Many major retailers suddenly want their own staff behind the camera. In the space of a few weeks, Gap Inc. opened its creator program to employees across Old Navy, Gap, Athleta and Banana Republic. Starbucks moved to scale its Green Apron Creators network. And Staples turned a viral in-store associate into a genuine brand asset.
Donatas Smailys, CEO of creator marketing platform Billo, explains the thought behind these decisions and how it can be problematic.
“Showing authentic and imperfect people on camera is a very good strategy for brands that want to create relationships with their audience and win their trust in the age of AI. Audiences are getting very good at smelling a transaction, so the market is swinging back to the realest asset a company owns: the people who actually work there. The danger is that the moment you script them or push them to hit quotas, you kill the exact thing that made them worth filming.”
“On another hand, those same people can create viral moments, but will they make people convert? Without a proper system and accountability on someone’s end, these initiatives will not be sustainable. And we all know how much consistency matters on social media.”
In an interview with Retail Insider, Smailys discussed the trend.
Question: What is driving major retailers to increasingly turn their own employees into content creators, and why is this strategy gaining momentum now?
Answer: The honest answer is trust. Audiences have gotten very good at smelling a transaction, so the market is swinging back to the most real asset a company owns: the people who actually work there. For a decade, employee advocacy just meant “please reshare the brand’s post”, staff were a distribution channel. What’s changed is that the employee is now the origination point of the creative – not to replace hired creators, but to add a layer of authenticity alongside them. It’s gaining momentum now because anyone can create content with their phone and because in the age of AI, showing an authentic, imperfect real person on camera is one of the few things you genuinely can’t fake.
Q: What makes employee-created content more authentic or effective than content produced by professional creators, and what evidence are you seeing that it builds consumer trust or drives sales?
A: An employee works with the product or service every day, so they notice the angle marketing overlooked and brings a fresher take. But I’d push back on framing it as “more effective than professionals,” because that’s the wrong comparison. Employee content is more authentic while professional UGC (User Generated Content) is more consistent and targeted. The evidence we see is that real, human-made content earns trust that polished or AI-generated content doesn’t. But the trust converts to sales only when there’s a system tracking it. A viral employee moment builds awareness. Whether it drives conversion depends on whether someone is accountable for turning it into one.
Q: How can retailers preserve that authenticity while still giving employees enough structure, training and direction to produce consistent content at scale?
A: The line is direction versus dictation. A brief that helps set the goal and gives them the raw materials: here’s what’s legally clear, here’s the true thing about the product, here are the hooks that tend to work – now go make it in your voice. A brief that kills it says these words, hits these numbers, posts this often. The first treats the person as talent. The second treats them as a delivery mechanism.
Expecting consistency from employees as content creators is naive and that’s exactly where hired UGC creators come in. They can carry the reliable volume while your staff provides authenticity.
Q: What are the biggest risks retailers face when they ask employees to become creators—for example, scripting, quotas, compensation, brand safety or employee burnout?
A: The first risk is over-management – the moment you script people or push them to hit quotas, you kill the exact thing that made them worth filming.
The second is building your company’s awareness on one person. Treat employee creators the way you’d treat anyone you bring on for a UGC campaign, because people leave, and if the audience was built around one face, it leaves with them.
And there’s a risk marketing shouldn’t pretend to own: the labour side. A lot of the pushback isn’t a marketing problem, and a creator program doesn’t fix it. If people are unhappy with the job, putting a camera on it amplifies that.
Q: What does a sustainable employee-creator program need in place to move beyond viral moments and actually deliver measurable business results?
A: For a program to be sustainable it needs a named owner inside marketing who is accountable for scaling it. It also needs an agreed metric from day one, tied to attributed outcomes like tracked conversions rather than follower count. And a system that removes the fear factor, because most employees assume posting could get them fired, so only the boldest few ever try. Clear permission and clear rules (here’s what you can do, here’s what’s off-limits, here’s what you get for it) turns a lucky moment into something repeatable. Start with the people already posting, and support them instead of forcing something out of everyone else.
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