Are agencies really the only ones to blame for open creator campaigns where everyone can participate, but only a few creators get paid?
Let’s be honest.
An agency launches a campaign with 300 creators.
They get 300 pieces of content distributed across different audiences: posts, threads, memes, videos, replies, mindshare and social proof.
The project gets attention.
The agency gets to show the client: “Look how much traction we generated”.
And in the end, only a few creators get paid.
Most creators worked for free.
So yes, agencies are responsible for designing this system.
But are they the only ones to blame?
I don’t think so.
At the end of the day, agencies are businesses. Their goal is to maximize profit. If they can get hundreds of creators to promote a campaign while only paying a few, of course some will take advantage of that.
But this model only works because creators keep accepting it.
Every time creators join an unpaid open campaign hoping to be the lucky pick, they signal that their work does not have a certain value.
They compete against each other for a lottery ticket, and in the process, they drive down the value of creator work for everyone.
The agency doesn’t need to respect creator rates when there is always a line of people willing to work for a “maybe I’ll get paid this time”.
And yes, I understand new creators.
Sometimes they need visibility. Sometimes they need proof of work. Sometimes they can’t demand fixed payments yet.
But there is a difference between building your portfolio and being farmed for free impressions by a funded team that absolutely has a budget, but simply chooses not to spend it on most of the people doing the work.
Some agencies created a system where the risk is entirely on creators and the upside is mostly theirs.
But creators who keep participating in these campaigns are helping that system survive.
At some point, we need to ask ourselves:
Are we being given an opportunity?
Or are we just making unpaid work look normal?