From bagging clothes at The Gap to representing its brands, Dhar Mann has come a long way in his career. Spending half of his bank balance on equipment from Best Buy, he launched his career as a creator less than eight years ago and has since garnered 160 million followers globally.
The output from Dhar Mann Studios’ 125,000-square-foot studio in Burbank, CA averages 300 million weekly views and the company has free ad-supported TV (FAST) distribution partnerships with Samsung TV Plus and is partnering with FOX Entertainment to create original scripted vertical video content that will debut on Holywater’s MyDrama platform.
In January, DMS announced a partnership with Gap Inc.’s Old Navy brand to launch “Old Navy vs. Designer,” a digital series that challenged viewers to tell the two apart. The idea evolved from an on-stage demonstration at Advertising Week NYC 2025.
“It’s just an example as to how creative campaigns can come together organically,” says Mann.
In February, Mann partnered with the National Football League, which named him Chief Kindness Officer for the Super Bowl. DMS partnered with players, creators, and nonprofits to highlight uplifting stories. The campaign generated over 100 million impressions, with a 94% positive sentiment. Data from Swayable, an independent research firm, showed the effort drove a positive sentiment lift for the NFL of 10.8 points, says Mann.
Just recently, DMS partnered with Adobe to host the “World’s Largest Creator Training Camp.” More than 250 emerging creators collaborated and received mentorship from Mann and top creators.
In 2024, DMS launched 5th Quarter Agency, a division that helps creators syndicate, repackage and find other ways to monetize their content. The agency has helped some creators generate incomes of seven figures a year, says Mann.
“I also know what it’s like being a small creator, because I was there not too long ago,” says Mann. “So we open up our infrastructure to allow pretty much any creator to come and use it.” He gets many requests from hopefuls wanting to take a tour, use the sets, or just wanting to learn how to manage production.
“We’re very collaborative in that sense, where we just have a revolving open door,” says Mann. “You’ll find creators of all sizes coming through our door.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Mann ahead of the Brand Innovators Creator Economy Summit at his studio in Los Angeles April 23. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are the most significant changes in the ways that creators work with brands?
For a long time, brands and companies looked at creators just like media placements. From a creator standpoint, you’d get this creative ad brief and you were told that “You have to use these exact talking points.” You couldn’t veer very far off from whatever the corporate messaging was. It just felt very inauthentic.
And these were also very short term transactions, a lot of times, one-off activations with creators and brands. That’s the equivalent of, in the traditional advertising world, Nike going to LeBron James and saying “Hey, we want you to wear our shoe one time for one game, and then we’re just never going to work with you again.”
They’re turning into much longer-term relationships and they’re also allowing creators much more creative control, whether that’s allowing creators to actually collaborate on the creative or actually pitch ideas and take control of the creative.
That’s especially important in today’s environment, when the BS meter for audiences is higher than ever. It’s so important for there to be some sort of true relationship between the creator and the brand.
The NFL wanted to work with us because of what we actually stand for, what our values are. We use storytelling to uplift people and to help them feel seen and connected, and the Super Bowl has always been more than just sports.
They were very open and receptive to the ideas. We weren’t told that we had to follow this strict marketing brief. We were told to use our creativity and come up with pitches. We came up with several different pitches and the Chief Kindness Officer was one of them. It was one that just instantly resonated and it turned out to be a big success.
We believe that performance comes from building something that was authentic to both audiences. It wouldn’t have happened if the NFL gave us a brief and said: “Say these lines.”
How can creators balance maintaining that authenticity while working with brands?
You always have to do what’s in the best interest of your audience first. The moment a creator starts to prioritize making money over their mission, they start to very quickly lose their community.
We actually did not work with brands for the first five years of our existence. Even though we were getting opportunities, it all just seemed very much like: “Hey, shout out our brand in the middle of your video that has nothing to do with our product. Put a link inside of the description and tell your audience to go.” And I never liked that model.
All of these relationships started from some sort of authentic place where I was often a customer of the brand. As far as Gap, that was the very first job that I ever had. I used to bag clothes working at a retail store in Pleasanton in Northern California. When that opportunity came to me, it felt very authentic to my story.
Trying to stay true to your values and mission may cause you to have to find other ways of making money, causing you to say no to certain opportunities that will hurt you in the short run. But if you stay consistent in your lane and with your mission and your values, at a certain point in time, you’ll be in a position like we are, where you might be foregoing a certain amount of money up front, but you can make 10 times the amount later.
Speaking of selecting partners, you recently partnered with Adobe to host a creator camp.
I started my own personal journey with Adobe. Seven years ago, when I started creating content, the first thing I did was went to Best Buy and bought a lighting set. I spent half the money in my bank account, $400. I still remember it.
Then I went and researched how to program my phone to record in the best cinematic quality, because I was shooting all my content on an iPhone. And the third thing I did was learn how to use Adobe. That’s pretty much how every creator starts their journey.
Adobe wants to stay competitive in this new landscape, and they want to show that they continue to be the brand that supports creators. So my whole idea was: First off, every big creator I know not only uses one Adobe tool, they use a whole suite of Adobe tools. So if the mission of Adobe is to support creators, then what better way than to have up-and-coming creators – people that want to have a successful career and are looking up to big creators – come to a training camp to actually learn from the creators that they look up to, with Adobe as a sponsor to make all of that possible? Think about that. That’s like a kid who wants to play basketball learning from LeBron James or learning from Michael Jordan.
We had editors and Adobe reps right there. We actually showed them how to edit the video using Adobe apps, so by the time people left, they had five or 10 ready-to-post videos with some of the biggest creators on the planet. That was a very successful activation. Combined, we brought in creators that had over 1.45 billion views.
Adobe was an important part of my story starting out as a creator. So when they told me what their mission was, I could simply speak my truth from my own experience, and it felt very authentic.
Your studio now has deals with multiple FAST streamers. Is content evolving to longer, TV-like episodic content like you’re making yourself?
Content consumption has become democratized. People are able to consume different types of content directly from the creator or a studio or a platform. They have the choice whether they want to consume long form content or short form content.
On YouTube, two years ago, eight minutes was the average long-form video. But now the average video is 20 minutes or longer, and you see quite often that videos are even an hour or two long. Both content formats are continuing to succeed.
You have to take an audience-first perspective. We have an audience that wants to consume short-form and we have an audience that wants to experience long-form. Sometimes they even want feature length films, so we’ll put out a full movie, and we’re working on different feature films.
We’re also starting to see FAST channels wanting original content deals from creators. Our deal with Samsung TV Plus, for instance. We were the first creator to do an original content deal with Samsung. So not only do we have our own 24/7 channel that’s streaming on Samsung TV Plus, so you can watch it anytime, across over a 100 million devices across the world. We also have brand new episodes that are going to be exclusive to Samsung dropping later this year, which I’m really excited about.
It’s all about meeting the viewer where they already are, whether they are interested in short form, whether they’re interested in long form, whether they want to consume on YouTube or TikTok or FAST channels.
The platforms that win are the ones that are able to match the consumer with the best content type based on that time of day and what their preference is. It’s not one like one is replacing the other. It’s just we are seeing the most diverse menu ever before, where you can get all the things that you want.
