SAN DIEGO – InnoVision Marketing Group and its talent agency subsidiary have launched an initiative to represent and promote social media influencers and content creators across southern California.
InnoVision Talent Agency announced the addition of an Influencer Division in October in an effort to address a need for social media talent representation in San Diego.
SVP & Senior Creative Director
InnoVision Marketing Group
According to Giselle Campos, InnoVision Marketing Group’s senior vice president and senior creative director, casting calls are increasingly requiring auditioning talent to meet a certain threshold of social media followers.
“We have seen, especially out of Los Angeles and it’s trickling down to San Diego, just the need for talent that does have that following count and that’s already known in the market,” Campos said.
She added that influencers without representation have anecdotally reported being invited to events and then being filmed or otherwise having their likeness used for commercial purposes without their prior knowledge and without being paid.
“They’re essentially being bamboozled into being in commercials, which is not nice,” she said.
Venturing Out
InnoVision Talent Agency itself is a relatively new venture for InnoVision Marketing Group, which was founded in 2012.
ITA was announced in January 2024 with the goal of ensuring that talent on the agency’s roster is fully compensated for their work and eliminating talent commissions in most scenarios. The agency initially launched with representation for actors, voice-over artists and models.
“On our marketing side, that influencer division has been a great way for us to supply all of our clients with influencers all over the country, and it’s been a great way to get them to work with influencers,” Campos said.
“And then on the InnoVision Talent Agency side, being able to add influencers for these bigger productions and commercials, it’s been so important and it’s a need that keeps continuing to rise, so we wanted to make sure that we had both,” she added.
Campos argued San Diego remains an untapped market for influencers, with Los Angeles and New York City traditionally viewed as the two hotbeds for both up-and-coming and mainstream influencer and content creator talent.
“In San Diego County we have influencers in all various niches, from foodies, we have fashion influencers, we have a lot of influencers that (have a) large following, that have a million followers or more,” she said. “And because San Diego is such a new market, I don’t know that people realize that we have a lot of influencers currently that drive out to LA for jobs.”
Locally, ITA and InnoVision Marketing Group have worked with accounts like SoCalNation, which has nearly 900,000 followers on Instagram, and Danielle Schaffer, who runs the website CityGirlGoneMom and has garnered roughly 7.6 million followers across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
InnoVision has also worked with influencers and content creators outside of San Diego County, including LilyAnne Rice, who runs the Orange County-centric food blog OCfeed, and Andrew “A.J.” Befumo Jr. and Eric Justice Befumo, better known online as A.J. and Big Justice and The Costco Guys.
Diversified Platforms
With the specter of TikTok’s demise in the United States looming over the greater influencer economy, Campos argued social media power users and content creators should ensure that their brand is not solely tied to one platform.
“I think it’s a great time for influencers to start getting smarter about how they’re monetizing their feeds and making sure that they’re diversifying that income stream by having websites, signing up for talent agencies, being part of commercial shoots and making sure that they’re really taking advantage of every single platform that’s out there,” she said.
Campos said it’s also important for brands to remember that they don’t always need massive budgets to work with social media influencers and content creators, as the market for internet-based talent is broad enough to match brands and influencers of equivalent size.
“There’s an influencer for every size, and it’s not too late to jump into the influencer game,” she said.
InnoVision Marketing Group
FOUNDED: 2012
CEO/EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Ric Militi
HEADQUARTERS: San Diego
BUSINESS: Marketing and public relations
EMPLOYEES: 52
CLIENTS: 30
WEBSITE: teaminnovision.com
CONTACT: [email protected]
NOTABLE: In addition to San Diego, InnoVision also has personnel in Phoenix and Miami.
