Many influencer strategies are too safe, too repetitive, and too focused on what "should" work. But what if brands embraced randomness - and let a few campaigns be chosen by a monkey throwing darts at a list of creators? They might discover surprising verticals, challenge their assumptions, and uncover hidden pockets of performance.

How a Monkey Beat the Stock Market

I recently came across a finance experiment from the late 20th century that posed the question: what if a monkey throwing darts at a list of stocks could outperform professional investors? Turns out… quite often, they could.

These so-called "monkey funds" were created to challenge the assumption that expert stock-picking always leads to better results. And guess what? The market is unpredictable - nobody really knows what tomorrow holds (unless you dabble in insider trading) - and randomness sometimes wins. The takeaway wasn’t to fire all fund managers; it was to embrace the idea that discovery often lives outside our assumptions.

So what does this have to do with Influencer Marketing?

A lot.

Because today’s influencer strategies are starting to resemble those underperforming funds. Safe. Uninspiring. Maybe even a little stale.

Which begs the question: what if, once in a while, brands let a monkey pick? (Or maybe the office dog is easier to get hold of.)

Side note: this experiment brings to mind a recent video we sponsored with Max Fosh, where he took a racehorse into a betting shop to see if it could use its "expert knowledge" to pick winners. Well worth a watch.

Stuck in Your Comfort Zone?

Many brands follow a familiar pattern when it comes to Influencer Marketing. They stick to proven verticals, repeat high-performing partnerships, and play within the same audience bubbles. It makes sense - when something works, you want to scale it. We’ve been testing, learning, and scaling clients this way for years.

But this approach can be limiting.

Over time, campaigns start to feel the same. And brands miss the chance to discover what else might resonate - simply because they’re not looking beyond their comfort zone.

Take cookware brands, for instance. If you're trying to work with a popular foodie creator, chances are they've already partnered with your competitors. So what's going to make you stand out? A slightly better discount code? Probably not. Without venturing outside the expected, you risk fading into blandness.

Enter the "Monkey Fund"

Here’s the idea: every quarter - or once a year, whatever you're comfortable with - run a "Monkey Fund" of your own. A controlled experiment where a portion of your influencer budget is spent on creators completely outside your usual picks.

Not reckless. Not irrelevant. Just unexpected.

Maybe it’s a foodie creator for a finance product. A BookToker for a skincare brand. Or maybe send Alix Earle a garden chair to build to promote an interactive instructions app - hold on a sec, we did do that and drove over 1.2M organic views with 100% positive comment sentiment.

The point isn’t to go viral. It’s to learn what you wouldn’t think to test.

Select creators using some form of randomness: scroll through a discovery tool or roll a dice (roll a 4, and the 4th creator on your feed gets an outreach email!). Or, as mentioned above, give the office dog your laptop.

Keep everything else the same - including your brand safety checks - but also have some fun.

What You Stand to Gain

Surprise. You might find your brand message unexpectedly clicks with an entirely new kind of audience. Maybe your product fits better in a niche you’ve never considered. Or maybe a creator with a totally different tone interprets your brief in a way that sparks your next big campaign idea.

Bias-breaking. These campaigns can help challenge internal assumptions. Every brand has beliefs like “our audience doesn’t use YouTube Shorts” or “our category doesn’t translate on TikTok.” A Monkey Fund can test those ideas - and occasionally prove them wrong.

Energy. These experiments can shake creative teams out of a rut, give your brand a fresh feel, and reignite a sense of fun. In a space that thrives on novelty, chaos, and the unexpected, this is worth more than it seems.

We’ve been working with Surfshark to drive trackable sales of their VPN for six years. We know what works. Travel creators, tech enthusiasts - you’ve seen the integrations. But when one of the team - a big RuPaul’s Drag Race fan - suggested working with drag queens on YouTube, we gave it a shot. It unlocked a surprising amount of directly trackable ROI. Even better, no competitors had tapped into that vertical, so we were able to own the space.

This is exactly the kind of unexpected result Monkey Fund testing can reveal.

It’s Not Chaos - It’s Curated Risk

To be clear: this isn’t about throwing out tried-and-tested strategies. It’s about carving out space for creative randomness - maybe even testing a gut feeling. Set some loose guardrails. Track results. Treat it like any smart test-and-learn initiative.

This can be done with a small portion of your overall budget - a low-stakes test that limits wider risk. Your core strategy stays intact while this experiment gets some breathing room. Little risk, big potential reward.

Over time, your Monkey Fund campaigns might feed your broader strategy with insights you wouldn’t have surfaced otherwise.

At Digital Voices, we often use a ‘Creative Levels’ framework that leaves room for this kind of testing:

Foundation Layer: Tried and true, this content builds broad awareness through proven formats and familiar storytelling. It establishes core product messaging and is a typically “safe” option.

Elevation Layer: This content adds distinctive personalities to traditional content through scroll-stopping moments and highly relatable scenarios.

Breakthrough Layer: This content pushes creative boundaries for maximum engagement, tapping into subcultures, niche communities, and testing completely new approaches - this is where we’d give a monkey a dart.

So, When Was the Last Time You Were Surprised?

If every influencer campaign you run is perfectly on-brand, beautifully aligned, and totally predictable… you might be missing something.

Give randomness a seat at the table. Not to replace strategy - but to refresh it.

After all, if a monkey can sometimes beat the market… maybe it can teach us a thing or two about Influencer Marketing.