Why brands are turning to older creators for authenticity AI can’t fake

Digiday spoke with two creators, two agency execs, and a creator platform executive about how content shifts as creators age, and how that shift changes their brand partnerships and overall output. While they were reluctant to share exact rates, their experiences reflect a broader move toward longer-term partnerships over one-off campaigns, and a renewed focus on grounded storytelling that builds community and drives engagement.

“As this generation of creators has grown up, the topics they’re covering – fertility, caregiving, getting older – have matured right alongside them. And these aren’t one-post topics – they earn longer, more sustained engagement built on real trust,” said Lauren Lyster, vp and head of social media at Go Fish Digital. “Brands are noticing, and responding by building actual long-term relationships instead of one-off campaigns built around a single moment.” 

Just a month after starting their creator journey in August 2020, Alex Madison and Jon Bouffard first went viral with content centered around their DINK (Double Income No Kids) lifestyle. The couple published funny skits on TikTok and Instagram under the simple moniker of Alex and Jon, riffing on staying up too late binge watching TV shows, planning tons of vacations together and celebrating birthdays in their thirties, and quickly gained several million followers (they currently have more than 10 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube). Then Madison got pregnant, and some fans responded poorly. 

“People were like, ‘Unfollow! This isn’t what I’m here for.’ They thought we were gonna become this family vlogger account,” Madison said. 

Madison later lost her baby at 27 weeks. She and Bouffard have since welcomed a baby girl, and she said their audience has largely settled into their new vibes. 

Their content has shifted too. They still do skits, but now Bouffard often plays the role of their child as they act out the less glamorous side of parenting. Their raw take on parenting and loss and their new life chapter has resulted in different kinds of relationships with brand partners.

According to Nilou Ajdari, co-founder and head of talent at Currents Management, which represents Alex and Jon, the RFPs have changed. “They’re deeper, they want people to think, they want to elicit conversation,” Ajdari said.

She pointed to a recent partnership the couple did with formula brand Similac. “It was an empowerment campaign about how being a mom looks so perfect online, but it can be really isolating,” Adjari explained.

Adjari also said a fitness studio (she declined to name it because they’re still in negotiations) reached out after seeing Madison’s short film about her loss, hoping to integrate naturally into her life and her efforts to get back to herself physically and emotionally.

“We’re partnering with people we share similar values with,” Madison said. “We’re more intentional about our partners and bringing more to our ads, and our audience resonates with that.”

Ellie Fletcher, a creator with 36,000 followers and 3.5 million likes on TikTok, echoed similar sentiments. After struggling with infertility and discovering she had endometriosis, she started discussing her health issues online in 2025, posting content amongst her regular beauty posts. A hairdresser by trade, Fletcher originally used her social channels to build a client base after moving states.

Though she wouldn’t provide details, Fletcher told Digiday she now works with brands that sell products centered around women’s health, which feels more rewarding than more surface-level beauty product partnerships. 

Older, more authentic

That’s all very heartwarming, but let’s be real: brands hire ”authentic” creators because it helps drive sales, the feel-good aspect is just a bonus. Emarketer reports that 34% of social users are more likely to buy a product based on an authentic creator review.

But nearly two-thirds of Gen Zers say they no longer buy products through TikTok Shop (according to Harris Poll data shared with Emarketer), despite the platform being the most popular for social commerce. That makes the 47% of TikTok users aged 25 to 44 who buy products they heard about on the platform, per Edison Research, even more crucial. 

“Brands are realizing that with creator marketing, they have to play a role in their story,” said Jo Wong, chief revenue officer at agentic AI creator commerce platform POP.STORE. “Creators’ reach and their voice and their authenticity is so important to your marketing strategy… you have to incorporate their story into your broader narrative.” 

Wong said that creators who share health struggles or more realistic takes on parenting and aging offer a “differentiated” kind of authentic content. 

“People are craving more of that authentic community, which is what made creators so great 10 years ago when we all started this journey,” she said, referring to the creator economy. “It feels like going back to basics, the original roots of creators in the first place.”

Lily Comba, founder and CEO of influencer agency Superbloom, said the definition of authenticity is changing, too – or rather, how it’s applied. 

“Authenticity was once about who can hit these talking points the most persuasively and in their own voice… now it’s more about how this creator’s presence is, how they speak, how does what they’re talking about more generally make you feel?” she said, adding that aspirational creators make consumers feel very differently than those who are more grounded. 

“What a lot of these older creators have is an authenticity that feels safe,” Comba said. “It’s why you gravitate towards their stories, it’s why you stick around. And from a business perspective, it’s why they have great engagement, why they can charge a higher fee, and also why you see much longer retention from their followers as customers.”

Comba also discussed how creators like Alex and Jon tend to take fewer partnerships, whereas younger creators often say yes to anything they can. New parents have less time than college students to make content, so their partnerships are more spaced out – they’re looking for longer-term deals that can integrate seamlessly into their lives. 

This is naturally where the creator economy is trending, anyway: away from one-off, transactional deals and toward more personalized, long-term contracts. Comba thinks the older generation of creators are primed to capitalize on this shift, and is confident we’ll see an even bigger trend toward brands working with older creators by Q4. 

“There’s always going to be a time and a place for Gen Z, they’re not going to become obsolete,” she said. “It’s more so what these older creators can offer – life experience and diverse perspectives, because that inherently lends trust and authority.”