Brands are chasing creator reach while overlooking the audience trust that makes influencer marketing valuable in the first place, according to newly launched agency Dome: The Fandom Agency.
Launched by Domefest co-founders Sophie Greiner and Bella Filacuridi, it will help brands build partnerships around the communities formed by podcasts and content creators, moving towards longer-form content, social series and fan experiences.
Content creator and senior brand marketer Ailish Silvester has joined the business as chief commercial officer and equity partner, bringing experience from both sides of the creator-brand relationship into the agency’s leadership.
“I turn down more briefs than I say yes to,” Silvester said.
The problem, she said, is brands selecting creators based on follower counts without understanding the audience behind them.
Silvester said she had experienced campaigns where creators were handed word-for-word scripts and strict editing requirements, leaving little room for their own voice.
“It’s no longer that creator’s content. It’s actually the brand’s content, and the creator is just a mouthpiece,” she said.
For brands, that creates a fundamental problem: the more a partnership resembles a conventional advertisement, the less reason an audience has to engage with it.
“Social has gone from an advertising space to an entertainment space,” said Filacuridi.
“The thinking from brands is still very product first, rather than story first.”
Dome’s pitch is to bring creators into campaign development earlier, giving them a role in shaping the strategy.
“The best briefs I’ve ever gotten were, ‘These are the products, but how would this work for you?'” Silvester said.
That model gives creators more room to identify relevant products, formats and community opportunities, while allowing brands to benefit from the knowledge creators have built through their own audiences.
They said the shift also required brands to rethink how they measure and value creator partnerships.
“The far majority [of brands] are still overcompensating on banner metrics,” said Filacuridi.
“We’ve kind of gone from an attention economy to this trust economy,” Greiner added.
In practice, Dome wants brands to look beyond impressions and views to consider comments, shares, saves, direct messages and attributable sales.
That is what they see as the distinction between getting a product in front of an audience and giving that audience a reason to act.
Dome also wants brands to think beyond individual pieces of content when entering a creator’s community.
“How can we create a moment, or how can we create a point of connection, a point of inclusivity with this community that is facilitated by the brand?” Greiner said.
The challenge is making the brand a meaningful part of the experience without undermining the community’s existing culture.
Greiner pointed to Amazon Prime’s approach to television fandom, including social content and fan viewing experiences, as an example of entertainment extending beyond the screen.
The launch of Dome: The Fandom Agency, has followed the debut of DomeFest, which the founders describe as Australia’s first podcast fan festival. Held at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, on March 29 2026.
The move into agency builds on that focus on bringing audiences together, with Dome now looking to help brands develop commercial relationships with creator communities.
For an industry crowded with influencer, creator and social agencies, the proposition is that the value of a partnership lies in more than the size of the audience. It depends on whether a brand understands the community it wants to reach, and whether that community has a reason to welcome it.
