TikTok Influencer Drew Afualo Is a Brand Magnet

While in Disneyland, a man clutching his baby chased down TikTok creator Drew Afualo, asking for a photo, raving about how much he loved her content. It was an endearing moment for Adweek’s Digital & Tech Creator of the Year. “Something I pride myself in is, my fans, none of them look alike,” she told Adweek. “Not many straight men are privy to approaching me and telling me what big fans they are.” To her opponents on TikTok (often straight men lambasting women for their looks), her comebacks are cutting and calculating. But to Afualo's fans, they’re warranted and mostly hilarious. Afualo's witty responses to displays of fatphobia, transphobia, sexism and racism have gotten the reactionary content creator 7.8 million followers on TikTok. This puts her ahead of public figures like Kim Kardashian, who has 4.7 million, and Afualo’s videos often receive an average of more than 2 million views. “My platform is literally built off of making terrible men uncomfortable,” Afualo said. In February, Afualo launched her own podcast, The Comment Section, through content company Brat TV. The show invites TikTok stars like Jackie Aina and Antoni Bumba to discuss the most noteworthy and nasty comments on their pages, as well as cover an array of topics, like "How to Be a Bad Bitch" or being "Fake Woke." According to influencer agency Whalar, which reps Afualo, the simulcast show brings roughly 50,000 streams across Apple and Spotify and 150,000 on YouTube. Combative remarks, however warranted, are traditionally not a magnet for brand partnerships, but this isn’t the case for Afualo. This year, the creator is booking up to two deals a week with brands like YouTube, Tinder, Mountain Dew, and in her most recent haul, Yitty, music artist Lizzo’s shapewear brand through a partnership with Fabletics. “For brands that are looking to create awareness on specific topics or looking to make a statement, she is a partner who is unafraid to speak her mind,” said Captiv8 CEO and co-founder Krishna Subramanian. For Afualo, it’s not authentic if distasteful men aren’t the punchline every time in her paid content. “Speaking of them,” she said of misogynists in a TikTok with Yitty in July, “I’m gonna dress up as them and try on these new Yitty pieces.” In the video, Afualo popped on a red nose before trying on each piece from the collection. The video had 2 million views at press time. Money paid to creators isn't slowing down despite signs of an economic downturn that's leading to less ad spend, especially considering the influencer marketing sector made $13.8 billion in 2021, which is expected to increase to $16.4 billion by end of this year, per Statista. "Marketers see 50% higher attention metrics, such as valid and viewable impressions and watch time [on TikTok] when working with creators, compared to a brand posting itself," said Influential CEO Ryan Detert. Based on influencer campaigns done through Influential, there’s six times the return on ad spend on social creator campaigns compared to campaigns that don’t use creators. Detert estimated other creators with similar followings to Afualo would likely generate revenue in the tens of thousands of dollars per post. She Got Harassed by TikTok Trolls—Then Her Brand Deals Suffered A vocal veteran The mid-20s California girl was a digital media coordinator for the NFL before she became a crusader for maligned women on TikTok. In February 2020 she was let go, a month before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. (In one of her TikToks, she explained she was fired a day after she asked to switch teams because she felt mistreated by her boss.) In March 2021, her first viral video listed a number of red flags in men, such as having any interest in Joe Rogan or calling women “females,” reeling in 3.2 million views and nearly 700,000 likes. “That's what started getting me hate from men,” she said. “I started making responses to hate comments, and that's when I started making fun of dudes. I didn't plan on doing it, if that makes anybody feel better.” Sticking it to them came at a cost, though. Afualo told Adweek in May that TikTok disabled her account four times as a result of getting flagged by followers of her targets. While building a brand on being a vociferous defender against a platform's trolls has rewarded her with loyal troops, she can't always make the entire army happy. In April, the creator received backlash from a portion of her audience for her paid partnership with fast-fashion retailer Shein promoting Shein X, an incubator program to help up-and-coming fashion designers launch a collection with the brand. The comments below her try-on haul lampooned Afualo for working with a brand that had been accused of neglecting sustainability in its rapid-production practices. “I know why I did it,” she told Adweek, pointing to the brand’s initiative to promote up-and-coming designers, which was important to her because she wanted to show support for women in a woman-dominant industry, adding that content creators are often under a microscope for the choices they make. “An influencer is a human at the end of the day,” Havas Media Group’s vice president of social, content and influencer Juliet Tiery said. “They can't be a complete reflection of a brand nor can a brand be a complete reflection of one person.” As the number of brand deals grow, Afualo has realized her choices hold more weight, and she has therefore become more purposeful with who she chooses to partner with. “If it [a brand] sounds like it works for me, and I agree with the messaging, then I'm going to do it,” she said. For instance, she attended and posted about Benefit Cosmetics' brow service activation in August where every $5 from each paid service went to a pro-female charity such as Planned Parenthood. She has also promoted Smashbox cosmetics' vegan and cruelty-free moisturizer in a TikTok. Media mogul in the making With a tour, a pending book deal and recently announced clothing line—a partnership with sustainable, genderless retailer Chnge—already underway, Afualo also has her sights on hosting her own talk show. But the thought of disappointing her loyal fandom is dispiriting to Afualo. “I've taught them so much at this point. I've given them so much ammo, but more importantly, I feel like I've hammered home multiple times how much stronger they are than they give themselves credit for. So sometimes I fear that they think they can't do this without me. And that's just not true.” Check out the rest of the 2022 Hot List here.

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Meseret Ambachew

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Meseret Ambachew