Vol. 04 — Q1 / 2025
JKT · SGP

Real people, on camera, on brief.

— Who we are

240+
Creators
on roster
12M+
Organic
views
4.2×
Avg.
ROAS

We've shipped 680+ pieces of content for 38 brands across beauty, F&B, fashion, finance, and home. Most of it doesn't look like content. That's the point.

User-Generated Content ◆ Authentic Voices ◆ Real People On Camera ◆ Brand Stories, Plainly Told ◆ Everyday Creators ◆
Manifesto — 01

We don't cast influencers. We find people who already use your product — a nurse, a father of two, a barista in Bandung — and we ask them to film their honest morning.

No ring light. No script beyond bullet points. No "team of creators" pretending to be one person. Just the grain of a real kitchen, and a voice that hasn't been coached flat.

We believe content performs better when it doesn't look like content.

Verbatim Studio, 2021
The Roster — 02

Two hundred and forty voices, one source of truth.

Each creator on our roster is vetted for one thing: the ability to speak about a product the way they'd speak to a friend. No follower-count gates. No engagement-rate gymnastics. Just a reel of plain, watchable footage.

Mira Anggraini 01 / 09

Mira Anggraini

28 · Bandung

Skincare · Morning Routines

Dermatology nurse. Films AM routines on the bus, in the staff room, between shifts. No filter, no mirror selfies.

Reza Wijaya 02 / 09

Reza Wijaya

32 · Jakarta

Coffee · Specialty F&B

Three years at an independent roastery. Pulls shots on camera the way he pulls them for regulars — quiet, precise, no chatter.

Sari Hartono 03 / 09

Sari Hartono

41 · Surabaya

Home Cooking · Family

Mother of two. Films weeknight dinners in 90 seconds. The kind of footage you stop scrolling for because it smells like your mum's kitchen.

Bayu Nugroho 04 / 09

Bayu Nugroho

26 · Yogyakarta

Cycling · Outdoor

Bike messenger. Films city rides with a chest mount, no music, just wind and gears. Has logged 14,000 km this year.

Tania Pradipta 05 / 09

Tania Pradipta

35 · Bandung

Books · Stationery

Independent bookseller. Reviews new releases from her couch, with the book in her lap and a half-finished coffee on the table.

Indra Kusuma 06 / 09

Indra Kusuma

30 · Jakarta

Fitness · Calisthenics

Calisthenics coach. Films park workouts at 6am — dew on the bars, traffic in the background. No gym, no mirror, no posing.

Lia Marlina 07 / 09

Lia Marlina

37 · Tangerang

Motherhood · Home

Mother of three. Films the unglamorous parts of parenting — school runs, spilled cereal, the third load of laundry. Honest, never sentimental.

Adi Santoso 08 / 09

Adi Santoso

29 · Bali

Photography · Lifestyle

Film photographer. Shoots one roll a week for one brand. The grain, the wait, the missed shots — all part of the story.

Dewi Lestari 09 / 09

Dewi Lestari

33 · Jakarta

Plants · Interiors

Plant shop owner. Repots on camera without a script, talks to her monstera like a friend. The kind of calm content people save for later.

Approach — 03

How we brief a real person.

Most agencies hand creators a 12-page brand guideline and wonder why the footage looks stiff. We do the opposite. We hand them a one-page brief, written in plain Indonesian, with three bullet points and a single non-negotiable.

The rest is up to them — the kitchen they film in, the mug they drink from, the words they choose. That's where the texture lives.

Average brief length

1.2 pages

Kitchen brief
Step 01 — Brief 2 hours

A one-page document, in plain language.

No brand pyramid. No tone-of-voice matrix. Three bullet points: what the product is, what we'd love to see, what we definitely won't use. The creator does the rest.

Filming window
Step 02 — Film 7 days

Seven days, no shoot day, no crew.

The creator films when it makes sense — during their actual routine, in their actual kitchen, with their actual light. We don't schedule shoots. We trust the rhythm of the week.

Edit desk
Step 03 — Edit 5 days

We cut, we don't direct.

Our editors trim, sequence, and caption. They don't add b-roll, don't auto-tune voices, don't smooth skin. If the creator said "um" three times, we keep one — it's how people talk.

Delivery deck
Step 04 — Deliver 3 formats

Three cuts, one set of captions.

A 60-second hero, a 30-second mid, a 15-second hook. All from the same source footage, all in the same voice. Plus caption sets in two languages, ready to ship.

How we work — 04

Four steps, two weeks, no surprises.

From first call to delivered assets, our process runs fourteen days. We don't do revisions by committee. We don't do "quick syncs." We do four steps, in order, and we tell you what's happening at each one.

01

Audit

Day 1 — 3

We read your brand the way a critic reads a manuscript. What's the voice? What's the lie? What's the one thing your customer already believes that you've been afraid to say out loud? We come back with a one-page audit and a shortlist of twelve creators.

02

Cast

Day 4 — 6

We send you three creator profiles — not a deck of fifty. Each one comes with a 30-second self-tape, a paragraph in their own words, and a single reason we picked them for your brand. You pick one. Or two. Or all three.

03

Brief

Day 7 — 13

We write the one-pager. We send it to the creator. They film — over seven days, in their own time, in their own kitchen. We don't call them. We don't check in. We trust the brief and the person. (If they ghost us, we have backups. They never have.)

04

Deliver

Day 14

Three cuts, two caption sets, one usage report. Delivered in a single link. No watermarked previews. No "final_final_v3" filenames. The assets are yours to run on TikTok, Reels, Shorts, or your own site — and the creator is yours to call again.

By the numbers — 05
240+

Creators

Vetted, on roster, ready to film across 14 cities.

12M+

Organic views

Cumulative, since 2021. We don't run paid — that's on you.

4.2×

Avg. ROAS

Across 38 brands, blended across paid + organic, H2 2024.

680+

Assets shipped

Hero, mid, and hook cuts. Plus captions, plus raw footage on request.

A note on numbers

We report what we measured, not what we projected. The 12M views are real watch-time on TikTok and Reels, not impressions. The 4.2× ROAS is blended across the campaigns we ran H2 2024 — we'll send you the spreadsheet if you ask.

Featured work — 06

Three campaigns, three real kitchens.

We don't publish case studies often. When we do, it's because the brand let us show the numbers, the brief, and the creator's name. Here are three.

Kopi Kenangan campaign
Case 01 · F&B

Kopi Kenangan
"Barista Di Rumah"

We handed eight baristas a 30-day coffee allowance and a single sentence: "film what you actually drink at home." The result was a 14M-view campaign that didn't look like a campaign — and a 3.1× ROAS lift on their performance account.

14M
Views
3.1×
ROAS
8
Creators
Case 02 · Beauty

Somethinc
"90 Hari, 12 Wajah"

A 90-day creator program for a local skincare brand. Twelve real users, twelve real skin journeys, no retouching on the before-and-afters. The campaign repositioned Somethinc from "affordable" to "honest" — and pulled 4.8× ROAS on Shopee.

8.7M
Views
4.8×
ROAS
12
Creators
Somethinc campaign
Sejauh campaign
Case 03 · Fashion

Sejauh Mata Memandang
"Lemari Dua Belas"

Twelve women, twelve real wardrobes. We asked each one to style one Sejauh piece with what they already owned — and film the result on their bedroom floor. 5.4M views, 5.2× ROAS, and a sold-out restock in eleven days.

5.4M
Views
5.2×
ROAS
12
Creators
"

"Verbatim gave us twelve pieces of content that didn't look like ours — and that's exactly why they worked. The brief was a paragraph. The result was a quarter of our annual revenue."

Chitra Subyakto
Founder, Sejauh Mata Memandang
From the journal — 07

Things we wrote down.

Essay · 8 min read

Why we stopped saying "UGC" in pitch meetings.

The term has been so diluted by software companies that it now means "any video with a phone in it." Here's what we propose instead.

Template · 3 min read

The one-page brief we use for every creator.

Annotated, with the three sentences we cut from every draft. Steal it. Adapt it. Send us your version.

Field note · 5 min read

What we pay creators, and why we publish the rate card.

Pay transparency isn't a value proposition. It's the bare minimum. Here's our 2025 rate card, in full.

Read all entries →
Brief us — 08

Send us a paragraph.

We don't take briefs by form. We take them by email — a paragraph from you, a paragraph back from us within 48 hours. If we're a fit, we'll send a one-page proposal. If we're not, we'll tell you who is.

hello@verbatim.studio →

Replies within 48 hours, Mon–Fri

For new business

hello@verbatim.studio

For creator applications

roster@verbatim.studio

For press & speaking

press@verbatim.studio

Studio

Jl. Senopati 88, Kebayoran Baru
Jakarta Selatan 12190
+ by appointment only