Okay gang, before we jump into today’s issue, a quick invite.

On January 27, we’re hosting a webinar with Sult — a bootstrapped UK hydration brand that’s grown through creators and community, not big budgets. Founder Henry Porpora and social media manager Sophie Milham will share how they’ve done it so far.  

If you’re building with creators instead of budgets, you’ll want to be there.

Now, onto today.

As the brand marketing lead at Modash, I don’t brief the creators we work with. That’s Anna’s job. But I’ve worked at an influencer marketing platform for 3.5 years. I’ve read a lot. Listened to a lot. And noticed there was something I don’t think about often enough.

The creative. The content. The sponsored post. Call it what you want.

I didn’t know enough about creative quality.

What actually makes one piece of influencer content more effective than another, even when the creator, platform, and budget look similar? Is it random? Is it luck?

It felt like a gap in my knowledge. So I went looking for answers. I dug into the work of Binet and Field, System1, and influencer marketing research. 

What I found is that we can judge influencer content surprisingly well by asking three questions.

The first job of sponsored content is to feel like it belongs on the creator’s page.

When people see influencer content, their brain does a fast check: do I trust this person right now? If the post feels normal for that creator, the brain stays open. If it feels off, it shuts down immediately. Nothing else gets processed after that.

This is why creative quality starts with creator fit. You’re hiring an existing content pattern that an audience already trusts.

One of our best-performing posts in recent memory was our partnership with Enara Roy on LinkedIn. There’s a lot you can say about Modash, and plenty of angles you could take. But Anna always pushes for the content to feel natural to the creator.

Enara always includes fun, pink, and whimsical images in her posts. So it made sense for her to highlight the customization aspect of Modash. It wouldn’t work with 99% of our other partners. And that’s the point.

The audience notices these things before they consciously think about it.

When you’re recruiting and briefing, you want to make sure that you’re not asking creators to do something they wouldn’t ordinarily do. 

If the content breaks the creator’s usual tone, or format, trust drops. And once trust drops, clarity and memorability don’t get a chance.

Once trust is there, the next job is clarity.

People need to understand what the product is doing and why it exists in the moment they’re watching. 

Compare these two examples.

“M’Oréal sent me this new mascara, and I’m obsessed.”

Versus.

“I’m rewatching The Notebook today. Let’s see how this waterproof M’Oréal mascara holds up.”

In the first, the product floats. There’s no context, no situation, nothing for the brain to grab onto. It could be any mascara, at any time, for any reason.

In the second, the product has a job. Crying. Waterproof. Suddenly, the brain understands why this product exists in this moment.

This kind of clarity gives people a reason to place the product in their own lives mentally. This is why I always say to hire for storyfit. 

When the product’s role is obvious, the brain keeps going. When it isn’t, attention drops. If people don’t quickly get what something is for, they disengage.

As an influencer marketer, you can actively brief on this. Instead of asking creators to “highlight benefits,” you can share the typical context in which the product appears and let them translate it into their own content.

Finally, the content needs one reason to be remembered.

This is where distinctiveness comes in. 

Distinctive means including one recognizable brand cue that audiences can link back to you over time. It doesn’t mean being weird or doing something wildly different from a creator’s usual content. As we’ve already seen, that breaks trust.

Brand cues can be visual. A consistent opening shot. A specific way the product appears in frame. A recurring brand color. It could be auditory. The same piece of music. A repeated phrase. It could be structural. The same kind of hook. The same type of scenario. 

One brand that does this well is Crest. In most sponsored videos I watched, the influencer showed the packaging within the first ten seconds.

You only need one recognizable brand cue. You can use more, but one will do. One thing that makes the brand noticeable and memorable across your entire influencer portfolio.

These questions are less subjective than “Do I personally like it?” And they lead to better conversations with creators.

If the answer is yes to all three, you’re probably looking at content that’s going to work. If one is missing, you know exactly what to fix.

Until next time,
Eleni Zoe xx
Brand @ Modash. Say hi on LinkedIn or visit Modash.

📌A NOTE ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST READ

The tips in this newsletter might not be right for your specific case. Use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice from the internet—even mine. My team and I survey & interview influencer marketers whose advice and observations come from their direct experience. ROI is designed to help you connect the dots and be inspired or challenged to think about your influencer marketing in a new way.