By Sydney Bautista · Talent Manager, SHFT
Most briefs arrive with everything already decided.
The shot list, the caption direction, the approved language. And then at the bottom, almost as an afterthought: feel free to make it your own. Which feels very contradictory, and at that point, there’s only so much creative freedom left to give.
One note that comes up constantly: mention the brand or show the product in the first three seconds. From a media-buying perspective, it makes sense, but in practice, it can do more harm than good.
Viewers get the ick. It feels like being talked at, a bit like when an ad interrupts something
you’re watching on Netflix. You weren’t ready for it, and you didn’t ask for it, then suddenly
you feel like a target rather than an audience. Being too ad-y can actually put people off a
brand they’d never even heard of before that moment. First impressions matter, and “this is an ad” is not a great one.
The creators who get results bring the viewer in first, and by the time the brand comes up, the viewer is already invested so the brand mention feels earned.
Two of SHFT’s talent have been showing what this looks like when it works.
Michelle (@michelleylens) recently partnered with Manychat. One piece of content from the
campaign (without any paid boosting) landed 200k+ views, 2,700+ comments, and 9,000+
saves. People don’t save content they’re passively scrolling past, they save it because it provides value, and that’s how you build an audience that wants to return to your content.
Paolo (@woahpaolo) has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world — Meta, The
Ritz Carlton and Virgin Atlantic among them. But before any of that, he spent years building an audience that genuinely believes in his vision and trusts his eye. That’s what those brands are actually partnering with. The ones who understand that give him room to work, and his strong audience relationship says it all.
What connects them is trust, and audiences that have followed someone for years develop a feel for when something doesn’t quite sound like them. They might not be able to put a finger on it, but they notice. When they do, it affects how they see the creator going forward, not just the campaign.
The credibility brands want to tap into only travels if the content still feels like the person
delivering it.
The brands that get this right treat the creative conversation as part of the process. They share what they’re actually trying to achieve, bring the context that matters, and then give the creator room to figure out the how. They’ve worked out that when it comes to reaching that creator’s audience, the creator knows them better than anyone.
If you’re trying to reach people you don’t currently have access to, ask who that audience
actually trusts. Who do they save, share, and come back to on their own. Find those people, brief them like collaborators, tell them what you’re trying to say and let them work out how to say it – they know their audience better than any brief will.
