We All Thought Authenticity Was The Whole Game. Turns Out It's Just Confidence.

Most creator marketing advice is about going viral, but real impact comes from how brands and creators actually work together. In this episode of Stop the Scroll, Roo Yeshpaul Johnson, Head of Creator Marketing at Figma, and I are talking about what’s shaping the creator economy right now — from the myth of unlimited brand budgets to why “great creator partnerships” often come down to something much less glamorous: reliability, negotiation, and whether the math still works. We also get into the tension no one wants to say out loud: creators are getting more expensive, brands are getting more selective, and long-term partnerships are not as guaranteed as the internet makes them sound. And underneath all of it is a bigger question — if everyone is a creator now, what actually makes someone worth paying attention to? Highlights: (00:00) Introduction (01:18) Meet Roo Yeshpaul Johnson (03:41) Why Marketers Still Need a Seat in the Room (07:14) What Creator Activations Look Like Without Marketers (08:48) The Myth of Unlimited Creator Budgets (15:30) What Makes a Creator Easy to Work With (19:45) The Coming Tiered Creator Economy (25:17) What Will Feel Weird About Creator Culture Soon (27:42) Rise of the Practitioner Creator (30:10) Why Creator-Brand Relationships Break or Scale (32:23) What Every Marketer Should Know Resources: Hear more from me in the Stop the Scroll Newsletter: https://briannadoe.substack.com/ Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianna-doe/  Roo’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rooyj Figma LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/figma Figma Website: https://www.figma.com/