A post on The Brand Waves puts the problem plainly. Platforms such as Meta, Google and TikTok let any company target, optimise and measure at scale. Because everyone has the same tools, distribution is no longer an edge. Brands now compete with every video, newsletter, podcast and community in the feed. What is scarce is attention.
Why a creator is believed
The post goes back to source credibility research from the 1950s (Hovland and Weiss): we are persuaded by sources we find expert, trustworthy and authentic. It explains something I see in every shortlist I build. A creator with thirty thousand followers who knows the subject often outperforms a celebrity with millions. The difference is not fame. It is credibility.
It also explains why social platforms have become search engines for purchases. People look up a camera, a serum or a coat on TikTok and Instagram before they buy. Creators answer those questions in a voice people trust.
The common mistake: one deal at a time
Many brands still run creator marketing like advertising: find a creator, publish, measure, repeat with someone new. Trust does not work that way. It grows with continuity and repetition. Each collaboration should leave something behind: insight, reusable content, a relationship.
The post contrasts two models. Hawaiian Tropic built a campaign around Alix Earle’s personality and community, and extended it into seeding, partnerships and live events. The creator shaped what the brand means. Spacegoods built a community of over a thousand creators and moved them from one-off seeding into an ongoing affiliate programme, reusing the best content in paid. The creators became a compounding asset.
A system in three levels
The structure I use for brands in DACH looks much like the pyramid the post describes:
- Seeding at the base. Product to many creators, to find the ones who genuinely use it. No posting obligation, so what comes back is real. More under influencer marketing.
- Ambassadors in the middle. The creators who responded become a longer relationship, with a steady rhythm of content and, where it fits, affiliate links.
- Strategic partnerships at the top. Paid collaborations chosen on proven fit and results, not follower count. For Sol de Janeiro’s Intense Perfume Mists, a paid round of nine talents reached 5.97M people in one window.
Each level feeds the next. Seeding tells you who to pay. Paid content tells you what to reuse. The data tells you who to keep.
The work behind it
The post is honest about the cost: selecting profiles, managing hundreds of relationships, analysing performance, organising content. That is where most programmes stall. It is also most of what I do for brands entering the German-speaking market, so the brand can keep its attention on the product and the story.
Attention will only get scarcer. The brands that hold it will be the ones that earned trust early, and kept it. How I cast for it is on influencer marketing.
Source: “The attention crisis and the rise of influencer marketing”, The Brand Waves, August 2026 (sponsored post).
