The Creator Economy Will Fuel The Future of Advertising

In the battle for attention and cut-through against the sea of sameness, marketers are betting big when it comes to the creator economy, shifting large swathes of their marketing budgets into a trend that will continue to grow for years to come.

This year has continued to see an upsurge in creators making their mark with content, from GK Barry promoting Katsu Curry to BookTokers skyrocketing best-sellers - heightening the value of the creator economy to $191.55bn globally. According to Goldman Sachs, it will grow to be worth $470bn by 2027 and far exceed that by the end of the decade.

In fact, over the next decade, the combined value of creators will overtake that of the global advertising agency sector. In the UK alone, it is already worth over £2bn to the economy and supports more than 45,000 jobs, according to YouTube.

"The direction that we're seeing influence rise is only going to continue," explains Amy Moore, account director and influencer marketing specialist at Weber Shandwick. "It’s not a question of if brands should work with influencers, it's when and how. Influencers are a media channel in their own right."

Ogilvy Consulting’s research investigating Gen Z’s Economic Crossroads claims that Gen Z will be the dominant force in the creator economy by 2030, which will see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.5 per cent.

While everything may seem aspiration in the creator economy at the moment, it most certainly isn’t free of challenges. Creators widely complain of burnout as they attempt to feed the insatiable hunger for content their audience and brand partners demand. Meanwhile,  they are always at the mercy of whatever algorithms operate their platforms of choice, and the emergence of AI threatens much of the work being produced in the sector already.

Creators are building blue-chip brands

Despite predictions looking into possible trends in the next decade, brands are already trying to get ahead of the curve for a creator-led future. Unilever is a business putting its foot on the pedal, with its CEO Fernando Fernandez announcing it will be investing in 50 per cent of its marketing spend on influencers, resulting in the hiring of 20 times more of them than today. 

He describes the plan as “desire past scale” in a move that will see “a machine of content creation very different to the one we have had in the past.”

For brands, investing in the creator economy has become crucial as media fragmentation and the war for attention intensifies. The use of creators has shown its ability to capture and retain the attention of audiences. 

Some businesses have built themselves in the ever-evolving tech landscape to utilise online personalities, while others are revealing plans to expand upon what’s already clearly working. For Unilever, despite its pledge to invest further into the creator economy, partnering with content creators is nothing new; the real change comes from the growing opportunities to connect to commerce. 

It’s a business that holds social selling at the core of its strategy, and sees influencer marketing as a key channel to deepen engagement with its communities across the globe. 

Its success with Vaseline’s ‘Vaseline Verified’ campaign at Cannes Lions 2025 proves testament to the fact - winning two Grand Prixs in the Social and Creator and Health and Wellness with its work on testing content creators’ Vaseline hacks. 

With the emergence and popularity of ‘CleanTok’, Unilever's Cif brand saw an opportunity to reach younger shoppers, focusing on where the growing audience turns to get cleaning advice: TikTok, of course. 

It's ‘Satis-hack-tion’ campaign - which featured real-life cleaning videos set to DJ Benny Banassi’s ‘Satisfaction’ with edited Cif lyrics, ran globally and proved to be Unilever’s most viral homecare campaign ever, achieving over 300 million impressions and in France alone was behind a 17 per cent increase in sales. 

The use of creators for some brands creates a surge of new eyes on its products. For Weber Shandwick's Moore, this doesn’t appear from thin air; creators know their audience best and know what content best suits their audience’s needs. 

For Valentine’s Day, Weber Shandwick and Knorr joined forces to encourage couples to stay in and cook together for the occasion, with ‘Cook up desire together’. In nailing the tone of the campaign, Moore emphasises the role creators played. 

“We worked with four different couples and made sure the key messages remained the same that we wanted to get across,” she explains. “For each couple we leaned into their own plans in the lead up to Valentine's Day and their own style of content, and we got four very different pieces of content.

“It’s so important to make sure that we're leaning into their styles of content and what they want to produce, because ultimately, they know their audience best, and they know what performs best," continues Moore.

In April this year, Unilever's beauty brand Dove produced its first fully creator-led campaign with Edelman, ‘#ShareTheFirst’. Continuing to champion its ‘Real Beauty’ messaging, an OOH campaign takeover was shown at Liverpool Street station in London across 64 digital screens, featuring imagery that included no added production or studios, and aimed to mimic a scrolling camera roll when women feel pressured to choose a picture of themselves. 

“We believe in bringing influential voices into our brand ecosystem,” tells Dove’s global PR and influencer director, Sarah Potter. “We have spent years building strong communities of people that share the same values and purpose. Relationships are never a one-off transaction.  

“With #ShareTheFirst, creators weren’t just amplifying the campaign - they were shaping it from the ground up. There was no official photo shoot - we used authentic, creator-generated content exactly as it was shared. It’s a testament to the strong, lasting relationships we’ve built with our creator community and a bold reflection of our commitment to real, unfiltered beauty.”

And it's fuelling challenger brands too. Apparel brand Gymshark is known for its influencer marketing - turning internet personalities with an interest in fitness into ambassadors or ‘Gymshark Athletes’. Within the role, they represent the brand and its offerings, all the while doing so on their own platforms through their regular own content streams. 

“Adidas would show the free kick that David Beckham scored from the halfway line. Gymshark would show all the free kicks that he’s missed to get to that point,” Noel Mack, chief brand officer at Gymshark, previously told Creative Salon. “We’re the 10,000 hours that come before the moment in the spotlight. We show the hard work and real life.”

Now one of the most globally recognised sports brands rivalling the likes of Nike and Adidas, Gymshark has its influencer marketing to thank for its success; a British business with an annual revenue of £250,000 after two years of running is now worth a staggering £1bn. 

Investing In The Future

The creator economy has been growing exponentially across the last decade and the World Federation of Advertisers’ (WFA) research finds that 60 per cent of marketers believe influencer marketing will only become even more important to their strategies.

That's because creators own the ability to produce and distribute content with speed and efficiency, according to Rahul Titus, global head of influence at Ogilvy - a game changer for the industry. They are perhaps the future of the creative industries and the media industries combined.

“People trust and people know what brands they trust,” he begins while talking at Advertising Week Europe. “That’s why brands are allocating more budget to influence marketing.

“We embrace creators; ‘Turn Your Back’ for Dove won a Grand Prix for creativity and effectiveness - we got the brief at 7am and were then live in eight markets in less than 24 hours. Can traditional advertising and production do that? Absolutely not.”

And while some have negative assumptions when it comes to creators - that they’re lazy or labelling them as just online personalities, creators hold the potential to be a key resource for the future of creativity. 

Crystal Malachias, McCann’s global head of influencer and head of McCann Content Studios London, believes the role of today’s creators will be pivotal for the future of the industry as a whole, as well as how it will be shaped. 

“The biggest chief creative officers in the world in 20 years will probably have been creators at some point,” she explains. 

However, as investment into using creators grows, brands and agencies continue making meaningful decisions; they work with creators - not to fit in - but because it can meet their communications needs to develop awareness and consumer trust.

“Brands need to be wary of it being commoditised and make sure there’s a connection with their brand,” Malachias continues. “There’s so much content out there that it would be easy to create something that doesn’t have a strong association with their brand as it should.” 

With millions of people now describing themselves as 'content creators', choosing who to work with is an ongoing challenge. For creative agency Leo UK, the hiring of specialists has proven paramount for its sphere of influencers to continually evolve. 

“Having those key creator specialists within the wider team to be able to get to know brands allows them to identify the right creators,” begins Beth Manning, creative director social at Leo Burnett. 

“It’s not necessarily just working with one influencer you selected one time and running away with it. More and more, we’re looking to build relationships with the right people at the right time for our clients to have maximum reach and impact.” 

Manning explains that when it comes to selecting influencers, there are several avenues of finding the ‘right’ one - and even some of the biggest success stories have come from someone in the creative team suggesting a creator they already follow that fits the brief. 

“When we're looking at selecting influencers moving forward, it's no longer just about follower count. Algorithms on apps like TikTok mean that content reaches far beyond the media audience, so we're obviously seeing that rise in more relatable content, and that's why it performs so well.”

However, when investing in creators, there is danger. The potential of them being hacked and spreading misinformation [see the recent debacle faced by Sesame Street's Elmo] from a creator’s social platform or the creator themselves might share their actual controversial views. Either could have a seismic domino effect for partner brands, creating a tumult of issues. 

“Authenticity is a slippery slope,” says Suzy Barker, strategy partner at AMV BBDO, at Advertising Week Europe. “Take the Netflix show 'Apple Cider Vinegar' - there you see a woman who basically told her followers for many years she was dying of cancer and started all these products to help her be cancer-free. People were actually making health decisions based on what this woman was saying, and it turned out to be a lie: she never had cancer in the first place.” 

Titus adds that despite some controversies with some creators, as with any industry, a handful of negative experiences will not define an industry. 

“That's gonna happen in any industry we work in," he continues.

Meanwhile, in theory, investment into the future of the creator economy is an investment into the future of inclusivity driven by creators from pre-existing communities. Lucy Edwards is a blind creator who has campaigned for inclusive change for those with visual impairments. Working alongside Procter & Gamble to make its hair products increasingly accessible, the business placed NaviLens codes on all shampoo and conditioner bottles - a colour-based scannable QR code, to allows those with visual impairments to access information about the products. 

Arguably, without the work of a creator, such an initiative wouldn’t exist. 

It’s Not All A Song And Dance

It's not all plane sailing for creators either, with arguably the biggest threat of them all being the very thing that has helped make them: algorithms. 

Algorithms are very much the backbone of the internet and the major platforms creators depend on. They push content onto audiences’ feeds based on existing activity. For influencers, this means that building a massive audience of followers no longer equates to guaranteed engagement. And as Manning points out, agencies and brands are no longer looking at follower counts - instead utilising the algorithm on apps like TikTok and Instagram to see what is reaching “beyond the media audience”. 

Nick Palmer, Essensemediacom’s global head of creative transformation, writes how the “pressure to optimise content for algorithmic success can shift the focus away from genuine creative expression”, creating content that is shaped to suit the needs of “engagement, virality and maximum screen time”. 

And it’s not just the algorithm that can affect how many views a creator gets; in some cases, with no real reason, creators’ viewership can disappear in a flash as their channel is deleted without their knowledge, putting both their livelihood and careers at risk. 

In 2024 a mum influencer with over 14,000 Instagram followers had her account disabled without warning, and told the BBC “years of hard work” had gone down the drain, and even President Trump’s on/off TikTok ban in the States - despite (so far) only lasting a day, meant 170 million users in America faced all content being erased, leaving creators to mourn the app that, for many, spearheads “overnight success”. 

For Julie Chadwick, managing director at Dentsu Creative, despite algorithms holding control on what media meets people’s feeds, for brands, creators still have an important role for them to continue breaking through the noise that algorithms may try and shut them out from. 

“We talk to clients a lot about the algorithm era,” she begins. “You see stats about when all media will be behind an algorithmic choice of some form, so there’s lots of different ways in which we're talking to clients about how they can maintain brand visibility; creators are part of that solution.”

She continues: “However, it’s important to understand that what works today might not work tomorrow. A ‘test and learn’ mentality is absolutely key to winning in this algorithm era, and creators are an incredibly important part of that mix.” 

Its a future that can’t be predicted; the more advanced technology becomes, the darker it’s downsides. 

“Do algorithms truly serve culture, or do they simple reinforce the familiar and the easy-to-digest?” asks Palmer. “Algorithms not only flatten culture - they steamroll it, favouring what is easily consumable over what is creatively challenging or culturally enriching.”

AI too is another possible threat to creators. There is a rapidly growing emergence in AI creators and artists; legendary music producer Timbaland is chasing a new digital revolution where his new AI-focused company Stage Zero hit the headlines in introducing its first AI-generated artist, TaTa - a move in which NPR describes as “a ghost in a misguided machine”. 

"It’s not exactly a fact that AI isn’t a new discovery, but 'what if it overachieves its goal?'”, asks Daniel Hulme, chief AI officer at WPP, speaking at Ogilvy Consulting’s Nudgestock 2025.

He refers to the notion of 'The Singularity' in physics - a point in time that, technologically, can’t be seen beyond or understood. For the creator economy, despite it being impossible to know what the future will hold, it’s natural to be skeptical about the human role should technology keep evolving at the rate it is. 

Dentsu finds that AI-generated content is projected to constitute 90 per cent of content by 2026 alone and that 87 per cent of CMOs agree that gen AI represents the future of the industry. Chadwick comments that although AI is making its mark in impactful ways, the human element creators provide is something audiences will never stop wanting. 

“Creators, by their very nature, are so close to what audiences want from them. Their human authenticity is what stands them apart often from brand-led creative, so I wouldn’t necessarily see that going anywhere anytime soon,” she explains. 

“It’s almost the sort of antithesis of other changes that are happening in the industry; we all like variety in our feed and if it becomes too dominated with content that is obviously AI-driven, the realness and the people and the personality is what is going to make brands win.”

AI influencer marketing will inevitably become a step in the industry’s future - and will be “one to follow closely,” according to Moore. 

“Above all, it is important that the work still feels really authentic, and that diversity in the influencer landscape is genuine,” she continues. “As AI becomes more prevalent, humanistic storytelling will become more important. AI can’t replace lived experience, insights and emotions, so this makes influencers even more valuable for brands to partner with.” 

Agency-Client Expectations

As Unilever champions the charge for using creators and in-turn further boosting the creator economy, all eyes turn to agencies. How are they going to meet the sudden demand from clients wanting the latest TikToker to be in their campaigns? And, more importantly, how will they going to set-up to manage expectations? 

For Manning, agencies need to start viewing creators as part of its strategy - not a side addition that will add flavour. 

“The lines between creators, media, social platforms are totally converging,” she explains. “That shift requires us to think about how we integrate creators across all parts of strategies, and, crucially, how to measure success as well.” 

Experts are unanimous in agreeing that agencies should be doing one key thing with their clients: establish and maintain long-term relationships with creators.

Moore strongly believes that the rise of influencers is going to inevitably continue: “It’s not a question of if brands should work with influencers, it's when and how. Making sure that it's not a one-and-done partnership; making sure that we're integrating it into strategy.”

“We should be factoring influencer strategy into all campaigns from the very beginning – looking at the communities, trending topics and influential voices driving these trends and passions, rather than as an add on. Influencers are a media channel in their own right,” she continues. “But can also help us shape and lead wider communications and storytelling so should be embedded into everything we do.”

In doing so, brands can help move beyond “rigid briefs”; “Ultimately, we should be telling stories that resonate with influencers’ voices, their audience, and their personal brand in a way that truly fits with what the brand is trying to achieve.”

Dentsu Creative’s ‘Influence to Impact’ report finds that the use of creators is the most influential form of advertising when it comes to grabbing consumers’ attention, with influencers being 73 per cent more likely to hold someone’s attention on average compared to brand-led content. 

Dentsu Creative's Chadwick explains that the finding proves that brands and agencies need to consider ways they can integrate themselves into the creator economy. She also notes that the industry as a whole has a role to play in ensuring creators “understand their value”. 

“Creators should be collectively protected for their craft,” she discusses. “There's so much young talent out there, and making sure that we're protecting that talent and creating community as an industry is really key.”

However, in doing this, Chadwick says clients need to have strategic approaches to using creators - not just doing it for the sake of it. 

“From a client perspective, the strategic impact of having the right planning around it is vital to unleash the potential of the creative. It’s okay to want everything to be very authentic, but be wary of delegating the whole job to the creator - that's quite a heavy responsibility to bear. It's when everybody works together and there is a strong strategic imperative around the work when you start to see the real impact.”