Joe Gagliese, co-founder and co-CEO of Toronto-based creator marketing company Viral Nation, said enterprise brands routinely set ambitious creator marketing budgets without building the systems needed to execute them, in an interview with Dinis Guarda.
“CMOs and CEOs of Fortune companies are saying things like scale our social, put 50% of our budget into creator,” Gagliese said. “But the part that they’re missing is the best social operating companies in the world focus on the how it’s done and not necessarily the why or the what.” He said enterprise social spend “crosses the threshold of $10 million and above” at a point where, in his description, “everything that that system entails breaks” if a brand lacks the team, technology and approval processes to support it.
Vetting as a Condition for Scale
Gagliese said brand-safety vetting functions as a precondition for larger creator budgets rather than a separate compliance step. He noted a brand partnership gone wrong can cost a company “20% of their market cap,” and said Viral Nation built its brand-safety technology in response to that risk, filtering an estimated 50 million creators worldwide down to a network of 1 million it considers vetted for enterprise use.
He also described creator selection changing in character as a program scales. “Brands really used to care which creators they worked with because they were working with 20 of them,” he said. “When a Fortune 500 goes to working with 4,000 of them, it becomes less relative who it is and more relative what it’s doing to move the P&L of that business.”
Category Spend and Platform Timing
Gagliese said pharmaceutical companies and AI companies are currently among the fastest-growing spenders in creator marketing, pointing out that those industries have found creator content effective for reaching their audiences.
On LinkedIn specifically, Gagliese said the platform has historically made it harder to transact with creators compared with YouTube or TikTok, and that LinkedIn is planning new creator discovery tools he said could open B2B spending on the platform.
Briefing and New Spending Categories
Gagliese said briefs are increasingly built from a creator’s performance history rather than applied uniformly across a roster. As an example, he shared that one client found a creator’s results improved fivefold when the creator’s pet appeared in a post, and that the brief was adjusted to include it going forward.
He also said Viral Nation is running creator campaigns in October and November built specifically to influence how AI systems surface a brand, rather than to reach human audiences. “Big creator programs solely meant for AI search, nothing else,” he said.
Gagliese separately said creator reviews can affect sales directly in categories like automotive, saying negative reviews from “those top 20 creators” after a new vehicle release can leave a brand “with parking lots full of vehicles.”
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
Joe Gagliese, co-founder and co-CEO of Toronto-based creator marketing company Viral Nation, said enterprise brands routinely set ambitious creator marketing budgets without building the systems needed to execute them, in an interview with Dinis Guarda.
“CMOs and CEOs of Fortune companies are saying things like scale our social, put 50% of our budget into creator,” Gagliese said. “But the part that they’re missing is the best social operating companies in the world focus on the how it’s done and not necessarily the why or the what.” He said enterprise social spend “crosses the threshold of $10 million and above” at a point where, in his description, “everything that that system entails breaks” if a brand lacks the team, technology and approval processes to support it.
Vetting as a Condition for Scale
Gagliese said brand-safety vetting functions as a precondition for larger creator budgets rather than a separate compliance step. He noted a brand partnership gone wrong can cost a company “20% of their market cap,” and said Viral Nation built its brand-safety technology in response to that risk, filtering an estimated 50 million creators worldwide down to a network of 1 million it considers vetted for enterprise use.
He also described creator selection changing in character as a program scales. “Brands really used to care which creators they worked with because they were working with 20 of them,” he said. “When a Fortune 500 goes to working with 4,000 of them, it becomes less relative who it is and more relative what it’s doing to move the P&L of that business.”
Category Spend and Platform Timing
Gagliese said pharmaceutical companies and AI companies are currently among the fastest-growing spenders in creator marketing, pointing out that those industries have found creator content effective for reaching their audiences.
On LinkedIn specifically, Gagliese said the platform has historically made it harder to transact with creators compared with YouTube or TikTok, and that LinkedIn is planning new creator discovery tools he said could open B2B spending on the platform.
Briefing and New Spending Categories
Gagliese said briefs are increasingly built from a creator’s performance history rather than applied uniformly across a roster. As an example, he shared that one client found a creator’s results improved fivefold when the creator’s pet appeared in a post, and that the brief was adjusted to include it going forward.
He also said Viral Nation is running creator campaigns in October and November built specifically to influence how AI systems surface a brand, rather than to reach human audiences. “Big creator programs solely meant for AI search, nothing else,” he said.
Gagliese separately said creator reviews can affect sales directly in categories like automotive, saying negative reviews from “those top 20 creators” after a new vehicle release can leave a brand “with parking lots full of vehicles.”
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