's work ethic.
