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ForYouTopia: Our ideal creator landscape
Creators aren't the channel. They are the strategy. Jake Shane is CMO of Katjes, Pien Laat Haar Eten Zien has created three bestselling cookbooks. Stan Molemaker built YoungSparks from scratch, a jewellery brand, launched on the back of an existing audience and years of showing up consistently. These aren't side projects. These are businesses.
The creator didn't just influence the purchase. They became the brand.
So what does that mean for everyone else?
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Where to put your budget
The old model was simple. Brand has a product. Brand finds creator. Creator posts. Brand gets reach. Clean, transactional, done. That model is dead, and the brands still running it are already behind.
The numbers confirm it. Unilever, one of the biggest advertisers on the planet, is reallocating up to 50% of its digital and ad budget away from traditional media and toward social media, content creators, and brand advocates. That's not a test. That's a structural shift. When a company of that scale moves that kind of money, it's not following a trend. It's reading the room before everyone else does.
loyalty that doesn't show up in a CPM rate.
A creator's audience wasn't acquired through a paid campaign. It was earned. Post by post. Video by video. Through real personality and genuine relationships built over years.
That kind of loyalty doesn't show up in a CPM rate.
When a creator recommends something, it doesn't feel like an ad. It feels like a tip from someone you trust. That's the parasocial bond, and it's arguably the most valuable asset in modern marketing. Not because the product is better. Because the story is real.
You can't manufacture that in a boardroom.
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The media house shift
The smartest creators aren't just making content. They're building media houses. Production teams. Owned formats. Multichannel strategies where TikTok drives discovery, YouTube builds depth, Substack locks in the most loyal slice of the audience.
This is the extreme content economy playing out in real time. Short-form and long-form aren't competing, they're working together. A 15-second hook brings someone in. A 45-minute YouTube video makes them stay. And once someone's sat with you for 45 minutes? They're not a follower anymore. They're a fan.
Depth creates loyalty. Loyalty creates value. And value is what brands should be paying for.
The question isn't "how many followers does this creator have?" The question is: "how deep does their community go?"
choose your battles
One deep partnership beats ten loose posts. Every time.
Scattered activations don't build anything. A brand showing up once in a creator's feed is noise. A brand embedded in a creator's world, woven into their format, their story, their aesthetic, is culture.
Think less sponsored post. Think more co-produced format. Think less one campaign. Think more genuine partnership that means something to the audience.
The creators winning long-term aren't the ones with the most brand deals. They're the ones with the fewest, best ones.
Authenticity is now the scarcest resource on the internet.
IT CANNOT BE HUMAN
AI can generate content. It can write captions, build visuals, replicate aesthetics. What it cannot do is be human. It cannot have a bad week and talk about it on camera. It cannot build a decade-long relationship with an audience based on real trust.
As AI floods the content landscape, human authenticity becomes exponentially more valuable. Creators, real ones, with real personalities and real communities, are the antidote to a world drowning in generated noise. People trust people. Not algorithms. That growth isn't being driven by more content. It's being driven by deeper connection. The creator economy is a trust economy. And trust compounds.
But this goes both ways.
The creator economy rewards the ones who show up with intention. If you want to be taken seriously as a creative force in the marketing world, you have to take yourself seriously first. That means investing in your craft, your strategy, your infrastructure, and your content.
And to be clear: collaboration is not the same as ownership. The best partnerships bring creators in from the start, not as an afterthought, not as a distribution channel. But a seat at the table is not the whole table. Creative input shapes the work. Execution still runs through professionals who know how to scale it.
The creators who understand that distinction are the ones brands will keep coming back to.
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Our role in this shift
We're not watching this from the sidelines, we’re right at the center of it. We believe the next generation of media isn't being built in broadcast studios or agency boardrooms. It's being built by creators. And the ones who will define culture, who will build audiences that brands would pay anything to reach, are the ones who have the infrastructure to match their ambition.
That's what we build. Not campaigns. Not content calendars. Media powerhouses. Creators who own their format, command their audience, and show up across every platform with intention. Because a creator with the right strategy behind them isn't just an influencer. They're a media brand. And a media brand compounds.
The shift is already happening. So let’s start building together.
WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE MARKETER?
Stop thinking about creators as distribution. Start thinking about them as business partners. Find creators whose world your brand genuinely fits. Go deep, not wide. Treat the partnership like a collaboration, not a transaction.
The brands that will define the next decade aren't the ones that spent the most on reach, they're the ones that invested early in the right creators and grew alongside them. The creator is the powerhouse. The only question is whether your brand is smart enough to be in the room.
