Agency
Bobbie: Championing Human Touch In Influencer Marketing
Bobbie, a dedicated influencer marketing agency launched in April, combines technology with human connection in a time when automation is becoming more common. Spun out of HUNTER, a New York–based marketing communications agency, Bobbie serves as a standalone venture, catering to brands seeking specialized influencer expertise beyond what traditional marketing agencies typically offer. Led by President Donetta Allen and Managing Director Monica Caponigro, Bobbie was established in response to changes in marketing priorities, as influencer marketing has moved from an experimental tactic to an essential strategy.
“The whole reason why influencer marketing works is because of the personal touch and the trust that an influencer has with their followers,” explains Donetta. “We believe that the human component needs to be kept in influencer marketing. That is our mantra.”
The agency serves mid-to-large-sized brands across various industries, including beauty, fashion, travel, consumer packaged goods, and home improvement, with current clients that include paint manufacturer Benjamin Moore.
What Sparked Bobbie’s Creation?
The communications field has transformed over the past two decades, and Donetta has witnessed this transformation throughout her 25-year career at Hunter. “I started my career in true public relations, led into social, and then realized these social platforms are really powerful, but the people who are speaking on the platforms are even more powerful,” she says. For the past 15 years, Donetta has focused on tapping into influential voices who encourage people to “do things differently.”
This change reflects broader shifts in consumer behavior and trust. Donetta cites a revealing statistic: “Nearly 50% of Gen Z consider the social influencers that they follow to be their friends.” This perception changes how influence works: “Who is most persuasive and encouraging us to try something new, make a purchase decision, think about companies? It’s our friends,” Donetta notes.
Monica’s experience at Nordstrom, where she built the company’s Influencer Center of Excellence before joining Bobbie, provided additional insights from the brand side. “In the last couple of years, I’ve seen a massive shift in the trust that brands have in influencers,” she explains. “Now, there are actual proven results at every level of the purchase funnel or the consumer journey.”
Balancing Technology and Human Connection
While many influencer marketing agencies focus almost exclusively on automation, Bobbie deliberately positions itself at the intersection of tech and human relationships.
“One of the things that we’ve been seeing as the industry is growing is that a lot of options entering the space are almost exclusively focused on technology,” Donetta explains. “It’s more platforms and software and things that are meant to expedite the process.”
While recognizing the importance of these tools, Bobbie’s leadership insists the core value of influencer marketing lies in genuine human connection. “We want to use the best of AI devices and everything available to us, but always with the focus and emphasis on we’re humans having a human experience,” Donetta says.
This philosophy shapes their campaign development process. The agency employs proprietary technology to evaluate potential influencer partners on factors including audience credibility and engagement, but this serves as just the starting point. “We have a proprietary tech score where we can add an influencer and it will spit out a 0 to 100 score,” Monica says. “But, from there, if the score is 50 or above, we’re going to take that and do a more manual vetting process.”
This balanced approach allows Bobbie to identify partners that algorithms might miss or miscategorize. “AI has a lot of wonderful capabilities, but they might perceive something as okay that a human will be able to identify as a red flag easily,” Monica says, adding that the result is more genuine partnerships that better serve both brands and creators.
Brand-Creator Relationships
Bobbie’s relationship-centered approach extends to how they manage collaborations between brands and creators. Their process focuses on fostering connections rather than tightly controlled brand messaging.
“One industry shift we’re seeing is that the more creative control we give creators, the better the content,” Monica observes, noting it’s a departure from traditional marketing approaches. “When we were starting out, brands wanted specific key messages and scripting. But people follow influencers because they know them, they trust them. They’re going to know when it isn’t genuine.”
This transition can challenge brands accustomed to controlling every aspect of their marketing. “Sometimes the friction is someone who might approach influencer work the same way they might approach creating an advertisement,” Donetta explains. “It’s hard for us to keep going back and asking for reshoot after reshoot. That is not going to get us the most genuine content that’s actually going to really resonate with followers.”
Bobbie’s Benjamin Moore partnership illustrates this approach in action. The long-standing paint company works with long-term ambassadors who document entire home improvement projects from conception to completion. “A home project doesn’t happen overnight,” Monica explains. “They’re able to carry their followers with them for that entire journey,” creating multiple touchpoints to showcase the brand naturally through the decision-making process.
Beyond creative strategy, Bobbie employs thoughtful measurement techniques appropriate to each client’s goals. For high-consideration purchases with extended decision cycles, they conduct brand lift studies measuring shifts in perception and purchase intent. “Even if we’re not driving direct sales from a piece of content because it’s hundreds of dollars and someone may not make a decision just based on this one piece of content, we can still show that we’re shifting people the right way towards a purchase,” Donetta explains.
They also analyze qualitative engagement indicators. Comment sentiment provides crucial insights: “If someone is talking about paint and the only question they’re getting is about where they got that sweater, that doesn’t necessarily prove out that the messages are pulled through to their audience,” Donetta notes. The most valuable engagement directly addresses the product or indicates purchase consideration.
The Path Forward for Bobbie
As a newly established agency in its first year of operation, Bobbie has clear priorities for growth and development. “We’re still very much a new agency,” Donetta says. “Our main purpose right now is to continue to raise awareness for our agency and what we can do. But I also want to make sure that the campaigns and programs that we have started are incredibly successful for our clients.”
Monica articulates their one-year vision succinctly: “Being a leader in the space and being a go-to influencer marketing agency with a more robust client roster.” She reflects on the agency’s changes since launching in April: “Between now and then, there’s already been so much that has changed and happened.”
The agency has already established distinctive offerings, including “The Bobbie Brew,” a weekly newsletter published on Substack that tracks industry developments. “It’s a really great look at what brands are doing from social-only campaigns to in-person moments and everything in between,” Monica explains.
Looking further ahead, both leaders are energized by the industry’s continued growth. Donetta is particularly focused on how technology can enhance, rather than replace, the human elements that make influencer marketing effective.
“I’m excited about how we can continue to grow and improve the industry with the tools of technology that we have,” she says. “There’s a great way for us to continue to do what we do and do it well with those personal relationships, with some additional rigor in our technology that will help us prove out the value of our work even more directly.”
In the expanding creator economy, Bobbie is positioning itself to help brands work within this industry while maintaining human connections. “We’re new, but we have decades of experience between the team,” Donetta concludes. “We look at the industry for where it’s going, not where it’s been.”
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