Your brand manager is about to rotate.

This summer a buyer approved a creator we had proposed for a gaming campaign and, in the same message, told us a colleague would run it from there. The approval named the creator, the format, the fee and a deadline. It left 5 things open: whether the fee covered one channel or the creator’s whole group, whether the deadline meant publication or delivery for review, how and to whom we would invoice, which deliverables were in scope, and what would happen to the rest of the shortlist.

We sent all 5 questions to the person who had approved the deal, before the thread changed hands. The colleague taking over had not been in any of the earlier conversations. Anything that lived only in those conversations was going to be negotiated again.

In September it happened on the other side of the table. A creator’s manager left their agency in the middle of a multi-month deal with us. The creator had recorded the next video the same day our notes arrived. It reached us about a week later, after the hand-off inside the agency. We sent the new manager the signed contract and the state of the campaign: what was published, what was approved, what was due next. The video went live the day after we approved it, and the campaign kept running.

What a hand-off breaks

People change seats on both sides of a creator campaign: the brand manager, the creator’s manager, sometimes the editor. A campaign can easily outlast someone’s time on it. When the person who approved it moves on, what stays is what was written down: the contract, the brief, the approval emails. What they carried in their head leaves with them.

The new person is not acting in bad faith when they reopen something. They are reading the file they were given. If the file does not say whether the deadline is for the draft or for the post, they will pick an answer, and it may not be yours.

What we put in writing before a campaign changes hands

• The open questions, sent to the person leaving. They know the answers today. Their replacement will have to ask someone, and that someone may be you.
• The signed contract, sent to the new contact. Not a summary. The executed copy, so the terms they inherit are the ones both sides signed.
• The state of the campaign in one message: what is published, what is approved, what is due next and from whom.
• Who approves now. A new contact can change the approval chain. Ask who gives written approval before the next draft arrives, not while it is waiting.

How to use this

If you are about to hand a creator campaign to a colleague, send your agency one email before you go. Name the person taking over, and ask the agency to send them the contract, the brief and the open questions, with you in copy.

If you are the one inheriting a campaign, ask for the same three things before your first call, and read the signed terms before you reopen any of them.

If the contact on the creator’s side changes, ask your agency to do the same with them. A hand-off takes a few emails when someone plans it.

The person who approved your campaign may not be the one who sees it go live. Write it down for whoever comes next.