Brands Briefing: Why brands like Amika and Perelel prioritize long-term creator cohorts

Nilofer Vahora, Amika’s CMO, said the goal is to create long-term relationships that are less transactional and built on authentic connection.

“We’re investing so much in our pro community because there’s a credibility and a trust there,” she said. “When we are investing in that community and really fostering those relationships, you can feel that there is real, genuine love for the products and the brand. Then they can speak to it in a smarter way, and then it sells itself.”

Since its creation last year, the Stylist Collective has generated about $2.3 million in earned media value for Amika. The strategy is an example of how a brand can benefit from working with creators over time. Longer-term relationships are thought to be the gold standard in the burgeoning influencer market, which will see about  $266.9 billion in global spend by the end of 2025, per the Influencer Marketing Hub.

But the vast majority of creator contracts these days are still one-off deals. Agentio, an ad service that helps brand automate their content creator sponsorships, says that about 90% of all YouTube ads with creators are one-off deals, based on platform-wide sponsorship data. This may be because brands may prefer to cast a wide net in hopes of driving awareness among as many people as possible. But there are also more nuanced dynamics that prevent brands from working with influencers more than once.

Arthur Leopold, co-founder of Agentio, said longer-term partnerships are the “North Star” because they yield better results than one-off partnerships. Someone who sees a creator working with the same brand multiple times builds interest and trust that leads to conversion. Conversely, followers may have a hard time believing an influencer is serious about a product if they are seemingly backing something new every day. Leopold said the reason for the churn often comes down to an obvious suspect: money. Creators and their agents may push for high rates in a feast-or-famine environment, Leopold said, but this sets a high bar for the ROI the brand is looking for that a creator may not be able to meet.

“It’s frankly really unhealthy for the ecosystem because it means that creators are on this constant hunt for new deals,” he said. “They enter this leaky bucket environment where a new brand comes in, they work with them one time, and then they have to find new brands because the brand’s not going to renew the creator because the creator was too expensive for them in the first place.”

This dynamic may be shifting as brands carefully consider how to maximize their marketing budgets. Leopold said that Agentio recommends people work with a creator more than once in order to give the creator an opportunity to warm up their audience to the brand. On Agentio, which features market rate data, about 50% of creators work with brands longer than their initial term. He said brands that want to forge longer-term relationships can frame a pitch around offering a lower monthly deal for three months, for example, and explain the ROI that they’ll see off of that price.

“Rather than thinking about it as a one-off, where we’ll just accept the creator’s price, for now, and hope that the creator performs, let’s think about this as more of a media strategy and invest in the channel to see the outcome over a period of time,” he said.

At Amika, Vahora said the company still has short-term or one-off campaigns with influencers to help it drive awareness. But it’s the longer-term relationships that tend to drive the most value. On an individual basis, longer-term creators delivered more earned media value per dollar spent, she said. They also over-delivered more consistently, posting, on average, six times more than they were contracted to do. For instance, stylist Olivia DeMuro on Instagram did three paid posts in the first half of the year but 74 organic posts.

“It’s not just about one campaign,” Vahora said. “It’s about building something together that evolves as the stylist’s career evolves.”

For some brands, partnering over time allows them to highlight more use cases. Perelel, a vitamin and supplement brand, prioritizes long-term relationships as a pillar of its influencer marketing strategy. The company was founded with a prenatal vitamin and has expanded its lineup to include other products. It has found a successful pattern in working with female creators over time as their needs change from pregnancy to postpartum and other health needs. Some even get their husbands to try the men’s line, said Alex Taylor, co-founder and chief brand and creative officer at Perelel.

The company has dozens of creators and influencers in its network at any given time, with a handful who are in multi-month or multi-year campaigns. Partnerships have included reality star Whitney Port, fashion influencer Aimee Song, entrepreneur Pia Baroncini and influencer Nara Smith. Currently, it’s partnering with Mandy Moore.

“By partnering over an extended time horizon, we’re able to organically introduce multiple SKUs, … based on where the talent is in their life stage,” Taylor said. “That kind of continuity allows us to tell a more complete brand story while also showcasing the range and depth of our product offerings.”

From a creator standpoint, longer-term relationships may be just as desirable. From a financial standpoint, it may be a more consistent form of income, but it also makes for better storytelling.

Influencer Mel Demi, who specializes in travel and pets, estimates about 95% of the brands she works with wind up being one-off deals. But, she said, she’d like to see brands get into more longer-term deals because it makes for better content.

She said she and her team have often wasted time negotiating with brands over deals that never happen because she realizes they aren’t the right fit for her channel. Conversely, she said the brands that she works with repeatedly are more likely to see conversions from her followers who are benefiting from that repeated insight.

“The biggest thing for me on socials is building that community and that trust with my audience,” she said. “I want people to follow me because they know what they’re going to get from me. I don’t want them to feel like, ‘Oh, she sold out.’ If I don’t have an audience that cares about the content I’m posting, then at the end of the day, it’s not going to be relevant.” –Melissa Daniels

By the numbers: VC fundraising bright spots

Last week, Bloomberg reported that DTC brand Quince raised about $200 million, with investment firm Iconiq Capital leading the investment. The San Francisco-based startup, founded in 2018 and known for its $50 cashmere sweaters, is now valued at over $4.5 billion. The fundraise is especially notable as Quince just announced a $120 million Series C in January. Quince’s fresh cash comes during a tough time for many consumer brands, especially in the DTC and packaged goods space. 

$500 million: Quince’s total venture capital funding to date, according to PitchBook. The company has bucked the anti-consumer trend by attracting big investment firms. 

$200 million: The total venture capital fashion and apparel startups overall have raised so far in 2025, according to Crunchbase’s database. This puts the latest Quince round in context, showing just how dry deals have been in this category. 

$131.6 million: Overall venture cash that apparel startups attracted in 2024, per Crunchbase, a major drop from $2.1 billion in 2023. –Gabriela Barkho 

Quote of the week

“People have chosen to work with us, and they see us as a safe place because we do look out for them, and we do support them, and it’s only right that we do double down on this. If this is their safe place when they’re in Lush and at work, then that’s when we’ve done our job.”

–Rowena Bird, co-founder of Lush Cosmetics, on the company’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion at a time in which many brands and retailers have rolled back DEI policies –Julia Waldow

What we’re reading

• Gap and Béis teamed up on a 26-piece collection of denim-inspired luggage.
• Ikea is setting up 1,000-square-foot spaces in 10 Best Buy stores in Florida and Texas.
• High Noon issued a voluntary recall after some of its vodka seltzers were mislabeled as Celsius energy drinks.

What we’ve covered

• American Eagle appears to be working with a crisis PR firm amid the backlash to its ad with Sydney Sweeney.
• Subscription company FabFitFun acquired sustainable packaging startup Boox.
• Rare Beauty partnered with the Shop app for its OOH campaign around its fragrance launch.