Stephanie McMahon believes stars are bigger than the brand.
With social media becoming the way to consume content, WWE is often touting its YouTube and Twitter numbers to highlight the amount of engagement with the brand. Most individual superstars have a Twitter account while others have explored avenues such as Twitch, Cameo, TikTok, and more.
Speaking to David Meltzer on The Playbook podcast, Stephanie McMahon discussed how WWE promotes and highlights individual stars in the company.
"One of the things that we understood early on is star power. It's about the attraction, it's about the draw. Whether it's a live event or you're trying to drive television ratings or social media engagement, you have to have star power. For us, we try to amplify the individual stars so we can create the biggest moats around them. They need to have individual voices. They need to be their own personas. Now, in the digital and social age, the audience wants to engage with these stars on a personal level. 'I know you play this particular character, but who are you in real life? Do you have pets? What do you like to eat?' People want to relate. At the end of the day, the audience might not relate to a brand, to the WWE or another league, but they might relate to a team or an individual star. More and more, you're seeing that in the media space. Whether it's content creators on TikTok or Twitch, you see these consumers and people getting behind the content creators and influencers individually because they relate to them. It's different ways for every person. if you can create the opportunities for engagement, then the rising tide will raise all boats," she said.
WWE started to crackdown on superstars using third-party platforms this year, shutting down Cameo and Twitch accounts for the time being.
Fightful Select had backstage reactions to WWE's new third-party edict, which you can read by clicking here.
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