How to hire UGC creators (a brand’s guide)

Decide what you are actually buying

Two different purchases get called UGC, and conflating them is the usual source of a disappointing result.

• →An asset — you want footage to run as an ad or put on a product page. Pay per deliverable, and buy usage rights explicitly.
• →Distribution — you want the creator to post it to their own audience. Pay per view, because that is what you are buying.

Write the brief you would want to receive

A brief that says "be authentic" produces nothing usable. Specify the things that would make you reject a video, because those are the things a creator cannot guess.

• →The hook — what the first three seconds have to achieve.
• →Format — vertical, rough length, to-camera or voiceover.
• →Must appear: the product in use, a specific claim, any legally required disclosure.
• →Must not appear: claims you cannot substantiate, competitors, anything regulated.
• →One or two reference videos. This single item removes more ambiguity than a page of prose.

Usage rights are a separate thing you have to ask for

Paying for a video does not automatically let you run it as a paid ad for a year in every market. If you intend to, say so in the brief and price it in — creators reasonably charge more for broad usage, and discovering the gap after the fact is how a campaign turns into a dispute.

Brief many, expect variance

UGC is a volume format. The value is not in any single video; it is in commissioning a dozen angles for what one studio shoot would cost and finding the two that work. Budget for that distribution rather than for a guaranteed hit.

This is also why funding up front matters in both directions: creators will film for a brief they can see is funded, and you are not paying for anything you have not accepted.

Disclosure is your responsibility, not theirs

Paid content has to be identifiable as paid content, and the obligation sits with the brand even though the creator is the one posting. Put the requirement in the brief in plain words rather than assuming it: say which label you want, and where.

It is also the cheapest thing to get wrong. A creator who was never told will not add it, the content runs, and the problem is yours — not theirs.

Reviewing what comes back

Decide submissions quickly. A creator waiting a fortnight to hear whether their video was accepted is a creator who will not film for you again, and word travels in a small market.

• →Judge against the brief, not against taste. If it met the brief and you no longer want it, that is a brief problem.
• →Say why when you reject, in one line. It is the difference between a creator improving and a creator leaving.
• →Accept more than you will use. The second-best video is often the one that works as an ad — and you are commissioning variance on purpose.

How it runs here

Fund a budget, set the model — per deliverable or per view — write the brief, and the campaign goes on the board. You review what comes in and approve what you will use. Unspent budget stays yours.