Updated as of 14 Feb 2023
SushiVid's KOL Transparency Guarantee is our promise to clients that we will not mark up the cost of influencer engagement. We believe that our compensation should be earned through our efforts and made clear to our clients.
We made this decision because we believe that a cleaner industry will result in a healthier one. The entertainment and influencer industry has too many middle men who take a cut just for having a connection. Our goal is to eliminate this layer of cost, allowing influencers to earn more and clients to pay less.
First and foremost, the clients. These are the brands who are engaging influencers to build awareness. They are the ones who pay for the campaign and the influencers. Smaller brands would have a social media influencer executive who will engage influencers directly but larger brands would usually engage an influencer through a influencer marketing agency.
SushiVid is an influencer marketing agency, we assist brands in ideating, managing, and creating content with influencers. We help brands to manage influencers at scale and our scope also covers legal documentations and agreements, payments and reporting. It's important to note that we are not a talent agency as we don't sign any influencers. Our focus is on choosing the best influencer for our clients, regardless of the influencer's representation or social media platform.
Talent agencies and talent managers are entities that sign influencers and provide them with the resources to grow. These agencies typically take 20-40% of an influencer's earnings. In exchange, influencers should receive benefits such as gym memberships, coaching, and sponsored makeup and hair. Talent managers are often tied to a talent agency, similar to how insurance agents are tied to insurance companies.
Personal assistants (PAs) are sometimes confused with talent managers. Influencers may turn to talent agencies for help when they feel overwhelmed, but what they actually need is a PA to manage their communications, taxes, and schedule. PAs may receive a fixed monthly salary or work as freelancers for multiple influencers. However, they do not have the connections to help influencers become successful entrepreneurs or celebrities.
Influencers, also known as creators or KOLs, are individuals or private limited companies whose image or channel is used to spread information for clients. Influencers price are based on their follower count and the content type. At SushiVid, we have a database of influencers prices that we then put into a bell curve to calculate if an influencer in this follower count category is overvalued or undervalued. This information changes as influencers update their profile on our website and that in turn changes the price packages that we provide to our clients.
Some influencers are more entrepreneurial than others. Sometimes influencers may refer their friends (other influencers) to a sponsorship gig and take a cut from that engagement.
There are also times when a client engages a talent agency for a campaign, the agency may also engage non-represented influencers to participate. In this case, the talent agency acts as a brand agency.
Sometimes a creative agency or a media agency will act as an influencer marketing agency and provide influencer marketing services for their clients.
The more layers of intermediaries involved, the more "service fees" are added and the less the brand receives in return on investment. The cost per click may include the influencer's fee, the talent manager's fee, the brand agency's fee, and the creative agency's fee, making it difficult to accurately calculate the influencer's effectiveness.
At SushiVid, we pledge our KOL Transparency Guarantee, meaning what our client pays is what we pay the influencer or talent agency for the influencers deliverables per campaign. While this may require significant administration, we believe it's important for clients to know exactly where their money is going.
Having said that, it is costly for us to compile and collate this information. Therefore, our Transparency Guarantee applies only to long term clients who pledge to do 6 campaigns and above with SushiVid. If a client doing an adhoc campaign would like a full disclosure on the KOL price, it is chargeable.
We hope ultimately that at some point, this will be a practice we can do for all clients but as a start, we will provide this to our long term clients.
