Cameo acquires celebrity merchandise platform represent

Cameo has acquired Represent, the celebrity merchandising platform, as the celebrity video company looks to expand its offerings for talent and fans.

Launched in 2014, Represent has been the merchandising partner for the recent Friends reunion and has worked with talent like Jennifer Lopez, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConaughey, Kendall Jenner and Arnold Schwarzenegger. As part of the acquisition, Represent’s CMO, Bobby Maylack, will join Cameo as its chief creative officer. Represent president and COO Dan Rosenberg will continue leading the company’s day-to-day operations.

Conversations around the Represent acquisition began a year ago, according to Cameo co-founder and CEO Steven Galanis.

“It was just clear that this was a match made in heaven,” Galanis told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s just a whole other capability for us to add the ability for talent to make passive revenue while delighting their fans and making their fans feel a bit further into their inner sanctum.”

Galanis says he sees the opportunity for Cameo to reach the group of talent already working with Represent, and vice versa, helping the two companies expand their talent pools. In the future, the Cameo CEO envisions having evergreen merchandise available on Cameo with a shopping basket feature, where users can order both a custom video or call from talent and some of their merch together.

And when it comes to merchandise, Galanis and Maylack note the opportunities don’t — and shouldn’t — just end with the standard T-shirts or phone cases, especially when A-list talent get involved.

“As talent start to run their social media themselves, they start to realize that fans actually aren’t stupid. They understand what matters to talent and what doesn’t. It’s really clear what’s an ad for something that they actually care about,” Maylack says. “So for us, it’s night and day how successful something is when talent has actually been bought into the creative process and it feels like something that they’re involved with.” Hollywood Reporter