As the creator economy continues to grow, collaborations between brands and influencers have become commonplace. But what happens when these collaborations turn sour? This is something TikToker The Travelling Hive (@thetravellinghive) found out the answer to first-hand, as a brand the content creator was working with turned around and asked her for a refund further down the line.
After going viral for wearing some particular shapewear, the TikToker says a clothing company reached out to her to collaborate, hoping to emulate her previous success. Once the creator and the brand agreed on a price, which was $2,000 for 10 videos, she said she made the requested videos for them—only for the brand to “tear them apart.”
“They were like, ‘I want you to do this; I want you to say this; I want you to add this,’ and I was like, ‘This is not authentic.’This is not what I signed up for,” she said. “I’m not going to be sitting there with a script. I don’t like companies to do that.”
She continued, “Yes, the shapewear was good. I would’ve happily promoted it. The problem was, I didn’t like the way they wanted me to promote it.”
Still, despite her reservations, she said she did the first video the way the brand did it.
“It didn’t do well, shocker,” she said. But then, with her next video, the creator was more off-script and authentic—which, she said, led to this video getting more views than the first one.
“When they came at me, and they were like, ‘Hey, like, we didn’t get a good amount of sales from that,’ I was like, ‘I can’t guarantee how many sales you get. I’m just making the videos,” she said she responded. “But also this wasn’t authentic. You need to let me do it.’”
@thetravelinghive I think this company has lost their marbles! #mommashive #contentcreator #branddeals #badbranddeals ♬ original sound – The Traveling Hive
After managing to get more creative control over the content, the creator said the next video went “very well.” But this success soon turned sour as the TikToker described how they “picked apart” her other video drafts and ideas. Then, despite having made only five out of 10 planned videos, the company allegedly told the creator they wanted to cancel the rest of the campaign. Consequently, the creator deleted the other video drafts related to the project.
This is when things got messy. The creator explained how the company got in touch “months later” and asked her to post the unreleased draft videos. Upon telling them they were deleted, the creator was issued with an ultimatum: either post the videos or refund what the company paid her.
“If you’re making content for a company and they are like, ‘Oh, we’re not getting good sales, can you give us the money back?’ That’s not my job,” she concluded. “That’s on you. I could get them to a landing page, but that landing page needs to get them to sales, and if that isn’t good, that’s on you.”
The Daily Dot reached out to the creator via email.