Creative agency Mādin recently acquired Great Work Media to address growing client demand for authentic influencer marketing in an increasingly creator-driven market. The deal positions Dimitar “D” Gougov, a Bulgarian-born creator-turned-entrepreneur and founder of Great Work Media, as the newly appointed Chief Influencer Officer at Mādin, where he’ll scale his creator-first approach through a larger agency infrastructure.

Dimitar entered the creator economy in 2015 when, as an 18-year-old college student, he launched “Yeezy Busta,” a social media account focused on verifying sneakers. “When I was 18, I was struggling and didn’t have a whole lot of money in my pocket. I wanted to buy a pair of Yeezys,” Dimitar recalls. After his father unknowingly purchased fake shoes for him from eBay, he recognized an opportunity. “I was like, ‘Wow, there are people out there that sell fake stuff.’”

His account went viral almost immediately, gaining “five to 10,000 followers within the first four to five hours” by calling out celebrities wearing counterfeit sneakers while emphasizing that “even your favorite celebrity can get scammed.” This approach—combining education with humor—struck a chord with audiences, and over the next decade, Dimitar expanded his influence. He launched a YouTube channel and eventually worked with high-profile clients including Drake, Travis Scott, and Kylie Jenner, building relationships that would later inform his agency approach.

This acquisition now combines Mādin’s established reputation for transformational brand impact with Dimitar’s creator-first philosophy, creating what both parties believe will be an important shift in how influencer marketing integrates with broader brand strategy.

The Genuine Value Gap

After years of experiencing both sides of the influencer marketing equation, Dimitar established Great Work Media in 2022 to bridge the gap between brands seeking effective creator partnerships and influencers demanding creative autonomy. Drawing from his own experiences receiving rigid, prescribed brand directives as a creator, he built an agency specifically designed to move beyond transactional influencer relationships.

“I started Great Work Media to capture unique moments within these campaigns that feel genuine and that are ingrained in the culture. It’s not something that’s just purely transactional,” explains Dimitar.

“The issue that I had noticed with a lot of influencer marketing agencies that reached out to me was that sometimes they would just basically try to throw money at me and say, ‘Hey, we have X amount of money. We want you to post this many times on your story,'” Dimitar explains. “There was never any thinking behind it at all. It was more, ‘Here’s money, here’re the hashtags.’ And they most of the time were telling me, ‘This is exactly what you need to post word-for-word.'”

This approach directly contradicted Dimitar’s core value of genuine content. “I always try to be as genuine as possible. I didn’t want to present anything to my audience that I personally didn’t support or didn’t like. So I turned down 100% of the deals that I had gotten that were something that I didn’t support.”

This represents the foundation of Great Work Media, which eventually caught Mādin’s attention as they sought to expand their services.

“Mādin’s clients were always looking to expand into creator and influencer marketing. And now with us getting acquired, we’re able to provide that service for Mādin directly,” says Dimitar. The timing aligned well for both organizations. “For us, it was perfect timing because we built something special at GWM, and Mādin already had a name for itself as an extremely highly effective agency.”

The acquisition decision was solidified by shared values between Dimitar and Mādin. “One selling point for me with Mādin was that we’re both obsessed with doing things not only in the right way, but in the most highly effective way. The thing that’s most important to us is blending creativity, efficiency, and strategy,” he notes.

The Creator-First Philosophy

At the core of what made Great Work Media valuable to Mādin—and what drives the post-acquisition strategy—is Dimitar’s creator-first philosophy, developed through his years working in both creator and agency roles.

“Being a creator and an entrepreneur and starting my own agency and working with some of these brands and big influencers and celebrities, my perspective really helps me design those campaigns to feel organic to the creator and strategic to the client,” Dimitar explains.

This balanced perspective addresses the issue of agencies often favoring either brand strategy or creator preferences, rarely achieving an effective balance between the two. “A lot of influencer agencies might focus mostly on the strategy or some might focus mostly on the creator side, but for us, it’s a perfect blend of the two,” he explains. “Influencer marketing does not work unless there is some sort of strategy behind it.”

Dimitar points to successful creator partnerships, such as Logan Paul and Prime, as examples of effective balance. “I feel like the deal that they had was, ‘Logan, go do your thing, whatever you want, and go out there and be as loud and as obnoxious as you want to be.’ And I think that’s why it resonated so well with his audience.”

Dimitar’s business philosophy centers on rejecting one-size-fits-all approaches in favor of tailored strategies. “There is no playbook for every client. Each client gets their own playbook, which is what sets us apart.”

Mādin Influence: Post-Acquisition Implementation

Following the acquisition, Dimitar is now implementing his creator-first philosophy as he builds Mādin Influence from the ground up. Unlike traditional agency structures, where influencer marketing often operates as a separate, secondary service, Mādin Influence will be fully integrated into the agency’s core approach.

“The influencer strategy will be embedded from the beginning of the campaign ideation,” Dimitar emphasizes. “It’s not something that gets thrown in the middle of a campaign. It’s more so from the very beginning, working with a brand. We say, ‘These are the services we offer. We highly recommend using X, Y, and Z.’”

This integration reflects Mādin’s broader approach to brand building. “At Mādin, we build and amplify brands in transformationally impactful ways. We always say that we’re not a company to hire if you’re looking for small and incremental growth,” explains Dimitar. The acquisition immediately expands these capabilities, with him already “tapping in about a dozen of the team members currently” from the existing Mādin team.

A key implementation strategy involves leveraging Dimitar’s extensive network of creator relationships. “A lot of the industry is about who you know,” he notes. “One big thing for me has always been being friendly with everybody. I never view anything as transactional.”

This approach has already yielded results for clients like Quality Collision Group (QCG), which owns approximately 100 collision centers across the United States. For their “Quality Approved” campaign, Dimitar brought in Daniel Mac, one of the world’s largest car influencers known for asking supercar owners what they do for a living.

“He’s a really good friend of mine. So we had him a part of this campaign as well,” Dimitar explains. “The content that we had him create was in his own style.” Similar collaborations with Post Malone and the Dallas Cowboys showcase how Dimitar’s relationship-first approach translates into brand partnerships.

The implementation process also involves careful creator selection based on genuine alignment rather than metrics alone. When approaching new talent, Dimitar emphasizes collaboration over transaction: ‘The way we reach out is by saying, ‘Hey, we want to create with you.’ And it’s not going to be something that’s transactional.”

Improving the Creator Economy

Aside from the business side, Mādin’s acquisition of Great Work Media reflects a broader vision for enhancing the collaboration between brands and creators. Central to this vision is Dimitar’s commitment to integrity in influencer marketing.

When it comes to the one thing he would change about the creator economy if given a magic wand, Dimitar does not hesitate, “I would make every influencer have to be as honest as possible.”

This commitment stems from his understanding of the fundamental responsibility that accompanies influence. “The term ‘influencer’ originated from the fact that you have influence on others. I think that if you have influence on others, that influence should be good.” This principle has guided Dimitar’s personal decisions as a creator, including turning down lucrative offers from gambling websites targeting younger audiences despite the “insane” compensation offered.

This ethical stance now shapes how Mādin Influence will operate post-acquisition. “When we work with them, I say, ‘If this is not something that you can get behind or this doesn’t resonate with you, we don’t want you to promote it,'” Dimitar explains. “We want each influencer to actually be a champion of the brand rather than it being just a transactional thing.”

Dimitar articulates clear goals for measuring the acquisition’s success. In the first year, he aims to “continue what we’re doing and launch campaigns that are culturally relevant and that can deliver real results, not just the buzzwords.”

The five-year vision is more ambitious, with Dimitar hoping to create “a full-circle moment working with some of the brands that I partnered with early on as a creator, but now as a strategist instead of a creator.” These discussions are already underway with several brands, which could accelerate this timeline.

Beyond specific client relationships, Dimitar is energized by the creative opportunities the acquisition enables. “I love that every single day I can just go and be creative, work with amazing, intelligent, and creative people, and create these incredible moments that actually make an impact on the world,” he says. “It’s more than just a brand.”

As Mādin and Great Work Media unite under Dimitar’s leadership, his closing message emphasizes the practical philosophy that will guide their work: “Influencer strategy should not be an afterthought. It should be something that’s considered from the beginning, from the actual inception of the campaign. If brands want to create moments and work that truly taps into culture, that will make an impact rather than just being transactional.”

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