1. When creative content becomes homogenous, authenticity becomes the missing value
In recent years, influencer marketing has become a priority channel for many brands. According to Statista, influencer advertising spending in Vietnam increased from USD 7.8 million in 2017 to approximately USD 87 million in 2024, and is projected to continue growing rapidly, reaching nearly USD 160 million by 2030. As budgets and investments rise, more creators are involved in campaigns, enabling brands to achieve denser visibility across digital platforms. However, this rapid expansion has also led to a noticeable reality: content from different creators often starts to feel similar in both execution and messaging.
Influencer Marketing has become a core investment channel for many brands in Vietnam.
(Source: Statista)
The causes of this overlap stem from multiple factors, including how brands approach influencer marketing. Insufficiently selective creator recruitment, rigid scripting, and large-scale deployment across multiple faces often push content toward a safe and familiar zone. When creators’ individuality, real-life experiences, and natural storytelling are not prioritized, authenticity gradually fades from the content.
2. Three ways brands can unlock authentic content from creators
As creator content increasingly feels repetitive, brands need to rethink their approach to preserve creators’ individuality and long-term value. Below are several ways brands can more effectively unlock authentic content from creators.
When content becomes ubiquitous, creators’ personalities and lived experiences are what keep audiences engaged.
(Source: Novaon Digital)
Select the right creators from the start
Authentic content can only be built when brands partner with the right creators. Reviewing content profiles, presentation styles, and how creators interact with their audiences helps brands understand what each creator truly represents. In addition, feedback and sentiment from the creator’s community provide important signals of credibility and trust, serving as a key reference before incorporating them into a communication strategy.
Give creators space to express their individuality
Rather than applying detailed scripts for every frame or line, brands need to clearly define the creator’s role from the outset. Creators are not merely message carriers, but storytellers in their own voice. In practice, this can start by allowing creators to choose familiar settings, adapt content flow to their personal style, or adjust messaging into the language their community naturally resonates with. When the creative process aligns with the creator’s habitual rhythm and style, the content more clearly reflects personal identity and minimizes the sense of brand orchestration.
Co-create content based on real experiences
Authenticity does not come from brands speaking on behalf of creators, but from collaboratively building stories grounded in real experiences. Brands provide strategic direction and communication objectives, while giving creators the time and space to engage with, use, and experience the product in their own way. When creators are able to form genuine personal perspectives, the resulting content reflects lived experience rather than simply repeating predefined messages. This collaboration allows brand stories to be told in a language familiar to creators’ communities, making the content feel more natural and trustworthy to audiences.
3. Featured case studies: How authentic creator content is leveraged effectively
Case study 1: Bibica – Connecting with young audiences through the “in-between hunger” experience
In Vietnam, TikTok has entered a phase of rapid growth, becoming a communication platform deeply embedded in the fast-paced lifestyles of young people, where entertainment, music, and personality-driven challenges dominate. Within this context, Hura Swissroll, the bestselling cream roll line from Bibica, faced a common challenge for long-established FMCG brands: how to reach younger audiences on emerging platforms without making content feel forced or disconnected from their language. The brand’s “anti-hunger” message clearly communicated product functionality, but if delivered too directly, it risked being overlooked amid TikTok’s constant stream of entertainment content.
Novaon Digital implemented the campaign through KOLs and KOCs who naturally create content rooted in young people’s everyday lives on TikTok. An original track composed by Chi Xê served as the creative foundation for the entire campaign. Instead of requiring creators to follow a fixed template, each KOL and KOC was encouraged to remix the melody, choreography, and setting according to their personal daily routines, from late-night studying and stressful work moments to familiar “in-between hunger” situations. This creative freedom preserved each creator’s individuality while seamlessly embedding the “anti-hunger” message into real-life narratives, rather than presenting it as an overt advertising claim.
Novaon Digital and Bibica brought the “in-between hunger” experience to life through young creators’ perspectives.
(Source: Novaon Digital)
The campaign generated approximately 3.5 million engagements from influencer dance cover videos, 1.6 million engagements from the TikTok Challenge, over 300 participating creators, and more than 12 million discussions on TikTok. Hura became part of young people’s everyday stories, rather than appearing solely as an advertising message.
Case study 2: Custas Cốm – Standing out of the content race through cultural storytelling
As Vietnam’s FMCG confectionery market becomes increasingly competitive, brands continuously launch new products, particularly those drawing on traditional flavors. As a result, industry communication has gradually become homogenized, revolving around familiar formulas of taste and product benefits. For Custas Cốm, the challenge was how to tell a story about cốm in an authentic way that builds emotional connection, instead of blending into similar content or appearing to exploit cultural elements for advertising purposes.
Novaon Digital selected family creators with Hanoi roots for this campaign, most notably the Cam Cam Family, whose everyday lives and stories are closely tied to family rhythms and Hanoi’s cultural memory. Rather than reenacting a pre-written narrative about cốm, creators were encouraged to share familiar moments from their own family lives, from daily meals and conversations to autumn memories associated with the aroma of cốm. Custas Cốm appeared naturally within this flow, seen through the storyteller’s real experiences, allowing the content to retain creator individuality while avoiding one-dimensional cultural exploitation from the brand side.
Novaon Digital partnered with Custas Cốm to tell cultural stories through creators’ perspectives.
(Source: Novaon Digital)
The campaign generated over 30,000 engagements on Facebook, with 60 percent positive comments and 100 percent of content originating from influencers and the community. On the brand’s social channels, 10 posts achieved more than 22,000 engagements, an increase of approximately 9.8 percent compared to the previous period, helping Custas Cốm build a brand image closely associated with cultural values and family experiences.
4. Expert Insights
From market context and the above case studies, it is clear that authenticity does not lie in creators sounding less like AI or simply reducing overt advertising. Rather, it comes from allowing creators to show up as who they truly are, through their personalities, experiences, and natural storytelling styles. When brands apply identical scripts across multiple creators or select faces that are not genuinely aligned, content quickly becomes repetitive and struggles to connect with audiences.
To unlock creators’ true value, brands need to shift from a control-driven mindset to one of partnership. This requires a deep understanding of who the creator is, which community they speak to, and what differentiates their storytelling. When the right creators are chosen and given space to express their individuality, brand content becomes more natural, more engaging, and ultimately builds stronger, more sustainable trust with audiences.
At Novaon Digital, influencer content is approached as an integral part of a holistic Brand Experience strategy, based on the SCT model, the intersection of Strategy, Creative, and Technology. Through the Onfluencer platform, Novaon supports brands in systematically selecting, managing, and activating creators, from fit evaluation to execution and performance measurement. This approach has been successfully applied across multiple major brands, including Bibica – Hura and Custas Cốm, helping influencer marketing campaigns fully leverage creator individuality and deliver long-term brand value.
