How a company run by and for Gen Z behaves
Trailblazing social media music promoter, Creed, is led by a Gen Z’er, employs Gen Z staff and connecting with a Gen Z audience is its raison d’etre. One day, says boss Tim Collins, all companies might be run in this way.
“We’ve built our success based on a ‘take us or leave us’ approach – if you don’t like what you see you can f**k off,” says Tim Collins, the boss of Swedish-headquartered digital marketing agency, Creed. You can talk like that if, like Collins, you happen to be the go-to impresario in the fiercely competitive world of social media music promotion.
Ranked by Forbes magazine as one of its ’30 under 30’ last year, Collins is the impresario with a gift for getting artists exposed on TikTok. He is credited with helping breakthrough American artist Trevor Daniels land 850 million streams (and counting) with his debut single, but he also helps such established artists as Taylor Swift (and her viral remix of ‘Love Story’). Not bad going for a company that only opened for business in 2018.
Collins speaks as he finds – he reputedly emailed a digital marketer at one record label with a glossary of 40-50 phrases they should use to communicate with their audience – and yet, as the agency has grown, he has become more mindful about what it takes to lead an organisation that is staffed by Gen Z (the average age is 23) and led by one.