‘Creatorpreneurs’ are opening the door to brand relevance

Over the last few years, we have been witnessing what feels like one of the biggest wealth transfers to date, as influence moves from corporations to creators.

For a long time, brands treated creators like a media placement: find someone with the right audience, pay for a post, track the metrics and move on. But that thinking is quickly evolving. Creators are no longer just making a video or snapping a pic for brands to borrow. They are building the trust, community and cultural relevance brands are trying to buy, and marketers have been trying to manufacture for years.

Whether they are crafting content for a niche topic or creating a new cultural zeitgeist themselves, creators are talented individuals with stories to tell. They are building audiences and transforming them into passionate fans. And once those audiences become fans? They are all in.

Which is why the smartest partnerships are starting to look less like sponsored posts and more like long-term business relationships.

Think REMMIE, All for Mimi, FAYT The Label, Jaz Handmade and Girls With Gems. Riley, Sophie, Brittany, Jaz and the girls behind these brands are not selling in the traditional sense. They are dancing around the office, packing orders, filming try-ons, reviewing food, showing the chaos and being authentically themselves, building worlds people want to follow…And this is what sells.

It works because it does not feel like marketing, but rather like personality. A routine. A friend telling you what they are obsessed with. A little world you want to be part of. But the commercial engine underneath is so smart: all of that fun, low-fi content is still sending people back to the brand’s socials, websites, Instagram shops and product pages, building warm audiences they can retarget later. One of the hardest parts of marketing is getting people to care in the first place, and creators are doing that naturally before someone even feels like they are being sold to.

TikTok’s The Art and Science of Authenticity study puts numbers behind the behaviour brands are already seeing: creator commercial contribution across Asia-Pacific is projected to reach US$1.2 trillion by 2030, while three in four consumers skip content that feels too polished or inauthentic. And when nine in ten consumers say authentic content influences what they buy, it is pretty hard to keep treating creators like a cute little add-on to the media plan.

Another shift across the industry is the rise of the role, ‘creatorpreneur’. Brands investing in creators are also moving beyond partnerships and into the C-suite. Rather than paying creators to promote products, the brands scaling even further are giving them a seat at the table. The most valuable creators are moving into product collaborations, ambassador programs, advisory roles, equity deals and long-term partnerships.

Cannes Lions 2026 made that shift pretty clear. Once dominated by big advertising agencies and legacy brands, more than 500 creators attended the festival not just to document the week, but to lead conversations on media, marketing, communication and the future of creativity. Even legacy media moments are changing, with creators like Jake Shane and Quen Blackwell joining Vanity Fair on the Oscars red carpet. The message is pretty clear: creators are not just commenting on culture, they are part of the machinery shaping it.

For brands, the answer is not to chase every viral sound or force a founder into a TikTok dance when it is very clearly not the vibe. The opportunity is understanding why creator content works in the first place: because it feels human, specific and built for the audience, not just placed in front of them.

Instagram is becoming TV and TikTok is becoming search. Creators are becoming media channels, founders, tastemakers and business partners all at once. So, this is no longer just about borrowing someone else’s audience for a campaign. It is about recognising that the audience, trust and relevance brands are chasing may already be sitting with the creator.

The brands that will cut through are the ones that stop treating creators as the final line item and start building them into the strategy from the beginning.

At Rowland, we help organisations navigate emerging trends, identify opportunities and develop effective strategies to connect authentically with audiences. If you’re considering how creator partnerships or creator-led content could support your business objectives, get in touch – we can help you find the right approach.