TELUS Shorts Campaign Beat Telecom Benchmark by Hiring Customer-Creators

TELUS's Black Friday 2025 YouTube Shorts campaign delivered a 9.5% relative lift in ad recall against a 6.6% telecom and tech benchmark, according to creator marketplace #paid. The reason, the company argues, is simple: the creators picked for the campaign were already TELUS customers.

#paid matched TELUS with creators who used and liked the service before any contract was signed. Roger Figueiredo, the company's Chief Marketing Officer, says whether a creator already uses a brand should come before audience size in every hiring decision.

Why did reach become the default filter?

Audience size, views and demographics took over creator selection because they copy how marketers buy media. "That's how they've purchased media, that's how the media plans are built, and that's what's presented," Figueiredo said. As the channel matures, he argues it needs its own planning logic rather than borrowed media-buying habits.

That logic is #paid's product. The company, which runs hubs in Toronto and New York, builds creator marketing infrastructure around what Figueiredo calls "natural creator brand affinity," whether a program involves five creators or 5,000. "Creator marketing has had a trust problem, and we try to solve that trust problem with our infrastructure," he said.

Figueiredo joined #paid as CMO in October 2023 after more than four years as VP Marketing, and previously ran demand generation at Shutterstock and Flashstock. He has sat on Ad Standards' Influencer Marketing Steering Committee since 2019.

How does the fit screen work?

The core tool is a "hand-raise": creators send the brand a short pitch explaining why they fit. A creator might write that they've used the same internet provider for years and keep 15 devices connected for work — evidence they can talk about the service naturally.

The pitch also screens people out. Some reply that they switched providers, and that response feeds #paid's system so they're never shortlisted. "If they don't, we don't pair them together because that's going to produce bad content," Figueiredo said.

He acknowledges AI could let a creator fake a pitch, but a faked fit costs the creator trust with the brand, agencies and partners like #paid. The hand-raise turns fit from a brand's guess into a claim the creator makes — which #paid then verifies.

Follower count hasn't disappeared from the evaluation. "It's not irrelevant, but it's not ultimate either," Figueiredo said. He describes it as one data point among many. In his early years at #paid, brands pushed for famous creators they were "emotionally" attached to; his team now talks them out of poor matches.

The cost of a bad match is public. Figueiredo recounts a case where a creator who drove a "gas guzzler" partnered with an automaker on an eco-friendly vehicle, and followers flooded the comments calling out the hypocrisy. "If you don't have good creator brand fit, your program cannot be successful," he warned.

What makes a brief work?

The programs that perform best spell out what's mandatory and what's unacceptable, then leave the rest to the creator. "Tell me what I can and can't do right from the beginning. Don't let me find out at the end," Figueiredo said creators tell him.

Both extremes cause damage. Overly prescriptive briefs stifle creativity; thin ones trigger reshoots when content arrives with something the brand never ruled out. #paid reviews briefs and shows brands where to loosen up — a particular need for its many clients in regulated categories.

The "Co-Creator Program," launched in June 2025, goes further and brings creators in before the brief exists. Figueiredo has led sessions with 10 to 15 creators; others involved two creators, ran virtually, or lasted a full day in person. "What we see consistently is that creators are used as creative strategists," he said. A brief can be final the same day or within a couple of days.

Does ad recall satisfy the CFO?

"Ad recall is very powerful, but it tells you whether people remember your ad," Figueiredo said. A CFO will want to know how much revenue a campaign drove, and recall alone doesn't answer that. Brands that need a sales number have to set that metric before the program is built.

Looking ahead, Figueiredo wants brands to take creators beyond paid posts — to company events, consumer events and conferences, and into product collaboration. "They have the ability to turn a simple six-hour event into something that the internet is talking about," he said. A decade from now, he hopes brands will conclude that creators can be trusted with their creative, with #paid brokering that trust.