Atomic London launches Supernova to put social creators 'at the heart of the business'

Atomic London has launched a dedicated social creator agency following its acquisition of Talent & Brands, a celebrity and influencer business. The move marks a significant milestone in Atomic London's plans to build its unique connected creative offering, and combine creator talent with the agency’s creative engine to help brands and influencers grow their presence in the creator economy.

Set up in 2018, Talent & Brands manages content creators and influencers including celebrity brand ambassadors Amanda Holden, Laura Whitmore, Big Zuu, Professor Green, and Rob Mayhew.

As part of Atomic, Supernova will be run by joint managing partners Raf McDonnell and Tom Sneddon. McDonnell is the founder of Talent & Brands, and has also held senior client roles at Coca-Cola, Amazon and EMI. Sneddon was previously head of social and influence at Good Relations (part of the VCCP Group) and a brand lead at TikTok. Atomic London social and digital executive creative director Katy Sumption will also join the Supernova leadership team.

We caught up with Atomic CEO Jon Goulding and Supernova managing partner Tom Sneddon to explore the agency's new offering.

Creative Salon: What is the thinking behind the launch of Supernova?

Jon Goulding, CEO, Atomic: We're doing it is partly, of course, because of the creator economy. Fundamentally, you can't underestimate the impact that creators will have on creative agencies and the entire advertising industry and marketplace.

We also wanted to make a very significant investment, which is why we've acquired a company to make a quality play in this space. By quality, I mean that we aren't talking about influencers. We've banned the word influence in the agency because this is about the best creative talent, whether that be creators who might be on TikTok, or whether it's creators who are celebrities in their own right already. As part of the talent management company we bought we're already managing celeb talent.

Supernova is a quality play around creators that we’ve created because ultimately we believe that creators are going to be at the heart of what brands come to creative agencies to help them answer in terms of their briefs. We’re doing this because we feel we need to have a very significant stake and have creators at the heart of an agency. We will take Supernova as seriously as we take brand creativity in its more traditional sense.

CS: The acquisition of Talent & Brands to create Supernova marks a distinct growth era for Atomic. Does the birth of Supernova mark a new shift for the agency?

Jon Goulding: It's part of an overall strategy for Atomic to have some of the best creative thinkers across a whole range of different disciplines and obviously social creator spaces is a really important area. Supernova is part of a journey we're going on to bring in the very best creative thinkers, not just under one roof. A lot of bigger companies acquire outfits and then hope to work together, whereas we want to acquire some of the best people and literally work around one table to solve clients' challenges with creative solutions. This is a really big landmark move for us.

We think this could be the beginning of a whole new model for what a client could look like for a creative agency, because it's not just about helping brands find the best creator solutions for them. This is also about us helping creators develop and grow their careers, who one day will become clients of ours. It's a really different dynamic. Creators will be clients of the future. This model shift is something we want to be at the heart of.

CS: As the lines between user and influencer blur rapidly - what are the the most critical things businesses need to understand about creator economy?

Tom Sneddon, managing partner, Supernova: The creator economy isn't just filling out the void with more noise but ultimately adding value. It’s helping clients understand what impact looks like. Instead of chasing vanity metrics around likes and comments and shares, it's actually asking: what leads have creators generated? What growth have they propelled? What kind of sales have they impacted on a short, medium or long term basis? Have they affected brand metrics over a sustained period of time?

From our standpoint, the creator economy is less about that instant, quick fix, and all about that long term evolution where we're starting to add value into people's feeds and present them the most relevant, compelling and action orientated things they actually want to be part of.

I think people associate influencers with being cajoled into something they don't want or they don't need. But actually, we all know that people respond to people and that's through finding creative relevance. For us connected creativity and the power of the creator economy is about presenting new ideas, new opportunities, and finding value. It's about adding value and ultimately reassessing the value of brands in the social space.

CS: For Gen Alpha consumers - who started turning 13 this year- grown up in the creator economy, online influence comes as standard. What advice would you have for brands trying to speak to this emergent generation of teenagers?

Tom Sneddon: There are a lot of buzzwords being thrown around like ‘authenticity’ and ‘trust’, and they're not wrong. I think Gen Alpha are really selective with their media and they're not necessarily glued to their phones and led by one channel or another. Instead, they're much much more interested in curating their own social existence. For brands to add value to this experience they will have to be much more social first. It's about a fair value exchange as opposed to shouting the loudest in the hope that they gravitate. Intent drives traction.

I think what we're going to start to see with the creator economy is even greater fragmentation, but actually moving to a very clear and segmented understanding of how audiences behave. It's no longer one size fits all. Instead, it's going to be about clear mindsets, value and relevance. Supernova is about combining technology, understanding and creative processes. Value is what truly motivates us, and it is value that will actually make a difference to brands and culture.

We're really excited about the fact that we aren't going to just tell a product, we're going to live the product. We are an agency built for creators. Our entire process is about bringing creators much closer and actually using communities and authentic creators as early as possible in the creative process. We're now going to see an industry start to wrap themselves around the process of creators. The creator economy is far less about following the traditional processes and more about tackling things head on with far more trust and vigour around who the voices are, what they represent, and why audiences actually will want to listen.