The Middleman Tax Is Coming Due.
Fee opacity was the industry's quiet business model. The IAB is about to make it the loudest liability.
CMOs hit a trust-but-verify wall, and the question underneath is brutal: how much of my budget actually reaches the Creator? The IAB is mapping where dollars get skimmed. Fee opacity was the quiet business model. It's about to be the loudest liability.
Ask a CMO what's eroding their trust in agencies and you'll get a polite answer. Ask twice and you'll get the real one: nobody can tell them how much of the budget actually reaches the Creator.
Where the dollars get skimmed.
The IAB launched an initiative to map the commercial machinery of the creator economy — and to find where dollars get skimmed by talent managers, ad-tech, and brokers. CMOs already distrust 'principal media': agencies buying in bulk and reselling at an undisclosed markup. That's a baked-in conflict, and it's getting named.
“Show the Creator's number. The brands that hide it are the ones about to get audited.”
Show the Creator's number.
The fix isn't complicated, it's just uncomfortable: a fee-level ledger separating Creator gross rate, actual payout, agency service fee, markup, tech fee, rights fee, and exclusivity. We put it on page one. The brands that hide it are the ones about to get audited.
Written by
OthrWrld Editorial
The desk
Field notes from inside the agency — the team in the group chat, in the comments, on the FYP.
