Service
Creator Partnership Strategy Sprint
For brands preparing to launch or rebuild a creator partnership program. The sprint creates the strategic foundation for creator selection, briefing, campaign design, disclosures, claims discipline, and measurement—so you scale on a smarter foundation.
Selection criteria and disclosure/claims rules current as of August 2026, checked against current FTC and platform guidance.
What it does
Selection, briefing, and measurement—done right the first time.
Creator partnerships should not be selected by follower count. They should be evaluated by audience fit, value fit, credibility fit, claims risk, disclosure discipline, category sensitivity, commercialization saturation, and platform context.
- Creator selection scorecard
- Audience / trust-fit framework
- Campaign thesis
- Creator brief template
- Disclosure & claims rules for campaigns
- KPI framework
- Risk-screening checklist
- Campaign governance structure
Selection scorecard dimensions
How a creator gets evaluated.
Audience alignment
Credibility & category fit
Content quality
Commercialization saturation
Trust profile
Claims risk
Disclosure history
Platform fit & use case
What the brief has to specify
Disclosure rules a creator can follow without a strategy call.
Most briefs say “please disclose.” That is not a rule. These four points come straight from the FTC’s published guidance, and each one is a line the brief should settle in advance.
Match the disclosure to the medium
The Guides are specific: if the endorsement is made visually, the disclosure should be made “at least visually”; if audibly, “at least audibly”; if both, then both. A brief that does not name the format has not set a rule.
The caption is not the disclosure
On putting a disclosure in a TikTok text description, the FTC is blunt — small print, poor contrast and competing on-screen elements make it “very unlikely to be clear and conspicuous.” Specify placement inside the frame.
Every post, not the first one
A standing partnership does not exhaust the duty: “Each new endorsement made without a disclosure could be deceptive because viewers might not have seen the prior posts.” Per-post disclosure belongs in the contract, not in goodwill.
Name the brand, not the arrangement
The FTC advises against “#freeproduct” because it does not say who gave it, and warns that flagging a video as containing “paid content” can fall short when several products appear. Approved wording belongs in the brief.
Source: Federal Trade Commission, The FTC’s Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking, which states that responsibility for disclosing a material connection rests with the influencer and the brand — not the platform. Descriptive summary of published guidance; not legal advice.
How the sprint runs
Four working sessions, not a slow retainer.
Define the thesis
What job the partnership program needs to do—awareness, trust transfer, conversion, or founder visibility—before any creator gets named.
Build the scorecard
Score candidate creators against audience fit, credibility, claims risk, and disclosure history—not follower count.
Write the brief
A creator brief and disclosure/claims rules specific enough that a new creator can be onboarded without a strategy call.
Set the KPIs
A measurement plan defined before launch, so results get judged against what the campaign was actually for.
What changes
What a smarter foundation looks like.
Before: creators get chosen because they reached out, or because a competitor used them, and the brief is a paragraph in a DM. After: a scorecard ranks candidates on fit and risk before outreach starts, the brief specifies the claim and disclosure language allowed, and the KPI framework already defines what "working" means—so a campaign's results are a measurement, not a vibe check.