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Prove you build the brand. Get paid for it.

Creator Right Space is a free toolkit from Hotspex. We map your content and the brands you want on the same emotional map, then build the pitch that shows the fit.

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The money moved

The people who sign the briefs said it out loud.

“I'm absolutely convinced that the times of big corporate big brand messages are gone.”
Fernando Fernandez, CEO, Unilever · CAGNY, 17 Feb 2026 · Marketing Week, 18 Feb 2026
“Messages of brands coming from corporations are suspicious messages.”
Fernando Fernandez, CEO, Unilever · Fortune, 11 Mar 2025
“It requires a machine of content creation very different from the one we have had in the past.”
Fernando Fernandez, CEO, Unilever · Fortune, 11 Mar 2025
“It is using creators' voices to express the brand. It's not a one off piece of creative any longer. At Unilever, I talk about we're moving from that old model of a one-off broadcast to getting many people to communicate with many other people on your behalf. It's the only way.”
Esi Eggleston Bracey, then Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, Unilever · Cannes, June 2025 · Marketing Week, 3 Jul 2025
“In the past, we were reading the impact of our one TV advertising campaign. Today, we are reading the value of 300 different assets operating in parallel on different channels.”
Nuria Hernandez, CMO, Unilever personal care · Marketing Week, 3 Jul 2025
300,000

Unilever describes an “active global network of approximately 300,000 creators”.

Unilever statement, via Digiday, 30 Jul 2026

2,500creators

Coca-Cola's digital and social activations generated “over 9 billion views, supported by more than 2,500 content creators” in one quarter.

Company-reported. Coca-Cola Q2 2026 earnings release, 28 Jul 2026

30% to 50%

Unilever's stated target: its social spend “will move from 30% to 50% of our total spend.” And: “We will work with 20 times more influencers.”

Fernando Fernandez, a target, not a result. FoodIngredientsFirst, 13 Mar 2025

What brands measure now

Brand memory, not likes.

The big studies agree: what earns the next deal is whether people remember the brand after your post. Your follower count is not the deciding factor.

Not the deciding factor

Follower count

Follower count was “not the deciding factor” for brand memory, and engagement rate had no relationship with it. Creative quality, creator fame and brand fit together scored about 4x the weak baseline.

Same playbook

27%

Of creator content links to the brand

Only 27% of creator content links to the brand. Strong branding raises the equity impact by almost two-thirds.

Kantar, the creator gold rush

Half

Can name the sponsor

Only half of the people who recall an ad can name who it was for. A post people love and cannot place does not build the brand.

Ipsos, brand link

The Hotspex Map

Every brand owns a feeling. That is its Right Space.

The Map lays out eight families of feeling around a wheel. A brand's pack and ads sit in one part of it. Content that sounds like that part builds the brand. Pick one.

Dove

Right Space read from each brand's packs on the Hotspex Map.

One real creator, on Dove's Map.

Creator A · anonymised
0of the last 50 posts landed so far

Same 50 posts, another brand. Not every brand is your brand, and that tells you who to pitch first.

Two reads on every post

Does it build the brand? Does it pull now?

Builds

Your posts against the brand's Right Space

Each post is placed on the Map from what it makes people feel. Posts that land inside the feeling the brand's pack and ads already own add to the memory the brand is building. That is the card above, and it is the part of your pitch most creators cannot show.

Map reads are placed from public posts.

Pulls

An attention read of the first seconds

The short-term part. Where attention holds in the opening seconds, and whether the brand shows up while people are still watching. Leading with the product pitch too early cut 25% view-through by 44% in one 5,000-asset study. Two to four distinctive brand assets in the first two seconds is the pattern that works.

DAIVID for Billion Dollar Boy, Jun 2026 · System1, creator effectiveness playbook

The Academy

Six short modules. One exercise each.

Build your own brand and the brands that hire you, with the same tools the brand teams use.

  1. Module 1 · 2 min

    Feelings build brands

    Place any post or brand on the Hotspex Map and say what feeling it carries.

    Open the module

    A brand is not a logo. It is the feeling people carry about it. When a brand manager says a post feels off brand, or that it fits, they are reading a feeling. You can learn to read it too.

    The Hotspex Map puts feelings on a wheel with eight zones, such as Fun, Friendly and Trustworthy. Every brand, ad and post lights up some zones more than others. That glow is its shape.

    Your channel has a shape too. Read fifty of your posts together and a cluster shows up. Maybe warm and funny. Maybe calm and expert. That cluster is what a brand is buying when it hires you.

    Right Space is the zone a brand can own, that is true to what it sells, and that is tied to what makes people choose it. Creators inside that zone help the brand. Creators outside it can pull the brand off its path.

    Fit is not decoration. The IPA's influencer databank, 220 campaigns, found return tracks the fit between brand and influencer and the quality of the creative, not spend. And a brand's most attached customers read a poor-fit deal as a norm violation.

    One honest limit. Map reads are an AI read of public posts. Use them as a sharp first look. Whether a zone drives sales for a given brand is a hypothesis until someone tests it.

    Exercise Pick your five best-performing brand posts. For each, write the one feeling a stranger would say it gives off. Circle the feeling that shows up most. That is the first line of your own shape.

    Sources
  2. Module 2 · 2 min

    Find any brand's Right Space

    Read a brand's pack, ads and site and name the one feeling it is trying to own.

    Open the module

    Brands tell you their Right Space in three places they control: the pack, the ads and the site. You do not need an insider. You need ten minutes and a notepad.

    Start with the pack. Colour, shape, the words on the front. Loud or quiet? Playful or serious? Write down five feelings the pack gives you before you read a single word on it.

    Next, watch their last three ads, once muted and once with sound. Note who is on screen, how fast it cuts, what the music does. Write five more feelings. Ignore what the voiceover claims. Track what it feels like.

    Then the site. Read the first screen and the About page. Brands often say it plainly in a headline. Now count how often the same feeling turns up across all three sources.

    The feeling that shows up in all three is your candidate Right Space. Test it. Do competitors feel the same? Is it true to the product? Does it connect to why people buy?

    Be honest on that last question. Unless a brand has data, the link to sales is a hypothesis. In your pitch, say you read their Right Space as warm and funny. Do not say you know what drives their sales.

    Exercise Choose the brand you most want to work with. Make three columns: pack, ads, site. Write five feeling words under each and circle the repeats. Finish with one sentence: "[Brand] is trying to own [feeling]."

    Sources
  3. Module 3 · 2 min

    Carry the codes in the first two seconds

    Put a brand's distinctive codes on screen early without saying a single sales line.

    Open the module

    Codes are the small things that say this is that brand with no logo slide. A colour. A sound. A character. A pack shape. The name said aloud. Brands call them distinctive assets. You can borrow them without becoming an ad.

    The gap is real. Kantar found only 27% of creator content links to the brand. Ipsos found only half of people who recall any ad can name the sponsor. Your audience remembers you. Often they forget who paid.

    System1's TikTok study found that two to four distinctive assets in the first two seconds is the sweet spot. Think a held colour, a sound, the product in your hand. Not a sales line.

    Sound is the sleeper. In the same study, sonic assets gave the highest brand memory lift of any cue tested, yet fewer than 5% of creator ads use them in the opening seconds. Use the brand's sound your way.

    Do not pitch to carry codes. DAIVID found that leading with the brand pitch cuts view-through by 44%. Open on your hook. Let the codes sit in the frame, not in your mouth.

    Ask the brand for its list of codes. If there is none, pick the two you see most across its pack and ads. Module 2 shows you how. Then check the codes fit your style before you say yes.

    Exercise Take your next planned brand post. Choose two to four codes from the brand's pack and ads. Work them into the first two seconds through colour, sound or a prop, with no pitch line. Show those two seconds to a friend and ask whose video it is.

    Sources
  4. Module 4 · 2 min

    Hook first, brand early, pitch late

    Lay out a brand video so people stay, remember the brand, and still hear the ask.

    Open the module

    Your hook is yours. Open on the thing your audience follows you for. Creator-first openings raised ad recall by 32% in TikTok-funded work. The brand is borrowing your attention. Spend it well.

    Brand early means a cue, not a pitch. A colour, a sound, the product in your hand, in the first two seconds. Same work: brand or product on screen for 60% or more of the ad was 1.8x more likely to make an impact.

    Pitch late means the ask comes after you have earned it. DAIVID found that leading with the product, benefit or brand too early cut view-through by 44%. People leave first. Then nobody hears the pitch.

    Put the product where attention peaks. A Harvard and MIT study of 20,000 Taobao-linked videos found the product has to appear at the moments when the video is most captivating. Find your peak. Show it there.

    Stop treating likes as proof. In the System1 study, engagement rate explained about 0.2% of brand memory lift, and follower count was not the deciding factor. Creative quality explained 54.6% of the lift.

    Think of your video as a curve. High at the hook, held through the middle, a lift at the product moment, a soft landing on the ask. Hotspex calls the check on that curve Pulls. Brands care where it dips.

    Exercise Open your last brand video. Mark three points: where the hook ends, where the brand first appears, where the ask lands. If the ask sits in the first half, move it to the end. Make sure one brand code shows in the first two seconds.

    Sources
    • Creator-first openings raise ad recall 32%. Brand or product on screen for 60% or more of the ad is 1.8x more likely to make an impact. A Harvard and MIT study of 20,000 Taobao-linked videos: the product must appear at the exact moments when the video is most captivating. TikTok-funded. Toluna x TikTok, Brands pay, creators play
    • Leading with the product, benefit or brand too early cuts view-through by 44%. 5,000 creator assets; agency-funded, partly AI-predicted scores. DAIVID for Billion Dollar Boy, 4 Jun 2026
    • Engagement rate explains about 0.2% of brand memory lift. Creative quality explains 54.6% of lift. Follower count is not the deciding factor. 1,217 TikTok ads, 182,550 users, 8 markets. TikTok co-funded. WPP Media, System1 and TikTok, Creator Effectiveness Playbook, 2026
  5. Module 5 · 2 min

    Price on it

    Build a rate sheet where usage, whitelisting and exclusivity each get their own line, and write the trade in one sentence.

    Open the module

    Price on it means your rate follows what the brand gets to do with your work, not just the post itself. Usage, whitelisting and exclusivity are three separate things. Each gets its own line.

    Every range here is a vendor estimate, not audited data. Later puts micro creators at US$500 to 2,500 per post. Influencer Marketing Hub puts Instagram micro at US$100 to 500. Vendors cut tiers differently and neither shows its sample.

    The only Canadian source we found is Elev8or: finance creators, CAD 743 to 4,455 per post for 10K to 100K followers, again a vendor estimate. Treat all of these as a sanity check against your own deal history.

    Add-ons, also vendor estimates. Usage rights for six months in one geography: add 20 to 30%, per ContentGrip. Category exclusivity for 30 days: add 15 to 25%. Whitelisting on Instagram: add 30 to 50%, per Later.

    Whitelisting means the brand runs ads through your handle. One Influencer Marketing Hub example: 25% of base per 30 days, plus 10% for each later 30-day period. It is one example, not a standard. Use it as a shape.

    Exclusivity cuts you off from every other deal in that category, so it costs you. It can also protect you. Li, Gao, Gu and Leung found each extra same-category brand an influencer endorses lowers engagement on the next sponsored post.

    Write the trade in one sentence: "You get [deliverable]. In return, you can use it [where] for [how long]. Anything beyond that is priced on this sheet." Put disclosure in the contract too. Ad Standards says the onus is shared by brand, agency and creator.

    Exercise Make a one-page rate sheet. Put your base price per format, set from your own history and checked against two vendor ranges. Then add one line each for usage, whitelisting and exclusivity with a duration and a place. Send it with your next quote and note every add-on you give away.

    Sources
  6. Module 6 · 2 min

    The pitch: your fit page and your deck

    Build a one-screen fit page and a six-slide deck that make you easy to say yes to.

    Open the module

    A brand manager is deciding whether you make their job easier or harder. Your pitch has one job: make yes easy to defend when someone more senior asks why you.

    Lead with fit, not followers. System1 found follower count was not the deciding factor in brand memory. The IPA found return tracks fit and creative quality, not spend. Say that, then show the fit.

    Your fit page is one screen. Your channel's shape on the Map. The brand's Right Space beside it. The three posts where they overlap. No adjectives you cannot show. Show the posts.

    Your deck is six slides. Who you are. The feeling you own. The brand's Right Space. Three posts inside it. What the first two seconds will carry. The deal menu from module five.

    Brands now read creator work in bulk. Nuria Hernandez, CMO of Unilever personal care, told Marketing Week they are reading "300 different assets operating in parallel on different channels." Make yours readable at a glance.

    Show where a post misses, too. A brand's most attached customers read a poor-fit deal as a norm violation, per Bentley and colleagues. If a post misses, say you saw it and name the fix.

    Send it to one person with one question: which of these three posts is closest to what you need? Read the brand's creator page first. A question starts a conversation. A claim starts a debate.

    Exercise Use the brand from module two. Write your fit page: your five best posts read for feeling, their Right Space sentence, and the three posts that overlap. Then write the six slide titles. Send the builder form on this site and we will turn it into a deck.

    Sources

One rule under all six: disclose every paid post in the caption, not buried in the hashtags. In Canada the duty is shared by the brand, the agency and you. Ad Standards Canada, influencer disclosure guidelines, 8 Oct 2025

The pitch-deck builder

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Brands to pitch

34 brands, and the door to each.

Listed A to Z. Each tile names the brand, its category and how creators get in.

Your work, on the brand's map. Yours to keep.

  • Your last 50 public posts on the Map, against the brands you have worked with.
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