What should you do when a creator asks to work with your brand?

The message came in this morning. A creator has had one of your foam rollers under the couch for a year, they write, and they'd like to make something with it. Three of their videos are attached, and there's a number at the bottom.

Nobody has said yes and nobody has said no. The message is polite and specific, and every piece of it lands as though somebody had already decided.

Why is this one hard to read?

The pieces arrive in the wrong order. When you go looking, the sentence comes first — the one thing a viewer should walk away understanding — and the names come last, as candidates you hold against it. Our guide to choosing creators is blunt about why that order matters: "Without that sentence every creator "could work," which is how you end up back at the follower number."

A message reverses it. The name arrives first, by itself, carrying its own case, and the sentence is somewhere behind it or not written yet. The better the message, the harder that is to see.

We've already ruled on the closest version of this. Someone who filmed your product without being asked is worth something, and our guide to finding creators says exactly how much: "That's real, and it's worth a line. It is not evidence that their video will carry a campaign — that judgment belongs to the next stage, same as for every other name." If a video somebody already filmed is worth a line and no more, an offer to film one is worth no more than that either.

Which leaves two questions: whether you have a job, and whether what this person usually makes goes near its sentence.

What is the message supposed to be held against?

A job, if you have one.

Not a plan to work with creators someday. A job is a specific thing you want a video to do, in a window, with a budget attached. Inside it sits that sentence, and the choosing guide is where you write it.

If there's no job, say so plainly. It's still a no, but it's a no about your own side rather than about them. Nothing that arrives from outside can be the sentence, because the sentence is the thing you decided you wanted. Reading a message as the sentence is how you end up running a campaign whose shape was set by whoever happened to write in.

This is also where this article stops and the choosing guide starts. That one begins with a sentence and a pile of names and works out which names survive. This one begins with one name, often no job at all, and works out whether there's anything to survive against.

For the roller: there's a job — a window the video has to land in, and a budget set aside for one. The sentence is that people should see the thing used the evening after a long run rather than demonstrated on a mat in an empty room: this is what you reach for when you're too sore to stretch properly. It existed before the message came in, which is the only reason the message can be read at all.

What can the message settle, and what can't it?

It can settle three things: that this person is available to make something with your product, that they've put a number on it, and that what they said about the product is specific rather than generic — which is a fact about the message, not yet about them.

The videos attached are the ones they picked to send. Whatever else the message does, it can't answer the question you'd have taken to the account: what they make when nobody is choosing on your behalf.

So the checking happens where it would have happened anyway — on the account, in the posts with no brand attached, in the same order and at the same cost as for any other name. The choosing guide has that order, including which check is allowed to end the conversation, and none of it changes because the name arrived by message.

Two things are already visible without being sent. Posts marked as brand work are a public record that this person does brand work, whether or not any of them were attached. And the comments under everything else they post are there to read, which is where you get at what no attachment can settle — do the people watching them care about the evening after a long run?

For the roller: the three attached videos are good, and two of them are for brands in categories nowhere near yours. Neither fact settles the one you need settled, and the account is where you'd settle it.

What do you send back?

One of three things, and which one you send is the decision.

An offer, if there's a job, this person cleared the checks, and you've settled what the video is worth. That's the full version, and it isn't something you write in a reply this afternoon. Our guide to first messages separates it from the smaller thing you can send instead, and the terms inside it get settled before the shoot.

The smaller question, if there's a job and the person looks right on the cheapest check but the offer isn't written. That guide describes it as "are you open to an offer for this job, in this window?", and it is careful about what a yes to it commits them to: reading what you send next, and nothing else. Asking it also buys you room to run the rest of the order properly instead of deciding by return message.

A no, if there's no job, or if the account doesn't go near the sentence. Those are two different noes and only one of them is about this person. The first one is about you, and saying so is more accurate than not a fit right now — a phrase that covers both cases and settles neither.

Two standing policies aren't on this list. Answer everything, or answer nothing: both settle it before anyone has read anything, which is the same point we've made about comment threads.

For the roller: there's a job, their number hasn't been held against anything on your side yet, and a minute spent on their recent videos put the evening after a run in frame. That's the cheapest check and not the whole order, so it's the smaller question, sent today, with the rest run this week.

What does a no leave behind?

One line. It's the only part of a no that lasts.

Not a fit leaves nothing. The choosing guide is exact about the difference: ""Never films anywhere near a moment of mess" is a reason. So is "audience is there for the recipes, not the kitchen." Written down, those sentences are what you check the next batch of names against, and what you hand the next person who builds a list for you." The same holds when the name arrived by itself. If you cut somebody because everything they make is shot in a studio and the evening you need is a living room, that is a line the next person building your list can use.

The two noes leave different lines, which is the reason to keep them apart in the note as well as in the reply. A no because the account doesn't go near your sentence is about a mismatch between this person and this sentence, and it holds for as long as both of them do. A no because there was no job stops holding the moment one exists, so the name goes wherever you keep the ones you'd want back. Neither one has to be softened into a maybe to stay usable later.

For the roller: there's no line to write yet, because the checking hasn't decided anything. If the rest of the order comes back showing an account that films the run and never the evening after it, that is the line — and it goes in the note whether or not the smaller question ever gets an answer, because a line records what you decided, not what they said.

Frequently asked questions

They named a number. Do we answer it?

Not in the reply that says whether there's a job.

Working out what a video is worth is its own decision with its own inputs, and what to do when a number lands above what you set aside belongs to that guide, with the budget guide sending you to the same place. Answering before either of those has started sets a price you haven't worked out, on a job you may not have.

They sent a video they'd already made with our product in it. Is that the same message?

No, and the difference is permission.

A message asking to make something is about work that doesn't exist yet. A video that already exists is a video you don't have any rights to, and our finding guide puts it plainly: "Finding a video gives you a candidate, not permission." That the link arrived unasked rather than turning up in a search doesn't change what you'd need in order to use it — that comes from an agreement about usage rights, and nothing about how the video reached you stands in for one.

We already have a page on our site saying we work with creators. Does that change the answer?

It changes how the name got here.

What you hold that name against is still yours to have written down first — a page can put a name in front of you, and it can't tell you whether there's a job for it.

See what this looks like for your brand

Got a message you can't place and no read on whether you've got a job to hold it against? Send it over with what you're working on and we'll go through both.

Or email us: business@popow.ai