Creator marketing has grown up since the pandemic. But as the market becomes ever more crowded and AI reshapes the way people discover products, brands are having to think harder about what makes creator programmes work.
In this fireside chat, impact.com Regional Vice President (EMEA) San Sareen was joined by Laura Harper-Masters, Social Media and Influencer Marketing Manager at B&Q, and Julia Salume, Head of Influencer and UGC at Moburst, to discuss the realities of creator marketing in 2026 – from building brand affinity over time to measuring impact and getting the most from creator relationships.
Their conversation explores why consistency matters, how different creators can serve different brand objectives, and where AI can help brands work smarter without losing the authenticity that makes creator content effective.
San Sareen: In this saturated market, you can buy initial reach, but genuine brand affinity is rare. How can brands use creator briefs to build long-term attention and affinity?
Laura Harper-Masters: Building long-term attention is really about building brand preference, so the choice is less about price and more about being the automatic first option.
Creators are well placed to help brands do this because they already have a nurtured audience. But you can’t start working with a creator and expect their audience to become yours. You need to work with that creator consistently and keep your briefs short and open so the content stays authentic. Some of the best creators today are practically data scientists, as they’re in the weeds of their engagement statistics every day. They know what will perform for their audience better than we do.
Julia Salume: A lot of getting this right is managing expectations on the brand side. Brands need to pick a lane, because trying to do too much creates dissonance in the brief, and a brief is weak if the story isn’t driving the right action.
People rarely buy something as soon as they see it and that’s something to consider when working with a creator. Greater power lies in how many times people are seeing your brand. That’s why I’d rather have three stories from a creator rather than one reel.
San: How do creator archetypes help when it comes to price sensitivity for a brand?
Laura: It’s about being emotive with our messaging. Working with creators lets us be human to human, which is really difficult for large brands that are often seen as corporate entities.
Different creators do different jobs. Your traditional influencer can help push products and make them go viral, which makes the brand more relatable to their audience. But that doesn’t speak to campaign messaging, so we also reach out to different types of influencers, like comedians, who can bring the brand message to life in a way that feels authentic to their audience. That lets us tell stories beyond price, and using different creators with different impacts means we can reach a wide range of different audiences.
San: What are your thoughts on trending formats? Are they overhyped?
Julia: What brands get wrong is that they take too long to hop on a trend and over-edit the content. You need to be responsive and timely. If a trend is published today, you should be hopping on it within 72 hours.
I’ve seen lots of people doing carousels, but I haven’t seen them having the best promotional effect because they can be too long and don’t evoke any sentiment. Stories are massively underrated. Brands overlook them because they only stay up for a limited amount of time, but you can get a more engaged audience there.
I also think humour is the most underrated way of tackling anything. People go to social media to feel good about something, so brands can lose sight of why people are scrolling online in the first place.
San: Does follower count still carry the same weight it once did?
Laura: We see creators with two followers on TikTok going viral while others with massive follower counts aren’t getting views. I prefer to look at the engagement on their recent posts rather than their followers. Brand partnerships aren’t often the posts that go viral. A creator’s average reach isn’t guaranteed, but that’s all you can go on.
San: Is the funnel disappearing? How do you work with creators to see where full-funnel and incrementality value come from?
Julia: When an influencer sends me a quote, I ask them to break it down into different costs, such as production, distribution and usage rights. I also look at average views and impressions for the platform.
If you’re not boosting content, you shouldn’t necessarily expect results. With organic content, it can be a shot in the dark unless you put paid media behind it. Incrementality is such a big topic and because of that, we’re never going to have 100% of the picture, but there are lots of different data points you can look at to see where that value is being added.
San: There’s so much value in this new era of AI, including AEO and GEO. How user behaviour is changing is important. When you search for something on Google, you see the AI element first. We need to understand how many searches are resulting in AI taking over and how many user journeys are being influenced by it.
Julia: For physical products, YouTube has been influencing LLM predictions. Instagram has also been influencing them.
San: What are your dos and don’ts when working with creators?
Laura: It depends on the job. Is it content you need, like UGC? If you need to tap into an audience to change perceptions, that’s where larger creators really come into play.
Be careful when you boost a post outside the creator’s audience, because it can lose its effect. The content the creator is making for you is made for their specific audience. And in my view, the way paid usage fees are sometimes structured doesn’t add up for campaigns that aren’t optimised for paid social.
San: How does maintaining authenticity with creators affect brand safety? How can brands strike a balance?
Laura: We look at our risk levels internally, we know where we sit, and we look for creators who align with that. We make sure every creator is vetted before they’re contracted, and this is where AI can be really helpful, because there are loads of tools that can support this process. We also include strict brand guidelines in our briefs, so if we choose the right partners, it shouldn’t be a problem.
San: Which creator tactics should brands retire, and what operational capability should they have?
Julia: I’d retire one-off collaborations: they rarely deliver value. Operationally, it’s important that brands start embracing AI, if they’re not already, and look at what can be automated to free up time and headspace. I’m protective of humans reviewing things, but everything that’s administrative, give it to AI. If I’d give it to a junior team member, I’d give it to AI. We now use it for approving creators and content.
Laura: Avoid making creators land the messaging up front if you want the content to feel organic and authentic.
San: What best practices should brands consider when building a creator strategy?
Laura: Brands need to look inwards before they look outwards. Think about your messaging and how you want to be perceived, because until you’ve got that, it’s really hard to decide who you want to work with and translate that into authentic content for the creator.
Julia: Be honest with yourself about what you want to achieve as a brand.
