Future of Marketing Briefing: Why top creators are taking fewer brand deals

Alix Earle put it plainly on during one panel. The creator, whose current social media footprint spans a combined 14 million followers, said she would rather work with “five or six brands than 100 every year,” and is weighing equity deals with the ones she sticks with. She wants those partnerships to run long term and to center on products she uses, describing an equity tie-up as a fit for “something that I genuinely love”. 

The deal she’s describing works more like a joint venture with Earle and the brand sharing the creative work, and through equity, the upside. Earle is working on two deals set up that way right now. On one, she sits on a text thread with a photographer and stylist. On the other, she is in a chain with the brand’s creative agency. “They’re very great about letting me sort of take charge and take the lead, and trusting me as the creator,” Earle said. Being brought in early, in her words, makes her “always want to overperform and overdeliver.” When a brand lets her do that, she continued, “we end up getting the best results”. 

Jordan Howlett went further and took a job. The creator, best known for slamming his glasses into walls on camera, became the chief content officer at Blenders Eyewear earlier this year. It wasn’t, however, a straightforward deal to do. In fact, Howlett ignored the brand’s first approach, according to CEO Jack Gray, and his manager made clear early that he had no interest in a transactional deal. Howlett now has an office, gives the in-house team blunt feedback on work he had no part in and directed a commercial with Method Man. He described himself as “a humble visitor” in the business world and said treating the role as a stepping stone would be “an immense disservice” to both sides. 

Brands have handed famous partners creative titles for more than a decade, from Lady Gaga at Polaroid in 2010 to Alicia Keys at BlackBerry three years later. An office and a directing credit sit comfortably inside that playbook. The sterner test for Blenders, which Gray called “a product-based brand”, is whether Howlett gets a say in the glasses themselves.  

So far, he does. Blenders’ design director is working on what Gray called “Jordan proof glasses”, with hinges designed to survive being thrown. Howlett also pushed the company to release a 3,000-pair mystery collection ahead of the holiday season, with buyers getting one of six designs at random. Gray said a product line tied to Howlett is on the way, and he will work with the in-house team on Blenders’ holiday campaign. 

In many ways, it’s not really a surprise to see creators try and leverage their clout this way. Marketers have poured so much money into creators that many of them are now trying to trade it like ad inventory, bought by the impression and swapped out once the numbers dip. Some of the biggest names were bound to resist, if only to protect their own value from the race to the bottom that follows whenever brands crowd around the newest thing in media. 

Kevin Cooney, a dad creator with more than four million followers, resists by saying no. 

He told a panel hosted by Later that he turns down campaigns he doubts will perform and tells those brands to “put it with a few micros.” The deals he does take come on his terms. He spent 2017 and 2018 posting 10 times a day to learn what his audience responded to. That stretch left him with four formats he trusts to go viral. One is a Boston accent bit built around his wife. Another has him and his daughter making a mess or reviewing food in the car. She also features in get-ready-with-me videos and the fourth is a series on “what not to say to your wife.” When a brand wants virality, Cooney opens the call with those four and runs what he calls “Mad Libs” to work out where the product fits. 

Issa Rae is applying the same logic to entertainment. Her company HOORAE Media makes TikTok micro series that are free to watch, funded through integrations with brands including General Mills and DoorDash. Rae told marketers she wants “collaborators at the end of the day” and urged them to sign on early. 

These creators sit at the top because their audiences behave like fans. Protecting that fandom is table stakes, and the brands a creator works with are where it is most exposed. One partnership that looks bought can be enough to get a creator branded sellout. Media companies shopping for creator-led shows screen for the same loyalty as a result. 

“Nowadays anyone could get a million views,” said Michael Vito Valentino, editor-in-chief of social media-focused media company NowThis. He cancelled one of the company’s shows that pulled millions of views after deciding its audience had never attached to it. When NowThis bought finance series Salary Transparency this year, the loyalty of its viewers was the draw. As Vito Valentino put it: “Really we’re buying the audience. That audience is super prime. They know what they like. More importantly, they know what they don’t like.”

What we’ve heard

“Equity shouldn’t become the new endorsement fee. We’ve already seen celebrity-backed brands and high-profile partnerships where influence or capital buys ownership. The next evolution, in my view, is sweat equity, where creators earn a stake through genuine strategic, consultative or operational contribution. Much like venture-building models, creators have an opportunity to translate their expertise into ownership through product development, consumer insight and go-to-market strategy. That’s a fundamentally different proposition from lending a name or audience to a brand.”

— Stefani Stamatiou, North American CEO of the global creator agency HYDP

Numbers to know

42%: Percentage of retail leaders that believe social commerce, including TikTok Shop and Instagram Shopping, are among the top two holiday drivers for online orders.

90%: Percentage of monthly ad-supported video-on-demand reach that advertisers can access via Amazon Ads in the U.K.

$394.6 billion: Forecasted total that global social media ad spend is expected to make this year

85%: Percentage of Pinners (Pinterest users) surveyed that said they discovered new beauty trends or ideas on the platform

What we’ve covered

OpenAI moves to make ChatGPT Ads more measurable — and more visual

OpenAI is responding to advertiser complaints with image ads in ChatGPT, new measurement partners like Kochava, and brand-suitability pilots with DoubleVerify and IAS. The tougher problem remains, though: there just isn’t enough inventory to absorb bigger budgets.

TikTok’s ad network bet: More reach, more budget

TikTok has launched its ad network (formerly Pangle) to U.S. advertisers, letting campaigns run across nearly 400,000 third-party apps so more budget flows through its tech. Buyers say extra reach alone won’t win spend unless TikTok proves it delivers valuable incremental audiences.

‘Defensible to the CFO’: Prime Day catalyzes Amazon video and DSP spend growth

Despite weak consumer confidence, buyers say Amazon ad spend ahead of fall Prime Day is up 15% to 40% year-on-year, with growth shifting up-funnel into the DSP, Prime Video and streaming. Shrinking discount depths could eventually cap that growth.

At S4 Capital’s Monks, agents can run autonomously, unsupervised for days

Monks now lets AI agent code unsupervised for up to two days at a time, and it’s extending the setup to social and performance marketing, with a first client moving over early next year. The speed has raised awkward questions about whether to slow staff down and how to split budget between salaries and tokens, all after S4 cut around 800 jobs.

What we’re reading

YouTube updates Shorts algorithm to put more focus on original content

YouTube is tweaking its Shorts algorithm to favor original creator content and cut the reach of accounts that re-upload other people’s videos without adding anything. It’s mirroring a similar move Instagram made in April, according to Social Media Today.

It’s looking possible that Zuckerberg is accidentally committing corporate suicide

Zuckerberg’s escalating AI spending could backfire badly. Futurism points to a Goldman-triggered Meta sell-off and Bain’s estimate that the industry needs $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify the buildout. It’s a fairly polemical take, though, and it notes Meta’s stock is up over 28% on the month.

YouTube is pursuing bulk live sports rights deals for its Premium service

YouTube is chasing live sports rights across several major U.S. leagues, aiming for bundled packages with a clear hook (like all local games or a whole tournament) to put behind its Premium paywall, per Quartz.

Twitch has streaming deals in its new Shopping category

Twitch has added a Shopping category to its homepage, timed for Prime Big Deal Days. It’s mostly stocked with Amazon Live sellers rather than Twitch streamers, as Amazon pushes the platform into live shopping, according to Tube Filter. So far, though, those streams aren’t drawing many viewers.