Cakes Body Builds Its Own Streaming Network So It Can Stop Renting TikTok's

Cakes Body just admitted the thing every DTC brand is quietly panicking about: paid social is getting too expensive to build a brand on. So the company, which hit $100 million in sales within three years of launching, is spinning up its own in-house entertainment studio, Cakes Media, and putting former Red Bull content chief Caley Wildermuth in charge of it.

The studio's first release is a 57-minute documentary that has already pulled more than 371,000 views on YouTube, funded straight out of the brand's top-of-funnel marketing budget rather than treated as a side project. Co-founder Taylor Capuano put it bluntly: "Entertainment has become the new price of admission. Brands must earn attention by offering entertaining content." A second season with creator-led programming is already in the works.

It is a savvy move dressed up as a documentary. Cakes Body built its name on TikTok virality it did not own, algorithm-dependent reach that can vanish the moment the platform changes its mind. Owning a media property, even a scrappy one, is a hedge against that, and it puts Cakes Body in the same conversation as brands that built content studios before it was trendy, like Red Bull itself.

Source: Glossy

Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →