InsightsConviction
Affinity before reach
Casting is judged by the creators’ credibility with a community, well before the sum of their subscribers. The Tomo Endless Blue Kickstarter puts numbers on it.
- 250%
- of Tomo Endless Blue’s Kickstarter goal
- 2,300+
- backers
Credibility cannot be rented
A brand entering a community does not rent an audience: it taps into a shared world. A creator’s audience knows very quickly whether the product belongs in that universe. When it does, the audience watches the integration. Otherwise the audience skips it, and the creator loses a little of their standing.
That is why we look at a creator’s authority on a subject (RPGs, manga, hardware, horror cinema) before the size of the channel. Broad fame is no substitute for credibility earned inside a community.
Calibrate rather than maximise
A creator who is too big for the product signals that the brand is overspending. An undersized profile weakens the brand’s perceived selectivity. The work lies in calibration, which often means several creators of different sizes rather than a single one.
So we sometimes say no. When the product has no place in a creator’s world, we advise the brand against that creator, even if they are available and even if they are on our roster.
The Tomo Endless Blue case
Tomo Endless Blue is an indie monster-catching game, played with friends, developed in Paris and launched on Kickstarter in spring 2026 with a goal of $100,000. The plan: build the community ahead of launch and favour genre affinity over maximum reach. Affinity-based casting, activations spread across the whole campaign, merchandising designed for backers.
The campaign raised more than $250,000 from more than 2,300 backers, 250% of its goal, with a line-up aimed entirely at players of the genre. The line-up does not explain that result on its own: the game and its page played their part. We read it as a signal, not as proof. Another signal, with no link to our founder: on the NTE campaign, the video by Aiku, a gaming channel with 150,000 subscribers, reached 740,000 views, nearly five times the size of the channel.