Here Comes Chaos
One of the world's biggest advertisers will spend half its budget on creators. We're not ready.
Earlier this month, Unilever announced that it will shift up to half of its global marketing spend into creators, and that it wants to increase the number of creators it works with by 20x. Unilever’s marketing budget is over $10 billion dollars a year, so you can imagine the scope we’re talking about. Or actually, you can’t really imagine. It’s hard to fathom the scope of what they’re proposing. Unilever’s CEO boldly proclaimed, “There are 19,000 Zip codes in India. There are 5,764 municipalities in Brazil. I want one influencer in each of them.”
So that’s just under 25,000 creator contracts in only two (very populous) nations, then they have to expand that globally. How do companies even deploy creator budgets at that scale with any consistency?
The answer is clear: They don’t. This recent Forbes article on creator payment hints at the mess we’re already muddling through. Multiple brand marketers estimated their payment for an Instagram reel with the same creator at anywhere from $275 to $5,000.
If Unilever sees anything approaching success, others are likely to massively increase creator investment, which is amazing, but they’ll be scaling into an ecosystem where we basically don’t know what things cost, how to measure or really even how to deploy a budget at this scale.
How do companies even deploy creator budgets at that scale with any consistency? The answer is clear: They don’t.
As excited as I am about where the creator-driven media is headed, we have an infrastructure challenge and a creator-relationship challenge.
I’ve written about creator infrastructure needs frequently, and I’m going to come back to that topic again in future newsletters. But that Forbes article and the scope of what Unilever is trying to accomplish made me think about how I assess creators, and how I try to align rates with potential for success. If creator marketing is going to identify tens of thousands of creators for programs like this, we’ll need to develop a good matrix for understanding them.
Don’t over-index on follower count
Don’t confuse “influencer,” the bogus job title, with “influence,” the actual ability to affect behavior. Many (or most?) “influencers” have little influence. Channels with big audiences often have limited reach, and it’s particularly egregious for accounts that had early success during Instagram’s rapid growth phase. Some of these operators figured out how to game the relatively simplistic early IG algorithm, but today their reach is probably less than many actually influential people with 15,000 followers. Half of those people have probably moved onto making sponsored LinkedIn posts about how to use AI better.
Ten times out of ten, I’d prefer a smaller audience with higher engagement, high-quality content and a clear and unique voice.
When I’m searching for creators to build relationships with, I’m looking much more closely at content reach, view length, engagement, saves and shares. If the creator won’t talk about any data but audience size, be wary. Ten times out of ten, I’d prefer a smaller audience with higher engagement, high-quality content and a clear and unique voice.
Rights and usage are key variables
This is the biggest opportunity for both sides to negotiate in a creator deal. Where is the content going? Is the creator posting on their channels, providing content for your channels, or both? Can the brand also use the content in a newsletter or on a website? Can the brand boost the post, or use it for a paid campaign? There are so many ways to slice the rights and usage discussion that eventually you can always find a place that’s agreeable to both parties. When budget inevitably becomes a problem, this is usually the best place to make concessions.
Content scale is easy to negotiate, too
The other obvious variable is around the volume and scale of content production. I’ve seen everything from simple inclusions – mention or display a product in a video – to product reviews to full-on custom content production. (FWIW, I like the last type the best.) I’ve done deals for just a few posts and for dozens of posts across multiple channels with rounds of revisions.
There is no “typical deal” for rights, usage and content scale. It’s entirely up to creator and brand to find something mutually beneficial.
Nothing trumps alignment
The above is why it’s vitally important that brand and creator are aligned on goals, outcomes and overall tenor of the engagement. At some level both parties have to trust each other and have to be building a relationship that’s more than transactional. Both sides should want to develop a long-term partnership, and should basically agree on how creator-driven content operates. If one side wants affiliate revenue and the other wants high volume video, you have a problem.
Affiliates and creators are not identical
This last point is overlooked, but closely tied to alignment. Affiliate marketing is a sales job, and it’s a rare creator who can both tell an authentic story and push hard to “Click on the link in bio!”
Good luck if your mandate is to build a creator program that delivers great content, engages communities on your channels and theirs, AND is a net money-maker via affiliate sales. It’s theoretically possible, but brand storytelling and conversion are opposite ends of the funnel. Most marketers are savvy enough to understand the difference with their overall marketing strategy, but lose track of this when it comes to creators. Trying to do everything with the same dollar is likely to result in achieving nothing.
This is really great read, Patrick. Thanks for sharing.
Pat, do you know of any examples of creators who are successfully merging brand storytelling and affiliate?