Southeast Asian influencer marketing is forecasted to reach around $790 million this year, growing at a 10.83% compound annual growth rate to a projected market volume of $1.16 billion by 2029. 

With brand sponsorships now constituting 90% of creator income and sponsored content requests surging 72% this year alone, the challenge of managing influencer campaigns at scale has transformed from an operational headache to a strategic imperative for global brands, particularly in a region where 850,000 creators operate in Indonesia alone.

Founded in 2015 as part of the Unilever Foundry initiative, Narrators emerged specifically to help major brands manage influencer marketing at scale across multiple regions. 

“Narrators was born out of a clear need and pain point in the market,” explains Max Verrier, the company’s Regional Head of Business and Operations. “Everything was still done manually, and a lot of the brands at the regional level were dealing with a very local approach to each of their influencer campaigns. The big FMCGs and the big global brands needed a bit more of a global vision.”

Narrators’ mission is twofold: “To preserve the livelihood of our community of creators while optimizing relationships to meet the evolving needs of brands,” Max notes. “We sit as the middleman between the brand and our community of creators, and we play a pivotal role in the creator ecosystem.”

The company now supports multinational clients navigating influencer marketing across multiple Southeast Asian markets, each with distinct platform preferences and varying content effectiveness, requiring carefully coordinated and localized strategies.

A Hybrid Approach

Narrators positions itself between pure technology platforms and traditional agencies. “We’re not a SaaS, but we’re not an agency either. We’re an enabled agency,” says Max. “We’re the sweet spot in between both.”

This hybrid model combines a client-facing dashboard for brands with a mobile app for creators, supported by dedicated human expertise. “Working with us means being assigned a dedicated account manager to manage the brand and a dedicated community manager to manage the relationships with your influencers,” Max explains. “The platform itself is a supporting piece of tech to optimize the workflow, the data, and streamline the process.”

The model allows brands to view and manage campaigns across different markets and platforms. As Max describes, “All your influencers enrolled and confirmed are landing on your dashboard. So when doing three or five markets and two or three different products for each brand, you just drop down and see all your different batches of briefs, influencers, content, and data. So all that is centralized.”

This approach includes a real-time budget management system. “Until the brief is approved, the influencer is enrolled, and the content is approved and live, your budget does not deplete,” Max notes, adding that this accountability model has become increasingly valuable as procurement departments scrutinize marketing spend more closely. “Many brands like this approach.”

Data Intelligence Beyond Surface Metrics

Narrators’ creator selection is based on a detailed data ecosystem beyond basic metrics. “One of our key strengths is the rich data sets that we have in our platform across a variety of markets,” says Max. “I’m not talking about just followers and engagement rates. I’m talking about socio and psychographic, AI-enhanced data sets that allow you to make an informed decision and look under the hood before considering an influencer.”

“Complex algorithms assign each creator a credibility score based on multiple factors such as frequency and recency of posts, audience acquisition and engagement patterns, gender, language, race detection, reverse geo-coding, etc,” Max explains. 

The system flags potential warning signs in audience composition and engagement patterns, helping brands avoid creators with questionable metrics. “When looking at a clean, organic influencer, you want to avoid certain red flags; e.g., too high a percentage of paid partnerships. If you’re based in Australia but have 30% of your audience in Bangladesh, that will lower your score.”

Max believes that this approach helps brands make more strategic decisions about which creators to partner with, focusing on their ability to reach relevant audiences rather than just their personal profile. “Many brands and influencers still don’t understand the difference between creator and audience interests,” he notes. “It’s the audience you’re targeting, not the influencer him/herself .”

The Ambassador Shift

Narrators has recognized and embraced the industry shift from one-off campaigns to long-term brand ambassador relationships in influencer marketing.

“One key differentiator for us is that we don’t just manage one-off campaigns, but we also focus on building long-term partnerships with our clients,” explains Garance Morvant, Narrators’ Marketing Manager. “We run several ambassador programs designed to foster brand advocacy and loyalty, creating sustained, meaningful connections between brands and creators.”

Max adds that this shift benefits both sides of the creator-brand relationship. “A lot of brands that get it are treating their influencers as an extension of their brand team, and work with them to increase trust with their audience,” he says. “Influencers themselves would rather be ambassadors for five, six, seven brands that they hold very dear to them than just to accept tons of partnerships.”

The transition away from transactional engagements has become important as consumers grow more discerning about sponsored content. According to Max, “When I first mention a brand and say, ‘Oh, go buy it,’ we’ve become much sharper in how we consume content. When something feels too heavily sponsored and difficult to sell, it simply doesn’t work anymore. It’s an ad, it’s clear, I’m not buying it.”

To succeed with influencer marketing, brands need to “be patient,” Max advises. “Find the ones that work right for you, keep them, nurture them, secure that relationship with them. Offer inventory and products in exchange for content to offset your campaign budgets and give them time to integrate it into your daily routine to build the credibility to ultimately drive conversions.”

Campaign Execution

A key element of Narrators’ approach is balancing brand guidelines with creator expression. “One of the misconceptions would be thinking that influencer marketing can replace the rest of your bottom-funnel activities,” Max explains. 

The company emphasizes that influencer marketing excels at brand building and storytelling, rather than solely focusing on conversions, although it can contribute to sales objectives when approached correctly.

This perspective shapes how Narrators structures campaign briefs. “Something that we spend time educating our brands for the creators and on behalf of the creators is that briefs are not a one-size-fits-all,” Max emphasizes. “You need to be able to let the influencer have an input, have enough creative freedom, and have his own stimulation and his interpretation of why this brand and this product work for him.”

Garance reinforces this point, highlighting the importance of finding the right influencers rather than simply targeting those with the largest followings. “Some brands immediately focus on macro or mega influencers, thinking that a following of over a million is the key to success. But in reality, what truly matters is finding the right influencer, someone whose audience genuinely aligns with your brand, message, and goals.”

The company has observed strong performance from smaller creators who reach highly engaged niche audiences. “What we’re seeing today is the rise of nano- and micro-influencers,  who excel at delivering targeted, niche content and communicating key messages to highly engaged audiences,” notes Garance.

Working With Platform Changes and Regional Differences

One of the main challenges in the creator economy is the ongoing change in social platforms. Garance points to the growth of different platforms as a key factor that keeps the Narrators team constantly adapting.

“What surprised me the most was how many social platforms have joined the game over time. We started back in the days of static posts, mainly on Facebook and Instagram, and now half of our campaigns are on TikTok, focused on short-form video content,” she says. “Every day is different with new trends, updates, and content formats flourishing.”

Max adds that predicting content performance remains challenging despite years of expertise: “What surprises me every day is what piece of content works and what doesn’t. This game that we play with algorithms is fascinating because some people crack it, some people don’t, and even when they do, it’s often unclear exactly why.”

The company works with clients to adapt to these platform changes while also addressing the regional variations across Southeast Asia. “It’s important for brands to understand that influencer marketing requires tailored strategies,” Garance explains. “Trends vary widely across markets; what works in one country may not resonate in another. Certain content types perform better depending on local preferences, behaviors, and platform usage.”

In response to changing platform dynamics, Narrators is expanding its capabilities to include Pinterest, which Max describes as “a platform where almost everyone has an account and has used it before, but many brands and creators aren’t leveraging it strategically or professionally as they could.”

Delivering at Scale Across Markets

Max cites a case study in which Narrators delivered 1,380 YouTube Shorts in 30 days, all of which were new content produced and published within that timeframe. Another regional campaign featured 65 ambassadors creating 1,300 posts for a single brand across five markets.

He reveals that this scale is possible due to the company’s regional footprint and technological infrastructure, which are designed specifically to handle high-volume content workflows. 

“Many of our competitors focus mainly on nano/micro influencers, but they rarely manage larger, top-tier creators,; Max states. “At Narrators, we work across the full influencer spectrum. Combined with our strong regional footprint across Southeast Asia, this range of capabilities  is a key reason why a lot of global brands work with us.”

Their ability to execute at this scale while maintaining quality control and brand consistency has attracted major global clients, including Unilever, L’Oréal, and Samsung.

AI Integration and Long-Term Vision

After ten years in the market, as Max mentions, Narrators is focusing on several strategic priorities: AI integration tops the list, with efforts underway to leverage artificial intelligence across their operations.

“AI is now at the forefront of everyone’s board meetings and discussions,” says Max. “We aim to integrate AI into internal processes, creator selection algorithms, and content optimization tools.”

In addition to technological advancement, Narrators continues to emphasize the importance of long-term strategic partnerships in influencer marketing.

“Think long term, think Narrators,” concludes Max. “We want to sit with people who are here to create a yearly plan with us. Let’s sit down, let’s optimize. We know you don’t have everything figured out. To do that, we need to learn and optimize.”