Smashbox had an influencer program. What it didn't have was an influencer strategy. The existing roster wasn't aligned to the brand's aesthetic or repositioning, the content it produced underperformed against industry benchmarks, and the program had no clear framework for evaluating who the brand should be working with or why.

The rebuild started from first principles. The brief wasn't "find better influencers," it was to redefine how the brand showed up in the creator space entirely. That meant shifting from a follower-count-first casting model to one driven by content quality, aesthetic fit, and audience alignment. It meant moving the brand toward motion-driven, platform-native content at a time when the industry was still catching up to TikTok and Reels. And it meant building an infrastructure, i.e. casting criteria, briefing frameworks, performance benchmarks, that could scale beyond any single campaign.

In my first six months, fifty-plus new paid partners were identified and onboarded and more than ten paid campaigns ran across the balance of the year. The results: reach grew by 130% and EMV improved 100% year over year. Our Halo Tinted Moisturizer sustain campaign delivered +48% EMV, +450% impressions, and +620% engagements over the prior campaign, while coming in 21% under budget on talent fees.

The two organic viral moments that emerged from the rebuilt ecosystem - a Meredith Duxbury post at 4.6M views and a Princess Cherry post at 20.1M views - weren't accidents. They were the byproduct of a brand that had built genuine creative alignment with its creator community rather than a transactional roster of paid posts.