How Creators Put the + in Paramount (HBBIP #68)

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Listen: I know I say this about all my newsletters, but I really suggest you make time for this one. I’m having trouble articulating just how important this week’s brand is. Its importance is, like…really, really important. If only there were some kind of word I could use in order to capture this concept!

Oh well. Anyway, this week’s spotlight brand is Paramount.

Also (aka legally) known as Paramount Global, it might be easier to describe what Paramount isn’t, rather than all of the many things that it is. Still, here’s a crack at listing some of the properties that fall under its expansive umbrella:

• Paramount Pictures: film and television studio
• CBS Entertainment: television and radio network
• MTV: purveyor of music and cribs
• Nickelodeon: my childhood
• Paramount+: streaming service (more on them later)

This is an extremely partial list, mind you. If you want another few hours’ worth of reading material after you wrap up this blog post, then check out Paramount’s Wikipedia page. So many assets! Could HBBIP be next? (Please.)

With so much content and such a robust network of creators and celebrities, Paramount’s social media presence must have been through the digital roof for years now, right?

Not necessarily. Let’s take a closer look at how Paramount has grown its online presence recently, and how the brand is looking to build momentum into 2025 and beyond.

The Top Brand of All Time (of the Week): Paramount

I know what you’re thinking: oh boy, here comes another graph showing solid, steady growth. The nice, linear, cell service type of bar graph for which HBBIP is known and tolerated. Well, you might be right 90% of the time, but not in this edition! 

As I was putting Paramount’s data together, I noticed an interesting trend. Let’s see whether the savviest newsletter readership in the business can spot it:

Paramount Impressions 2019 - 2024

You might not have caught it, so I’ll spell it out for you: it sure seems like something happened in 2022. And then something else happened in 2024.

It’s not just a matter of impressions. Paramount was drawing more eyes after 2022, but content about the brand was also resonating more deeply, as evidenced by Paramount’s engagement:

Paramount Engagements 2018 - 2024

Here we don’t see that slight decline in 2023 that we saw for impressions. Plus, there’s further confirmation that it’s a whole new ballgame after 2022.

As you might expect—again, that whole ‘savvy’ thing—these drastic changes are reflected in Paramount’s community size, which jumped up several notches right around this inflection point, and has continued rising ever since:

Paramount Number of Creators 2018 - 2024

Interestingly (I hope so, anyway—this is a lot of graphs), the pattern alters slightly when we look at Paramount’s content volume:

Paramount Number of Posts: 2018 - 2024

So despite a very marginal dip in content creation between 2023 and Jan-Nov 2024, Paramount still posted notable gains across impressions and engagement.

It appears that we have several questions on our hands:

• This something circa 2022—what was it?
• How did Paramount manage to do more with less in 2024?
• What’s Paramount’s general creator strategy, anyway?
• Will there be more graphs?

You already know the answer to that last question (obviously). But let’s start at the top.

Remember earlier, when I said I’d mention Paramount+ again? Well, take another bow for being so darn savvy, because this is where I tie it all together.

Paramount+ launched in March 2021, and between the time it took for the service to get off the ground and our own data tabulation process, we don’t have great numbers for Paramount+ until the start of 2022. But at that point, it becomes very clear what sort of impact the service had on Paramount as a whole:

Paramount EMV 2022-2024

Here, broken out by halves, we have EMV totals for Paramount and Paramount+ from 2022 to 2024. Note that H2 2024 is really July to November, hence the H2(ish). That’s close enough for our purposes, but if you ever see something labeled H2O(ish), don’t drink it.

As you can see, Paramount+ is consistently responsible for a sizable portion of Paramount’s overall EMV, and helped jumpstart the brand’s broader momentum.

But how can we prove how closely connected Paramount is with its +? Why, by checking out the top creators for both Paramount and Paramount+, of course!

Here are Paramount’s top 10 creators from January to November 2024:

Paramounts Top Creators 2024

No, I didn’t have ‘The Daily Show’ on my bingo card either, given that it’s not 2007. But it was an election year, after all, and Jon Stewart’s return to the program brought a ton of buzz. When you factor in NFL games streaming on Paramount+, the star power of the American Music Awards (AMAs), and a range of figures from the world of cinema, this list begins to make more sense. And yes, the No. 4 creator here is Jeff Dunham—Jeffrey to you. Yes, he’s the guy with the puppets, and yes, he’s still getting work. Maybe it is 2007 after all.

Now here are the top earners for Paramount+:

Paramount's Top Earners 2024

 Before you say:

Note that in this case, the meme isn’t true. There are differences here, which stem mainly from whether creators are tagging ‘Paramount,’ ‘Paramount+,’ or both in their content. To that end, we can welcome CBS’ soccer coverage into the mix, and lose a few movie properties. We can also swap in RuPaul’s Drag Race for Movie Clips (sashay away) and Sylvester Stallone for Lupita Nyong’o (not a trade that I would make, but hey, the people love Tulsa King).

While the Paramount Universe extends well beyond organizations that have ‘Paramount’ in their name—otherwise, Paramount’s online metrics would be nearly incalculable—one thing is clear: Paramount+ has played a key role in revitalizing and expanding its parent conglomerate’s presence on social media. With a mix of some of the biggest (or at least most nostalgic) names in sports and entertainment, and a robust creator community to promote its various properties, Paramount and Paramount+ are poised to continue their impressive growth. So look out for the debut of Paramount++ sometime in 2028.

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