You’re Still Underestimating Content Creators

At Cannes Lions this year, creators weren’t guests. They ran the room. Not tagging along—but speaking on panels, hosting brand events, shaping the agenda. Their presence wasn’t decorative. It was defining.

What’s your point?

Cannes Lions—long seen as marketing’s global power center—was once the domain of agency executives and award-winning broadcast work. This year, it was creators in the spotlight. That’s not symbolic. It’s structural.

Because when the biggest stage in advertising shifts its focus, it signals something deeper: money and influence are moving.

Budgets Don’t Lie

Earlier this year, Unilever—one of the largest advertisers in the world and the kind of company that used to be the old guard—announced it would direct 50% of its total marketing spend to influencers and creators. Not experimental budgets. Not one department. Half.

And it’s not just them. Influencer marketing is expected to hit $33 billion globally in 2025 (36% up from 2024), with over $10 billion of that coming from the U.S.

This isn’t a trend. It’s a realignment of priorities—and it all comes down to where people are actually paying attention.

The Channel Is People

For decades, marketing was built around centralized media. A handful of networks. A few big agencies. Mass reach, top-down messaging.

Today, attention is fragmented. People don’t follow channels—they follow people. And those people have become the new infrastructure of marketing.

Creators don’t just feel more real—they already hold the attention brands are trying to earn. They’ve built loyalty, trust, and distribution from the ground up. That gives them something media dollars can’t manufacture: a direct line to culture.

But Isn’t It All Getting Old?

Creator content is everywhere. Isn’t it starting to blur together? Too many posts. Too much product placement. A creeping sense of sameness.

But that’s not a flaw in the channel—it’s a failure of imagination.

Take Axe’s recent collaboration with creators Grant Beans and Jericho Mencke—a sponsored post that feels more David Lynch than digital ad. (Yes, Axe is Unilever—and yes, this is that 50% at work.)

 

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And it’s not a one-off.

Social platforms are full of creators blending narrative, humor, and performance. The best ones are pushing the boundaries—doing work that would never survive a traditional production pipeline.

Endless creativity. Zero committee.

The savviest brands are already shifting their budgets. Why spend months in bloated review cycles when someone else can move the needle by Monday—for a fraction of the cost?

What This Means for Brands

Still, many brands treat creators like a side bet: send out a few products, cross their fingers, hope for a post.

But this isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s a core growth lever. And when it underdelivers, it’s not because the space is saturated. It’s because the strategy is shallow.

Getting this right means rethinking where creators sit in your planning process. Not at the end of the campaign—but at the start of the concept.

The brands doing this well aren’t asking, “How do we plug creators into our idea?” They’re starting with, “What can we build together?”

Getting It Right

If you’re building a brand in 2025 and you haven’t figured this out yet, now’s the time.

And if you’re a founder or marketer at a brand under $10M trying to crack influencer marketing, let’s talk.

We’re Relish. A performance studio (not an agency). We’re a small, focused team that works with a select group of brands to solve hard marketing problems—deeply, carefully, and without the fluff. Our influencer playbook is one of our sharpest tools.

If you’re ready to take this channel seriously, we’ll show you how.