After years on the brand side, the agency side, and now talent management, all deeply embedded in the Creator Economy, I’ve seen what actually works and what consistently falls flat. The difference is rarely budget, platform, or follower count. Its approach.
As we move into 2026, brands that treat Creators like robots instead of humans will become impossible to ignore. The brands that win are the ones that work with Creators as creative partners, cultural translators, and long-term allies, not interchangeable media placements.
These are the five rules I’ve seen hold up again and again. They’re not theories. They’ve been central to my playbook throughout my career in this industry.
Let Creators lead the creative
This should have been a lesson in 2018 and every year after. And yet, here we are.
The strongest work I’ve ever been part of came from loose briefs and early Creator involvement. Day-one involvement. When Creators help shape the idea from the start, the work feels alive. It feels honest. When they don’t, it’s immediately obvious. At Paramount, we built the SpongeBob 25th Anniversary campaign with Creators embedded at every step of the process. That partnership is why the work actually landed - culturally, socially, and in real results.
Too often, campaigns are over-engineered, the conversation happens with agents or managers rather than with the talent, and the Creator never truly infuses themselves into the idea. The result is content that feels stiff, controlled, and disconnected. As consumers, we spot it instantly. It looks like the Creator is being held hostage in their own content and audiences clock that every time.
Work with unexpected Creators
Some of the most effective campaigns come from unexpected casting. Not because it’s random, but because surprise is a strategy.
A campaign I still think about is Michael Cera x CeraVe. And yes, he’s not a Creator. But the point still stands. It worked because it broke the pattern. No one was asking for Michael Cera as a skincare spokesperson, which is exactly why it landed. It was smart, unexpected, and memorable. Because so many brands follow the same playbook, when someone does something different, it really stands out.
This rule applies to every category. If you only cast the “usual suspects,” you get the usual results. In beauty, that might mean hiring a gamer, an Athlete, or a comedian instead of another beauty Creator. In quick service restaurants, maybe it’s a beauty Creator who is actually funny and fast on camera. In travel, maybe it’s a home design Creator who obsesses over hotels and details. The goal is simple: put a real human with a real point of view into a brand story in a way people do not see coming. That’s what gets talked about. And that’s what sticks.
Invest in longer-term partnerships
One-off deals are fine as a test. But once a partnership works, the smartest move is to build on it.
When a Creator shows up once, it registers as an ad. When they show up consistently over time, it starts to feel organic. One post for Paramount+ is fine. Four touchpoints across a year is where belief sets in. Audiences are far more likely to trust a partnership that feels earned rather than transactional.
Brands often ask why they should keep investing in the same Creator instead of rotating through new faces. The answer is simple: conversion is higher when audiences see a real relationship forming. And from a business standpoint, longer-term partnerships are usually more efficient. Brands typically pay less for the same volume of content from a Creator they already trust than they do to onboard someone new each time.
Make it easy for Creators to do their job
Not every product is exciting. That’s reality. But nothing kills a campaign faster than pairing a mundane product with a mundane Creator strategy.
Creators do their best work when brands are self-aware and open to flipping the script. If the product is boring, the idea cannot be. If the message is straightforward, the execution needs personality. The more friction a brand creates through rigid rules, unclear goals, or overly safe thinking, the harder it becomes for a Creator to make the content work.
This is where we see the greatest hits of bad brand behavior. “Make it organic”, but it’s a full-blown script. Brands that force a commercial on a Creator’s social channels that doesn’t fit in with the rest of their content. And while I fully endorse proper FTC disclosures, it’s extra painful seeing #AD filling up 80% of the frame during a video.
The brands that win understand their own limitations and collaborate with Creators to solve for them. Make the brief clear. Be honest about the challenge. Then get out of the way. Removing friction doesn’t just unlock better creativity. It makes the work faster, more efficient, and more effective.
Treat Creators above and beyond the contract
The best brands don’t vanish until the next campaign. They invest in relationships. They send product without asking for a post. They invite Creators to premieres, events, and experiences. They offer early access to things that are actually cool and useful for a Creator’s channel, not just “nice to have.”
Disney’s Creator team is a masterclass in this. They bring Creators into theme parks, cruise launches, and top-tier premieres, but they also give them access that genuinely elevates the content on their own platforms. e.l.f. does this exceptionally well, too. They pay attention to Creators as people, celebrating life moments, milestones, and growth instead of only showing up when there’s something to sell.
This isn’t about squeezing out more content, even though it inevitably leads to it. It’s about respect. Creators remember who treats them as partners rather than as transactions. And when the next opportunity comes around, those are the brands they actually want to say yes to.
None of this is complicated. But it does require brands to change how they think from campaigns to relationships, and from short-term wins to long-term value.
Creators are not placements. They’re not shortcuts. And they’re not interchangeable. When brands give Creators real ownership, take smart risks, and invest beyond a single post, the work speaks for itself.
Get these 5 right, and Creator marketing stops feeling forced. It starts working.
And hopefully, by 2027, this won’t need to be written again.
