What Blue Apron’s move to in-house its influencer marketing strategy says about the creator economy

It also speaks to a broader industry trend in which influencer marketing has become a media channel in its own right, and brands are increasingly looking for more control in influencer deals, especially amid economic headwinds and a more professionalized creator economy. 

“Just like any other digital marketing channel, like social or paid search, you just get such faster turnaround in results, feedback and optimizations,” said Enand. It’s unclear which influencers the brand is planning to partner with and if there are plans to increase influencer marketing spend as Blue Apron did not share details.

The trend itself isn’t new, dating back to 2018 with brands like Birchbox, Nike and Mars running influencer marketing efforts internally. Recently though, there’s been a resurgence in interest in the creator economy and everyone’s looking for their piece of the pie. Goldman Sachs valued the creator economy at around $250 billion in 2024, and have forecast it to double to around $480 billion by 2027. 

Most notably, earlier this year, Unilever announced plans to invest half of its ad budget on social media and work with 20 times more influencers. Meanwhile, private equity firms and holding companies are elbowing one another out of the way to buy up creator-driven platforms and influencer agencies.

“No one’s mistaking the importance of influencer. But what I think this says is that the hierarchy of how that dollar flows now may be shifting,” said, Gregory Curtis Jr., director of influencer strategy at Empower Media, referencing the growing channel’s influx of players, from influencers to talent managers, agencies and SaaS platforms.

With the in-house debate, brands managing their own influencer marketing strategies can cut costs in terms of agency fees, and allow the brand to be more nimble with its campaigns. But it can be a heavy lift, especially if a brand doesn’t have the infrastructure to oversee everything from contract negotiations to scaling influencer networks, sources told Digiday.

“Not that it’s a bad idea, it’s so much work to manage the contracts, manage the content, the back and forth, with every single post having to go through the approvals,” said Megan Boveri, chief media officer at Pinnacle advertising and marketing group. 

Economic headwinds and tariffs have put pressure on brands to do more marketing with fewer dollars, likely a catalyst for influencer in-house trends going forward, according to agency execs. One exec in particular, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a QSR client recently scaled back from a $1.75 million influencer budget for the fiscal year to $900,000, leaving the internal brand team to take on more influencer work in-house. 

If this feels reminiscent of other parts of the in-house wave, don’t panic yet. Per the anonymous exec, the agency hasn’t lost clients to influencer in-housing efforts, pointing to a balance between internal efforts and external partners.

Related Insights

Managing Through Crisis

In-house agencies navigate a new phase of purpose and pressure Read More

At this point, Blue Apron has in-housed everything from influencer marketing to direct response media buying, relying on external agency partners for top-of-funnel campaigns aimed at mass reach. Blue Apron’s in-house influencer push reflects broader pressures facing brands in today’s economic landscape: do more with less and do it faster. 

Other parts of the meal kit brand’s relaunch include brand awareness tactics, like CTV, linear TV, direct mail and a return to podcast advertising, per Enand.

“Our goal is to just show up on your feed in some way, shape or form and really take over social media with a pretty heavy focus on Instagram and TikTok,” she said.