Name: Collin Castellaw
Job: Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer
Company: PlayerTV
LinkedIn: Collin Castellaw
In 140 characters or less, tell us who you are and how you got to where you are today.
My name is Collin Castellaw, I’m the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of the new athlete media company PlayerTV.
What’s one trend in media or marketing that you’re buying or selling?
We’ve all heard that “content is king” but at the end of the day, content is nothing without eyeballs to go along with it. So we’re betting big on the distribution side of media because that’s how you truly build brands, scale globally, and change the game. You can bake the best apple pie on planet earth, but if nobody ever gets to taste it then what’s the point.
How do you define engagement?
To us, engagement is not necessarily about total views/likes/shares, but instead how much it resonates with the viewer. We fully feel that if you create cool stuff, the “engagement” will come organically. So instead of chasing likes, you’re providing value.
What’s a lesson in audience (fan) engagement that every marketer should learn?
Engagement 101 for us is this… Don’t give them what YOU want, give them what THEY want. Often we see campaigns and content built around what the creator/brand needs to show, but many times they don’t actually take into account what the viewer or consumer actually wants to see. The big-time hack is to give them what they want, and then sneak what you need in the backdoor.
What are you working on right now? Any exciting future plans that you’re able to share?
Currently, we’re really excited about the launch of our brand new digital linear channel, going live on Samsung TV Plus on March 25, and will be available for free in 27M homes (US, Canada, and the UK). It’s the first athlete-driven sports lifestyle channel ever created, giving sports fans around the world unprecedented access to the lives of elite-level athletes.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now?
I’m really into podcasts at the moment, not so much time for reading nowadays with a new business and two young kiddos at home. What a time to be alive, where you can multi-task and still stretch the brain a little. Recently I’ve been loving Sports Media with Richard Deitsch for my industry fix, Pivot with Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway for my tech news, and The Garner Report with Dan Garner for my nutrition and wellness needs (biggggg shouts to Dan after I finally dropped the 15 sympathy pounds I gained from my wife’s last pregnancy haha).
As a connected fan, who’s your favorite athlete to follow on social media?
I’m a big-time Portland Trail Blazers fan right now from a content perspective, it’s hard to find a better trio on any team then CJ McCollum, Carmelo Anthony, and Damian Lillard. With them, you get podcasts, music, YouTube content, television, and more. Plus a couple of those guys are founding member athletes of PlayersTV, so I may be a little biased!
What’s a piece of advice you received that you’re glad you ignored?
Oh man, there’s a lot of good ones I could drop here… I would say probably the most impactful to our success was when a high-level industry expert told us “listen, if you don’t have exclusive original content, you don’t have anything” and we’ve found that to be simply untrue. Instead of burning a TON of time and cash on production, original shows, and whatnot we were able to jump lightyears ahead of where we would have been by tapping into the power of the group collective, and creating a win/win/win for PlayersTV, athletes, and fans.
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