Topicals Insider ambassador program scam.

This innovative brand has been immensely successful in the influencer marketing space, with one stand-out campaign generating 5.6M views on TikTok, but how do the content creators involved rate their experience and should you give it a go?

To answer this question, we've synthesized the accounts of these creators and considered the value of the program from their perspective.

Application

Topicals' Insider program seems refreshingly transparent at first, with details of the brand's mission and the application process available on their website. We learn that participants in the program are given access to a community forum, the privilege of trying out new Topicals products before the general public and access to "exclusive events". It is also stated that, while there are no posting obligations involved, you will be required to join the program's Slack channel.

To learn more, however, we are directed to the application form. It's only once you've answered 18 probing questions, some of which (e.g. "Are there any mental health or wellness organizations/activists you think we should know about or partner with?") transparently putting you to work before your application has even been submitted, that you'll discover that no further details about the program will be offered unless you are accepted into the program.

How it works

From successful applicants, we learned of a tiered program which caters for a wide variety of creators, with each tier offerring distinct benefits.

Participants in the program earn points each week by submitting surveys, sharing feedback and creating content. In return, they collect TOPICALS coins. While some participants were led to believe these coins were a genuine form of cryptocurrency, leveraging blockchain technology similar to Bitcoin or Ethereum, they are in fact merely tokens which can be exchanged for discounts on the Topicals website and cannot be redeemed or traded for fiat currencies like US Dollars.

On joining the Topicals community forum, we are rewarded with a "Topicals Spottie Hotties collectible" - a revolving image of a Topicals product - that is clearly meant to appear as an NFT, but again this isn't in fact a blockchain-backed NFT and has no market value whatsoever. It's just a GIF.

We are then prompted to complete our first challenge. At every opportunity, we are reminded "Remember, this is how you earn rewards!". For answering some anodyne question about why we're excited about joining the program, we earn 100 TOPICALS coins, exchangeable for 1 USD in discounts on-site.

Literally all of [my coins] are gone idk what happened

Is it worth it?

At the time of writing, the community forum has 12.6K users, and while it's hard to say how many are currently active, the Slack channels each have a few messages each day. These messages are typically desperate efforts at self-promotion shared by creators trying to make the program work for them. On the day of writing, one poster asks "did anyone else’s coins disappear?" to which the first response is "Literally all of mine are gone idk what happened".

Is it a scam?

It's certainly misleading, and less misleading offers have been described as scams in the past. In the forum, many users express their disappointment in the apparent workings of the program: "ugh i'm so annoyed i redeemed my coins to get the lip salve and then it sold out before i got it... so i just lost my coins for nothing wtf"; "are we ineligible for the brand trip drawing if we don’t complete all 6 of the challenges? im just finding out about this today 😩".

More concerning is Topicals seemingly unannounced divorce from influencer platform GRIN. One forum user asked "Does anyone else GRIN account not work anymore? It says Topicals no longer use GRIN for me when trying to login." an issue corroborated by a slew of replies and worryingly no clarification from the program's managers.

An intensely gamified platform promising great rewards to its participants, Topicals' ambassador program is ultimately hard to recommmend. While the bar for entry is remarkably low, it soon becomes clear to the user that they are being used by a cynical marketing system that benefits only the bottom-line of a massively successful cosmetics corporation.

Related articles

• Best social media sites for influencers in 2024
• How to grow your social media following
• How to set your fee as an influencer
• Sleep streaming

< Browse all articles