Brands take themselves seriously. Very seriously. They vet their partners, scrutinize audiences, study engagement rates, and make sure the people they associate with won’t embarrass them before lunch on a Tuesday.
So why are they willing to hand over the keys and let anybody do their thang?
I’ve watched the rules change from both sides of the creative brief. When I created MoLi for Miller Lite, Miller’s president challenged us to produce content that felt like user-generated content. Something a fan would naturally create and share. Except we were an agency being paid to make it look like we weren’t.
We were manufacturing authenticity, talking to a community that only existed in the brief.
Fast-forward to Asher Hyde, a 20-year-old USC design student who produced an unofficial Nike concept featuring Wemby standing among a row of nuns.
“Stop him? Just pray.”
Four words and a Swoosh. Nike didn’t have to commission the work for its brand to be the star. Bet this had Portland ad execs in their feels.
For years, agencies tried to make ads look like something consumers would create. Now, consumers are making ads that look like something an award-winning shop would produce. Somewhere along the way, the audience became the tastemaker.
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The Audience Is Now The Agency
Nobody’s waiting around for an invitation. A laptop, Wi-Fi, and a little rizz can get you into the zeitgeist, provided you have something worth saying. Creators know their communities better than most brands ever will. They can spot a forced cultural reference before the marketing department finishes debating whether it’s on brand.
When we worked with nano-influencers on the launch of AriZona SunRise Hard Seltzer, we wrote a brief, not a 40-page roadmap, and nobody had to memorize the brand manifesto. We gave them a social media kit with some guardrails and said, “Go.” They knew what would land and what would get scrolled past before the first second was over.
As Ad Age reported, their content outperformed every brand in the Heineken portfolio at launch, including ones with decades of equity and budgets to match.
Our job wasn’t to dictate how they created. It was to make sure the brand belonged in the conversation. Some brands still struggle with that arrangement. They hire people for their originality, then spend the next three weeks trying to edit it out of them.
Control Freaks, Strategy Geeks
The cost of producing content has dropped. Getting people to pay attention hasn’t, and a seven-figure budget can buy production value without guaranteeing a cultural moment. The AriZona creators proved that with a phone and a social kit. Now, look at the Nike concept again. The student didn’t build Nike’s brand. He drew on decades of investment in what Nike means to athletes and the people who follow them, and the idea worked because the audience understood the brand before they ever saw the ad.
That’s what strong strategy buys: a brand people recognize beyond the work it commissions. Control freaks try to approve every execution. Strategy geeks make the brand clear enough that they don’t have to.
Being in the mix still doesn’t automatically translate into sales, and not every interpretation will be welcome. Someone has to decide what the brand stands for and how all that creative activity pays off for the business.
That’s the new world order of operations. When the audience is the life of the party, the brand’s job is to host it, not guard the door.
But before commissioning another hundred creator posts, define what people should recognize about the brand, no matter who’s speaking. Give creators room to interpret it, then measure whether their work is building something beyond engagement.
When anyone can create for your brand, the question is whether you’re paying an agency for more content or for a brand that means something outside the award show.
Put your money where your strategy is.
Pardé Bridgett is an award-winning ad writer, culture curator, and creative strategist.
