Captiv8 Reviews

With over 20 years of professional experience, I can confidently say that my time at Captiv8 has been the most challenging and disappointing experience of my career. From the onset, the company has demonstrated a lack of transparency and integrity, often setting employees up for failure and lying to brands and influencers about payments. During my tenure, I witnessed instances where employees were misled about their performance and subsequently laid off under false pretenses. The company's financial instability is evident, and there are concerns about the allocation of funds intended for creator payments. Instead, significant amounts are spent on extravagant expenses, such as chartering private jets for film festivals. The management at Captiv8 lacks competence and effective leadership. There is no investment in leadership training or the development of a positive company culture. The environment is characterized by gaslighting and toxicity, which has a detrimental impact on employee morale. I am relieved to have moved on from this company, as the experience was akin to being in an abusive relationship. Based on my observations, I have serious doubts about Captiv8's sustainability beyond 2025. If you are an employee reading this and every time there are layoffs, you are happy it wasn’t you, you are in denial and you’ll be out of the job soon. If you’re a brand or influencer reading this, captiv8 has no money you’re not getting paid. they are using your invoice payments for other things. Like past due invoices from a year ago. There are multiple legal threats from brands and creators every day for nonpayment. Captiv8 is a dumpster fire on top of the Titanic.

Within the past year, there's been 3-4 rounds of layoffs (which you can find with a quick Google search) and has been under quite a bit of public scrutiny. This company is clearly struggling financially and has been at a competitive disadvantage in an extremely saturated market. Brand Management (aka Account Management) - Probably the most inexperienced team I've seen and constantly protects the influencers instead of the clients. They're not strategic at all and literally just execute campaigns with no strategic vision. They've lost multiple clients strictly due to their lack of details, customer service, and rushed work. There are a few good apples in that bunch but generally speaking lack experience and attention to details. Culture - There isn't any. None, whatsoever. They don't do any programming for holidays, social moments, etc. They don't encourage or promote you to work and get to know cross-functional teams and are stuck in a silo for most of your days. From what I heard, depending on the role you're in, you could literally not speak to anyone from days on end or even a week. Opportunities for Growth - The best way to get promoted is not by merit but to be part of the "Boys/Girls" club. I've seen numerous "promotions" for people that were known well within the company to not exceed in their role. There aren't even performance reviews to hold anyone accountable and/or given employees an opportunity to get promoted - it's evidently subjective Sales - The most unorganized team I've ever seen which is unfortunate given that most of them have deep experience. The "regional leads" were "promoted" but not communicated to their teams that they were going to be managers of their teams so it was an awkward transfer of power. Everyone calls on the same accounts which is extremely confusing for clients and agency partners as one account can have 3-4 different sales people on that account.