Eddie Gold is the CEO and founder of The Gold Studios Group, a London and New York-based Creator Economy company operating at the intersection of talent management, entertainment production, and brand partnerships. Founded in 2020, the company now works with more than 400 creators across comedy and sports while producing branded entertainment, YouTube shows, and live events.

“We are an entertainment company,” Eddie says. “We represent digital creators in comedy and sport and we produce incredible work for ourselves, for our talent and for brands.”

The premise behind the business is rooted in a shift Eddie observed during his decade working in traditional advertising. While major agencies continued focusing on television commercials and billboards, audiences were increasingly avoiding ads altogether through ad blockers and paid streaming tiers.

“Forty-three percent of global internet users use an ad blocker,” he says. “In other words, they are choosing to not watch adverts.”

That reality, Eddie argues, requires a different approach: integrating brands into entertainment rather than forcing advertising into people’s feeds. The Gold Studios attempts to solve that problem by combining creator talent, production infrastructure, and brand strategy into a single operating model.

“We use entertainment as a Trojan horse through the ad blockers,” Eddie explains.

Leaving Madison Avenue Playbooks Behind

Before launching his own company, Eddie spent nearly a decade working at advertising agency adam&eveDDB, producing campaigns for major brands. During that time, he began noticing a growing disconnect between how advertising agencies operated and how audiences were consuming media online.

“The way the YouTube algorithm worked two years ago is completely different to now,” Eddie says. 

When Eddie founded The Gold Studios in 2020, the company initially focused on helping digital creators produce professional commercials and branded content. “At first, comedians and digital comedians would come up to me and say, ‘You know how to make commercials. Can you do it for me?’” he recalls. “So we started making commercials for creators.”

Over time, those relationships transitioned to brand partnerships. Eddie notes that companies began approaching The Gold Studios to produce similar content for their own channels and campaigns.

That shift gradually expanded the company’s scope from production support into a broader creator economy infrastructure encompassing talent representation, entertainment production, and brand strategy.

Building a Multi-Layered Creator Business

Today, The Gold Studios operates across five divisions.

The first is The Gold Talent, which represents digital comedians in the United Kingdom and the United States while connecting them with brands seeking creator partnerships.

The second division, The Gold Live, organizes comedy tours and live performances for digital creators, reflecting an emerging trend in which online personalities monetize through real-world events. “Not everything is digital,” Eddie says. “We sell products. You know what we sell? We sell tickets.”

He adds that this shift has also changed how traditional comedy venues view digital talent. “Three or four years ago we’d go to comedy clubs and say we’ve got this big YouTuber comedian,” Eddie says. “They’d say, ‘A YouTuber in our club? No thank you.’”

Today, the dynamic has reversed. “Now the comedy clubs are asking for it,” Eddie says.

The company’s third division, The Gold Originals, develops original programming for creators across YouTube and subscription platforms. One example involves comedian Big Tugg, whose content sometimes pushes beyond YouTube’s content restrictions. “We launched Extra Tugg; $4 a month for videos that aren’t allowed on YouTube,” Eddie says. “The subscribers are in the thousands.”

The Gold Studios also operates a creative agency division producing branded entertainment and campaigns for companies seeking creator-driven storytelling.

Finally, the company recently launched The Gold Arena, a new division focused on representing sports creators and digital sports personalities.

The Rise of ‘Brands as Creators’

A central concept behind Eddie’s strategy is that brands should begin behaving more like creators.

Rather than relying entirely on influencer sponsorships or traditional advertising campaigns, Eddie argues that companies can build their own long-term content ecosystems. “If you want to rent an audience for today, that’s great,” he says. “But if we can grow our own page and our own community, the CPM reduces.”

As an example, Eddie cites the company’s work with global betting brand Betway. 

The Gold Studios helped develop a network of sports entertainment channels across YouTube and other social platforms. “We launched about ten YouTube channels, and off the back of every channel there’s TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Spotify,” Eddie says.

According to him, that ecosystem allows brands to maintain ongoing reach without relying solely on paid campaigns. “Not only is their CPM lower right now,” Eddie says. “Their CPM is going to be low for the next few years.”

A Studio Built for Speed

To support its production model, The Gold Studios recently opened a dedicated studio in Camden, London.

The facility is designed for always-on digital production. “If your favorite YouTube show is producing content every single day, then the shows that we produce and the brand entertainment that we produce needs to be producing every day,” Eddie says.

That pace requires new types of creative roles and workflows. “The roles that we hire now didn’t exist a year ago,” Eddie says.

The Gold Studios has also begun experimenting with AI-driven production tools. “What’s really funny about producing AI commercials is that the tools you start with might change halfway through the production,” Eddie says. “Four days in there might be a better tool.”

For Eddie, that constant advancement means production processes must remain flexible. “Our process of production is not a book,” he says. “Our process is what is right for today.”

Culture as a Strategic Advantage

While The Gold Studios has grown to about 50 employees, Eddie emphasizes that culture remains central to the company’s philosophy.

“We believe in 11-star service,” he says.

The idea reflects an expectation that teams go beyond basic deliverables to create exceptional experiences for both creators and brands. “We have a rule: no bastards please,” Eddie says. “Everyone you work with, all of our clients, you have to enjoy it.”

That philosophy extends to how the company structures its collaboration process. “Creators can be difficult. Brands can be difficult,” Eddie says. “We’ve built a studio that brings those worlds together.”

What Brands Still Get Wrong

Despite the growth of Influencer Marketing and creator partnerships, Eddie believes many brands are still adapting to the economics of digital content.

“I still see brands saying to traditional advertising agencies, ‘Can you make us an Influencer Marketing campaign?’” he says.

According to Eddie, those agencies often apply traditional production budgets to social media campaigns, resulting in inefficient spending. “I remember making a photograph of someone holding a french fry and it cost $500,000,” he says. “That could be several seasons of a YouTube show.”

As a result, Eddie encourages brands to work with companies that specialize in creator-driven content. “Work with partners that are already in this space,” he advises.

The Next Phase

For Eddie, the next phase of the Creator Economy will involve even closer collaboration between creators, brands, and entertainment production.

He expects companies to increasingly build long-term entertainment ecosystems rather than relying on short-term influencer campaigns. “Brands are going to start building their own world of creators within the branded entertainment space,” Eddie says.

As for The Gold Studios itself, Eddie expects the company to continue growing alongside the industry.

“This time next year we will look like a different company,” he says. “What we do know is that brands want to be ahead of the curve, which means we need to be way ahead of the curve.”

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