Creator marketing is attracting a growing share of advertising budgets as brands look for new ways to reach consumers. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), 48% of marketers now consider creators a "must buy" in their media plans. U.S. advertiser spending on creator content is also expected to reach $43.9 billion this year.
Despite this growth, many brands continue to face the same challenge. Creator campaigns often generate strong engagement while they are active, but the momentum rarely lasts beyond the campaign period. As a result, brands return to the market each quarter looking to recreate the same attention they generated only months earlier.
The issue is not a lack of investment in creators. It is the tendency to treat creator partnerships as short term media buys rather than long term assets that can strengthen brand value over time.
Why creator spend often fails to create lasting brand value
According to the Archive Brand Creator Collaboration Report, long term creator partnerships generate 70% higher engagement rates than one-off collaborations. Despite that advantage, only 35% of brands currently use always-on creator programmes. This is one of the reasons why brands are not able to turn creator spend into compounding brand equity.
Most creator partnerships are built for short-term objectives
Many creator relationships begin with a specific campaign brief and end once the deliverables have been completed. Andrew Graham, Head of Business Development at Creative Artists Agency's creator division, has noted that the vast majority of creator deals are still contracts for a handful of paid TikTok and Instagram posts.
The model works well for generating immediate visibility. It is less effective at building the repeated exposure and familiarity that often contribute to long-term brand value.
Speed often wins over longevity
The popularity of one-off creator campaigns is not difficult to understand. They are easier to approve and easier to budget for as well as easier to measure.
Creator Samir Chaudry has pointed out that six figure creator campaigns involving a few sponsored posts can often be completed within a week. Longer term partnerships, by contrast, may take months to negotiate. For brands working against quarterly targets, the faster option frequently becomes the preferred one.
The result is a cycle of temporary attention
This approach can produce strong campaign results, but those results are often tied to a specific moment in time. Once the campaign ends and the creator stops talking about the product, audience attention naturally shifts elsewhere.
Campaign → Buzz → Ends → Reset
Some companies are beginning to rethink that model. Mars, for example, often starts creator campaigns without immediately paying to place or boost content. The company first looks at how audiences respond organically before increasing investment. That method shows a growing interest in building creator relationships that can deliver value beyond a single campaign window.
What the data reveals about modern brand building
Many of the challenges surrounding creator marketing are not caused by a lack of investment. They stem from a mismatch between how consumers discover products and how organisations plan marketing activity. Recent research by Socially Powerful, based on a survey of more than 300 enterprise FMCG marketers across the U.S. and U.K., highlights several structural issues that continue to limit brand growth.
| Finding | What it suggests |
| 86% say brand loyalty is weaker today than it was five years ago | Consumers are more willing to switch brands than before |
| More than one-third say social platforms and creators are where most product discovery happens | Discovery is increasingly happening outside traditional channels |
| 41% of campaign ideas originate from annual or quarterly planning | Marketing decisions are still heavily tied to fixed planning cycles |
| Only 11% of ideas come from social or cultural insights | Brands are not consistently responding to real-time consumer behaviour |
| Only 1% of ideas originate through testing and learning in public | Experimentation remains limited in large organisations |
| Seven in ten marketers say challenger brands outperform enterprises on speed | Agility has become a competitive advantage in modern marketing |
Taken together, the findings point to a broader issue. Consumer behaviour is changing rapidly, but many organisations continue to operate within systems built for a slower and more predictable media environment.
What leading brands are doing differently?
Some of the world's largest consumer brands are already moving beyond transactional creator partnerships. Unilever, for example, has significantly expanded its creator network. According to the company's leadership, around 300,000 people now recommend Unilever products, compared with just 10,000 two years ago.
The shift reflects a broader change in how creators are viewed within the marketing mix. As Selina Sykes, Global Vice President at Unilever's Beauty & Wellbeing division, explained: "You cannot talk about what engages people, where people find things, where people buy things without talking about the creator economy."
More importantly, Unilever is actively moving away from short-term creator relationships. "We really do want to move from having these transactional relationships to having these long-term relationships," Sykes said.
Mars has adopted a similar mindset by allowing creator content to build organic traction before increasing paid support. Both examples point to the same conclusion – lasting brand value comes from sustained creator relationships rather than isolated campaign activations.
How to turn creator spend into compounding brand equity
Brands do not necessarily need bigger creator budgets. In many cases, they need a different operating model and the goal should be to always make sure that every creator investment supports future campaigns rather than functioning as a standalone activity.
1. Turn creator partnerships into year round relationships
Many brands work with creators once and never return. A better way is to identify creators who genuinely connect with the target audience and build longer relationships with them.
Practical steps include:
- Working with fewer creators more consistently
- Creating multi-campaign partnerships instead of one-off contracts
- Allowing creators to become recognizable advocates for the brand
2. Maintain visibility between major campaigns
Consumer attention does not disappear between product launches. Brands that remain visible throughout the year are often better positioned when launch campaigns arrive.
This can include:
- Product seeding programs
- Community-led conversations
- Recurring creator content outside launch periods
3. Bring creators into planning discussions earlier
The Socially Powerful research found that only 11% of campaign ideas originate from social insights. Yet creators often have a direct understanding of audience interests, concerns, and emerging trends.
Brands can benefit by:
- Testing messaging with creators before launch
- Gathering audience feedback early
- Identifying cultural trends before they reach the mainstream
4. Use creator partnerships to generate insights
Creator programmes should be measured by more than views and engagement rates. They can also provide valuable information about how consumers think and behave.
Questions worth asking include:
- Which messages generate the strongest response?
- What objections appear repeatedly?
- How do consumers describe the product?
- What content formats perform best?
These insights can improve future campaigns and help brands make better decisions over time.
Wrapping up
Creator marketing has already proven its ability to generate attention and sales. The bigger opportunity lies in turning those short term wins into long term brand value. Brands that build lasting creator relationships and stay connected to consumer conversations as well as learn from every partnership are far more likely to create equity that grows over time.
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