Influencing Without the Influencers

Sarah Tang did not set out to be internet famous.

Ms. Tang, 28, does not sing, dance or share outfit-of-the-day videos. She does not post about her personal life, offer career or dating advice, or share finance tips. She does not have an agent or a manager, and she is not flying off to brand-sponsored retreats in coastal cities. Her TikTok following is modest.

Still, Ms. Tang is often recognized, particularly on the J train in New York City, for her appearances in TikTok video ads by buzzy brands targeting Gen Z and millennials.

“I started feeling really anxious about things like falling asleep on the subway or just like looking really grumpy,” Ms. Tang said. “I’m not, like, anonymous anymore.”

Ms. Tang is what some in the fashion and lifestyle industries call a brand or in-house content creator. Unlike influencers, who are typically paid to promote products on their own channels, Ms. Tang’s job is to produce short-form videos that emulate influencer-style content like room tours, vlogs and get-ready-with-me snippets on brands’ own social accounts. Her videos can generate thousands of views.

@dusen_dusen Come see it (and my 4 women) in person this Saturday 12/14! #samplesale #nyc #brooklyn #nycapartmenttour ♬ original sound - Dusen Dusen

The goal of Ms. Tang and others like her is to make ads feel like anything but ads. The brand’s voice is embedded in the content, as are its products, but there’s no overt pitch, no awkward energy of a sponsored partnership. The videos are seemingly unpolished, even if they may have been meticulously planned. And, in many cases, viewers may not even realize they’re being marketed to.

This approach, which has existed on some level for quite some time, is part of a growing shift in social media marketing. Rather than investing in work from external influencers or celebrity ambassadors, many fashion, beauty and lifestyle companies are turning their cameras inward, enlisting their own employees to be the faces of the brand, while striving to make it feel more casual than that.

Brands like the LVMH-owned Loewe, the accessories brand Mejuri and the Danish fashion label Ganni have adopted the format, often showing behind-the-scenes moments of building the brand and photo shoots on social media. Vogue magazine, the soda brand Poppi and the clothing and homeware brand Damson Madder regularly feature lo-fi office content starring staffers. At the luggage brand Baboon to the Moon, in-house creators film vlogs and sit-down interviews with the brand’s designers.

@damsonmadder What is our team having for lunch? 🥙 #damsonmadder #brand #officelife #fashionjob ♬ original sound - nicole

This kind of behind-the-scenes content is a clear departure from the glossy, heavily produced campaigns that typically fill Instagram feeds, brand websites and fashion magazines.

“In the last sort of 10 years, there’s been a massive shift in terms of the way that customers want to be marketed to,” said Emma Shepard, the head of marketing at Damson Madder. “Peer-to-peer marketing has become such a huge part of how customers interact with brands and how customers want to be sold to. Gone are the days where customers want brands to kind of be really autocratic and tell you: ‘This is what you should wear. This is what’s on trend.’”

Dr. Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of Business and the author of “Contagious: Why Things Catch On,” said this off-the-cuff content is appealing because it offers viewers a rare glimpse behind the curtain. That insider perspective gives people a sense of social value or currency, making them more engaged and more likely to share the content.

This approach also helps solve what marketers call the “content problem,” according to Anthony Svirskis, the chief executive of the creator marketing company Tribe. In the past, a brand might have produced a few polished ads a year for TV or print. Now, with dozens of social platforms, each demanding its own stream of content, brands need a constant flow of posts. Influencers and in-house creators help meet this demand.

For some brands, it’s not just about volume, it’s also about the tone. The hard sell of traditional advertising can feel out of sync with how young people want to be engaged. In-house creators offer something more casual and more human.

“I find, like, all of advertising to be embarrassing,” said Ellen Van Dusen, founder of the homeware brand Dusen Dusen. “Part of it is because this business is so personal. It just feels embarrassing to ask people to buy my stuff. I always think like, ‘Oh God, all my friends are going to see this.’”

The Dusen Dusen line was born out of a personal need as Ms. Van Dusen could not find décor in stores that matched her colorful, irreverent aesthetic. When she started the label, she took on the role of a one-woman marketing team, treating the brand’s Instagram like a personal account. She documented her print design process, decorated her studio in real time and posted photos from her wedding, snapshots of her dog, Snips, and, eventually, her child. Early on, she realized that that kind of intimate, offbeat content resonated with her customers.

When it came to TikTok, a platform she described as hard to “wrap my head around,” Ms. Van Dusen brought in Ms. Tang in 2023. Several of Ms. Tang’s videos had already taken off during her time as the in-house content creator for the luggage label Baboon to the Moon.

On any given day, Ms. Tang arrives at Dusen Dusen’s studio in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, checks in with Ms. Van Dusen about upcoming launches or sample sales and then maps out video concepts tied to the calendar. Her style leans toward deadpan humor and she films, edits and posts the content herself.

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