Transparency in pricing, personalized client attention, and treating creators as partners rather than content production units – these are the values that guide Creator Origin in the bustling New York and Los Angeles influencer marketing scene. Founded in April 2024 by Shirel Benji Yero, the boutique agency emerged from her observation that, as influencer marketing grew into a multi-billion-dollar industry, many agencies had become mechanical.

“I realized that there was a space for a more boutique approach to the industry,” explains Shirel, who spent years working with clients such as Kellogg’s, Mars Petcare, and Mars Confectionery at larger agencies before launching Creator Origin. “We’re working with a lot of people in this industry, but it often starts to feel like a machine. The campaigns start to take a hit because things start to feel a bit ‘cookie-cutter.'”

Creator Origin specifically targets brands seeking alternatives to the high minimum-budget requirements of larger agencies, as well as PR agencies needing specialized influencer marketing execution for their clients. Shirel built the company on the premise that the effectiveness of influencer marketing depends on genuine human connections, both between agencies and creators, and between creators and their audiences.

“We preach relevance over reach,” Shirel says. “We know that anyone can ‘buy eyeballs’, but for our campaigns, we’re chasing a feeling. We’re chasing goosebumps. We want people to view the content, take a screenshot of it, and share it with a group chat of friends, then quote it for weeks to come. We want to know that our campaigns have actually made an impact and resonated with people, and that’s how we know that we’ve done our job right.”

Creator Origin’s Value Proposition

Creator Origin addresses several key pain points in the influencer marketing industry. This value-driven approach manifests in three interconnected elements:

First, the agency operates with transparent pricing and tighter markups than industry standards. “We work on lower margins more than other agencies,” Shirel explains. “Because the industry is booming and there’s so much business going on – it’s billions of dollars being transacted back and forth – there’s a lot of bloated pricing.”

This transparency extends to creator compensation: “Not only are we transparent with the fees that we’re taking from the budgets, but also with influencer budgets. We will provide that to the brands – these are all the creators that we activated for the program, this is how much each of them cost, and this is how much the agency has taken as a management fee.”

Second, Creator Origin addresses the challenge of creator sourcing through a curated database built through manual vetting. “Before any business came in, I built out a team that helps me source creators from scratch,” Shirel explains. “Every single profile is being vetted manually to ensure engagement rates are high, to ensure that content quality is high.” 

This proactive approach enables the agency to respond quickly to client needs: “If a brand comes to us and they have a quick turn campaign, we’re not starting from scratch. We have a database to go back to that we built ourselves.”

Third, the agency offers nimble, flexible service without the high minimums that larger agencies require. By prioritizing client relationships and adapting to their needs, Creator Origin can serve brands that might otherwise be priced out of quality influencer marketing services.

Philosophy in Practice

At the heart of Creator Origin’s operation is a commitment to treating creators as valued partners rather than interchangeable content producers. “Being ‘creator first’ means treating the creators as humans,” Shirel explains.

The agency prioritizes direct communication with creators, even when it’s time-consuming. “At a large agency, you can’t get on a Zoom call with every creator right before a campaign, even if you’re working on a campaign with 50 creators. But when you’re working at a smaller agency, the idea is to be boutique and to be nimble and flexible, you can get on a call with each of the influencers, you can meet them for coffee if needed.”

Creator Origin also gives creators meaningful input into content development. “When you listen to the creator first, your campaigns will show it, and it’ll feel so relevant to their audiences,” Shirel says. 

She contrasts this with the rigid approach some brands take: “I’ve worked on campaigns in the past where the brand would say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, this is what we want you to say.’ Then the creator will post it, and guess what, your engagement will be awful. You will not see any conversions.”

She cites creator Raegan Lynch as an example of effective brand integration, noting how Lynch has seamlessly incorporated brand partnerships with Hinge and Aerie into her distinctive content style. “She fit it so seamlessly into her regular style video,” Shirel says. “The brands are giving her the creative freedom to do what she knows works best with her audience.”

Measuring What Matters

When it comes to measurement, Creator Origin emphasizes meaningful engagement over superficial numbers. Rather than focusing primarily on reach and follower count, Shirel advocates for a deeper analysis of engagement quality.

“It’s very enticing to look at a campaign and say, ‘Whoa, we got 500,000 comments, and we got a million likes,'” she says. “There is a space for that. But what I would tell a client is, ‘Let’s look a little bit deeper. Who is commenting on these posts? And what are they saying?’”

Shirel particularly values saves and shares as indicators of genuine impact. “If somebody’s sharing it with a friend, that means that they’re talking about it, and that’s what you want,” she explains. “If somebody’s saving it, that means that they’re going to come back at a later time to either look back at the product and purchase it or rewatch the content because they liked it.”

This nuanced approach to measurement informs Creator Origin’s recommendations for selecting creators. Rather than focusing exclusively on follower count, the agency typically recommends a strategic mix: “We’ll have a couple of macros for the sake of reach, and then we’ll have a bunch of micro creators who can actually drive engagement, sales, conversions, whatever your KPIs are. They’re actually doing the legwork because their communities are so tight-knit and they really trust the recommendation.”

The Torani Syrups Case Study

A recent campaign for Torani Syrups showcases Creator Origin’s ability to deliver results through its boutique approach. The brand approached the agency with an urgent need: they were taking a “treat truck” through several U.S. states and needed 40 creators to create content around the experience, with minimal lead time and no established strategy.

“We jumped on board, which is a testament to us being able to be flexible, adaptable, nimble,” Shirel says.

The campaign was based on Creator Origin’s emphasis on relevance over reach. Some of the most successful content came from micro and nano creators local to Seattle, where one of the truck stops was located. 

“We had a creator who only had a couple thousand followers on TikTok or Instagram, and her post got over 70,000 views,” Shirel notes. “The comments were all, ‘I’m going to this tomorrow,’ ‘I wish I saw this an hour ago,’ ‘Wait, is this still happening ?'”

Influencer Marketing Insights

Creator Origin’s business model aligns with significant industry trends that Shirel has observed over her six years in influencer marketing. When she entered the field, campaigns primarily featured static imagery: “creators holding up a product,” as she recalls. Today’s market, according to her, is dominated by short-form video content that gives creators more freedom to integrate products naturally.

“The culture adapted when short-form content and video style started to come in,” Shirel says. “Now we’re leaning on the creators more. Instead of saying, ‘Here’s a cereal bar, hold it up and take a picture with your kids,’ it’s ‘We know that you have a family of five. We know that you guys use this particular cereal bar. How would you showcase that in your day-to-day?'”

Another important trend is the shift to ongoing brand ambassador relationships. “We’re stepping away from one-off partnerships, where it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to activate five creators via one campaign,'” she says. “What brands are doing is they’re building communities and networks of influencers that are actually brand champions and fans of their products.”

Additionally, there’s growing recognition that influencer marketing requires sustained investment rather than immediate returns. “It takes a user seven to nine times to view an ad before making a purchase,” Shirel points out. “So it’s not feasible for a brand to expect that – after the first campaign – they’re going to see a huge spike in sales. You need to view it as a longer-term game.”

Managing Challenges and Growth

As Creator Origin approaches its one-year mark, Shirel is focused on growth while maintaining the agency’s core values. “We’re continuing to focus on building relationships with both brands and agencies, getting our name out there,” she explains. 

This balance represents a key challenge: how to grow without losing the personalized approach that defines the agency. “No matter how big we get, we will always, no matter how many more people we add to our team, no matter how much infrastructure we add, we still want to set ourselves apart by feeling boutique and concierge,” Shirel says.

The agency also faces the broader industry challenge of adapting to technological change while maintaining human connection. While Creator Origin uses technology tools, particularly for creator sourcing, Shirel maintains that human judgment remains essential. “I believe that we are a human-first industry. We need to take care of each other. And at this point in time, I believe only humans can do our job with the help of tech.”

For Shirel, success in year two will mean having “a robust Rolodex of clients and brands that trust us and know our name and that are either actively working with us or feel comfortable enough to come to us with a campaign.”

In a market driven by technological advancement and scale, Creator Origin stands as a reminder that influencer marketing ultimately comes down to human connections between brands and agencies, agencies and creators, creators and audiences. As Shirel puts it: “We need to make sure that we’re building campaigns that are still practical – but also still human at their core.”

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