Fourth Floor is built on the premise that influencer marketing works best when creators, brands, and audiences all gain from it. Founded in 2017 by Rich Keith, the Bristol-based agency now operates across Bordeaux, Toronto, and Stockholm, running gaming and entertainment campaigns grounded in data and creativity.

Rich’s path to entrepreneurship began in traditional media. After two decades in publishing, including a stint as publisher at “Future Publishing”, overseeing Edge and PC Gamer, he witnessed firsthand how YouTube was reshaping audience engagement. That realization arrived through an unlikely source – The Yogscast, a British YouTube collective that became one of the platform’s earliest sensations.

“They were the second biggest channel on YouTube at that point,” Rich recalls. “I’d never heard of them until we realized they’d received twice as many votes as all other categories combined in the ‘Golden Joystick Awards.’”

Rich later joined The Yogscast as Chief Commercial Officer, gaining an inside view of how creators balanced audience trust, algorithms, and brand deals. “A lot of people didn’t understand their motivations,” he notes. “It’s not all about making money. They have an audience to care about and content to serve.”

Those lessons became the basis for Fourth Floor’s guiding philosophy, what Rich calls the “value triangle”: the idea that every campaign must deliver value to creators, brands, and audiences alike. 

“We wanted to approach things creatively, not just say, ‘These words, post this content,’” he says. “How do you make it great content, too?”

Turning Data Into Creative Leverage

Now approaching its eighth anniversary, Fourth Floor operates as a hybrid of agency and data company. The firm has completed more than 2,000 campaigns, amassing 50 million data points across its proprietary platform.

“We didn’t set out to be a platform business,” Rich says, “but we built a set of tools that now power everything we do. It’s real campaign data, not scraped from online reports. We understand what works and what doesn’t, where the levers are to pull.”

That intelligence enables the agency to make data-led decisions about creator selection, campaign design, and live optimization. “It gives us a foundation to be creative on top of,” he explains. “We start with data but add human insight; watching content, talking to creators, and understanding their audience.”

Fourth Floor’s internal platform allows clients to monitor campaigns in real time and adjust for engagement, reach, and even niche KPIs like Steam page traffic, demo downloads, or community growth. “We prefer a range of metrics rather than a single number,” Rich says. “If one KPI (Key Performance Indicator) dominates, people find ways to game it. The wider picture tells the real story.”

Creators, meanwhile, consistently rate Fourth Floor among the most collaborative partners in gaming, according to Rich. “We survey every creator we work with,” he says. “Our approval ratings run at about 95%, and that matters. Brands need to know creators actually like working with their agency.”

Inside Fourth Floor’s Ecosystem

Fourth Floor has become a multi-disciplinary ecosystem serving global game publishers and entertainment brands, all operating under a single unified banner. The company brings together influencer marketing, video production, community management, and social strategy under one roof.

Explosive Alan, acquired in 2022, added full-service production capabilities (trailers to social shorts) at a time when video dominates every platform. “It used to be that a social media manager spent the day writing tweets,” Rich notes. “Now you need half a dozen video assets for TikTok, Shorts, and Reels. Having that ability in-house means we can move fast and stay on brand.”

The agency also integrates paid media and ad buying to amplify creator content. “Platforms have become closed systems,” he explains. “You can’t rely on organic reach alone. Boosting creator content ensures it reaches the right audience while maintaining authenticity.”

On the community side, Fourth Floor’s teams manage and support client social channels and Discord servers. “We’ve built tools to analyze sentiment in gamer language. Most sentiment software doesn’t understand it,” Rich says. Their proprietary theme engine surfaces emerging issues and community conversations, allowing teams to respond quickly before problems escalate.

Campaigns for Gaming Engagement

Rich points to several campaigns that demonstrate the agency’s philosophy.

One was with Hello Games for “No Man’s Sky,” a nine-year-old title that experienced a resurgence after a major influencer initiative. “They wanted to find a new audience for the game,” he explains. “Between our work and other partners’, they ended up with more daily active users than since launch, which for a nine-year-old game is just incredible.”

Another was Konami’s “SILENT HILL f,” a horror release that spanned both the U.S. and Europe. Fourth Floor led influencer partnerships that extended beyond gaming, bringing in creators from music, fashion, and lifestyle to introduce the franchise to new audiences. “We also supported a larger activation in Los Angeles,” Keith explains, “where another agency transformed part of the city into the world of ‘Silent Hill.’” Alongside that effort, Fourth Floor managed a gifting campaign (a curated box of Silent Hill collectibles sent to 100 creators) and coordinated creator-led content to amplify the event online.

The agency also partnered with Blizzard Entertainment on a “Hearthstone” campaign blending esports with maker culture. “We had pro players compete alongside newcomers,” Rich recalls, “and a group of YouTube makers created the actual prizes, all of which became content itself.”

Each success, he adds, shared two traits: “Clients that get it, that want to be creative and understand it’s about more than just views, and a willingness to think beyond the obvious solutions.”

From Fandom to Feeds: The Platform Shift

As gaming content grows, Rich sees structural changes in how audiences discover creators. “We’ve moved from fandom to feed,” he says. “TikTok blew up the idea that you need to follow someone to see their content. Most people on TikTok don’t follow anyone. They just watch what the algorithm serves.”

Rich notices that the shift is transforming YouTube as well. “You can see it changing because of TikTok,” he says. “Platforms are optimizing for content volume and watch time, not necessarily fandom. That changes monetization models and what creators have to think about.”

Still, Rich doesn’t believe fandom will disappear. “People’s desire to be fans hasn’t changed. It’s just moving off-platform,” he says. “But for agencies, it means you have to think differently about discovery and engagement.”

The industry veteran also expects AI to accelerate content generation even further. “We’ll see more automated advertising and a blurring between branded content and ads,” he predicts. “That will leave an even bigger gap for creative, human storytelling, which is where agencies like ours can thrive.”

What’s Next for Fourth Floor?

As Fourth Floor prepares to mark its eighth anniversary, Rich says the company’s mission remains unchanged: support creativity. 

“We love games, we love content creators, and we love the content they make,” he says. “We’re not trying to dominate the world or sell for a hundred million. We just want to keep doing great work for great clients and great creators.”

The agency continues to refine its internal platform and plans to open portions of it to clients, offering a more transparent look at campaign performance. Yet Rich insists the business’s strength lies in its balance of technology and artistry. “We love games, and we know what works,” he says. “That’s the head and the heart: bringing data and creativity together.”

Looking ahead, he anticipates stronger evidence of impact for creator marketing. “We’re already seeing more tools that let us prove influencer ROI (Return on Investment) from a data perspective,” he says. “We’ve always known it works. Now, we can show it.”

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