Earned Podcast: Bernice Merlini, Leader of Product Development, Brand Creative, Creator Social, and Product Marketing at DIME
Creator marketing delivers its biggest results when it connects product, brand, and culture. The brands getting this right bring creators into the conversation early, give them room to make great content, and build relationships that last well beyond a single campaign.
DIME offers a clear example. Bernice Merlini leads product development, brand creative, creator social, and product marketing at the beauty brand, and her career spans the full beauty life cycle: founding teams at new brands, scaling fast-growing digital-native businesses, and evolving established global names, including six years at L'Oreal. Under her leadership, DIME's creator community has more than tripled in a single year, climbing to No. 77 on CreatorIQ's beauty leaderboard and putting the brand on track for a $30M EMV year.
In this episode of Earned, Bernice sits down with Joy Osinloye, CreatorIQ Global Head of Strategic Services, to unpack how DIME got here. Along the way, she shares how an in-house team built the foundation for stronger creator relationships, what drove a record $3.6M Earned Media Value (EMV) month in August 2026, and why keeping every team aligned from the first product brainstorm pays off across channels.
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Experimentation keeps a creator program current
DIME started life as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand focused on driving conversion to its site, and that data-driven DNA still shapes how the team works today. Bernice points out that one of the best things about digital is how quickly you can see the impact of your work.
Formats and platforms shift constantly in beauty, and she sees that as part of the job. Beauty creators first built their audiences on YouTube tutorials, hauls, and unboxings, short-form video later took over, and Bernice says 2026 is bringing a swing back toward longer content. Even TikTok is exploring what longer videos look like.
DIME's answer is to keep experimenting. Bernice gives her teams the freedom to test, learn, and even fail a little, a mindset she traces back to handing a brand-new TikTok account to an intern and encouraging them to have fun with it. As she puts it, "change is constant."
Broad briefs earn the best creator content
Creators know their audiences better than any brand team does, so DIME keeps its briefs wide open. Bernice says the best content comes from briefs that offer talking points, education, and structure as parameters and leave room for the creator's own voice.
The amount of structure flexes by category. Skincare briefs carry more product education, such as how a new cleanser fits into a routine and into the broader DIME skincare lineup. Fragrance is more emotional and subjective, so briefs there share high-level notes and invite creators to interpret them.
Across both, the team gives creators plenty of time to live with a product. That matters most for skincare, where long-term use tells a more powerful story than a first reaction. Creators also give DIME feedback as beauty super users, and that input flows straight to the brand and product development teams.
Relationships are the strategy, so DIME built in-house
"Relationships are everything," Bernice says, and that belief drove DIME's decision to build its creator and influencer team in-house. The team went from zero to three people in four to six months, with a clear goal: give creators a familiar group of people they can build real relationships with, as an extension of the brand.
Bernice sees a place for agencies, especially for scaling brands and macro VIP creators. For everyday relationship management, though, she believes an in-house team understands the brand's products, launches, and story at a level that is tough to replicate from outside. When a creator has a stacked schedule, she says, they tend to choose the brands where they feel seen and heard.
Her advice for teams earlier in the journey: get the right infrastructure for your stage, and hire the right person to drive the program with clear monthly and quarterly goals. She calls it one of the most critical hires in creator marketing.
Real-life touch points make a brand memorable
DIME's team has hosted 11 events this year, with four more on the calendar. Bernice describes the team as scrappy and excited to do all the things, and she is clear that fun is a goal: building relationships with creators is a "soft KPI" alongside EMV.
The activations range from dinners to a pottery class to a yacht outing hosted with a creator who brought her friends along, all organically. Bernice jokes that her CFO's first reaction was "You did what?"
The team also runs what it calls in-real-life mailer experiences, hand-delivering mailers to creators' doorsteps. Creators receive plenty of packages, and Bernice says the in-person reaction and connection has performed well because people remember how a brand made them feel. Event and mailer guest lists blend net new creators with existing creators the team wants to work with on a paid basis, so each touch point can deepen a relationship.
August 2026 delivered a record $3.6M EMV
August 2026 brought DIME about $3.6M EMV, roughly 20% above its previous record. Bernice credits a mix of momentum and intention. The team spent six to seven months building its framework and adding creators to the network, and active creators grew by more than 200% from January through August.
August was also a launch month, with a new cleanser getting major support from the brand. DIME's two most successful mailers of the year dropped in May and August, and the August mailer earned a 40% unboxing rate, the best the team has seen. Bernice credits its beautiful curation and clear messaging, and the team is applying those learnings to upcoming mailers.
The timing was deliberate, too. August gave DIME a solid runway into a crowded Q4, when creators receive a flood of mailers, travel invitations, and promotions.
Cross-team alignment from day one keeps every channel pulling together
Bernice describes DIME's growth, paid, and creator teams as left hand and right hand. Content from creators feeds the growth engine, and the growth team shares what is converting so the creator team can brief accordingly. Siloed information is a challenge many brands face, and DIME made breaking it down a priority, with Bernice and the chief growth officer working closely together.
The collaboration starts at the very beginning. From the moment a formula is approved, even while the team is choosing a product name, creative, social, product marketing, and creator teams join the same kickoffs and brainstorms. Creators sit at the heart of the campaign world, so mailers, paid, and product messaging all ladder up to the same story. Bernice notes that bringing teams in after the fact leads to retroactive fitting and disconnected messaging.
The payoff shows up in how creators respond. When the team does outreach, more creators now say they have been seeing DIME content and love the brand, a moment Bernice calls a pride point.
Hungry teams and long-term creators drive success
Bernice's hiring pattern is simple: she looks for people who are excited and hungry for what's new, from fresh formats to rising creators, because creator marketing changes constantly. The most successful teammates thrive on that evolution.
She applies a similar lens to creators. The ones she wants to invest in are excited about the brand and eager to go on a long-term journey with it, including creators who took a leap of faith on DIME before it became a juggernaut.
Looking ahead to the holidays, the team is thinking creator first. Bernice's guiding question: what will make a creator excited to open this package and feel seen by the brand in a really crowded season? For her, the best creator partnerships feel like "a two-way relationship."
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