Agility requires marketing leaders to evolve from campaign-based thinking to relationship-based strategy—especially when working with creators who influence not just clicks, but for a meaningful connection with customers.
Today we’re going to talk about the creator economy and how brands like PepsiCo, Unilever, and more are leaning into long-term creator partnerships to drive relevance, resonance, and ultimately, ROI.
To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Brit Starr, CMO of CreatorIQ.
About Brit Starr
Brit Starr is the Chief Marketing Officer at CreatorIQ, the leading enterprise platform revolutionizing influencer marketing for thousands of brands and agencies, including Nestlé, Sephora, and Unilever. With over 15 years of experience in marketing and consulting, Brit has played pivotal roles at some of the most iconic consumer brands, including Lyft, Guitar Center, Shiner Beer, Verve Coffee Roasters, and Trulia
Brit Starr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/britmccorquodale/
Resources
CreatorIQ: https://www.creatoriq.com https://www.creatoriq.com
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom (00:00)
Agility and marketing today isn’t just about being fast. It’s about building partnerships that last. So here’s a question. Are you still running influencer campaigns or are you actually building a creator led brand? Today we’re going to talk about the creator economy and how brands like PepsiCo, Unilever and more are leaning into long-term creator partnerships to drive relevance, resonance and ultimately ROI. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Brit Starr, CMO of Creator IQ. Brit, welcome to the show.
Brit Starr (00:28)
Hi, Greg, thanks for having me.
Greg Kihlstrom (00:29)
Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. Before we dive in though, why don’t we start with you giving a little background on yourself and your role at Creator IQ.
Brit Starr (00:37)
Sure, well as you said, I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Creator IQ. I think the favorite part of my job and really what drew me to this space in the first place is as a marketer, I get to have conversations and help marketers learn all day every day about how marketing is transforming through creators. I think we’ve all kind of experienced the power of word of mouth in everything, right? Whether you’re a marketer or not, right? We trust people, people trust people.
And really what the creator economy and creator marketing has unlocked is this opportunity to scale word of mouth conversations and connections. And so as a marketer, it is so thrilling to me to sit across the table from other marketers and really teach them about how to build brand and business and trust, right? Consumer connection through people and the power of people.
Greg Kihlstrom (01:26)
Yeah, I love it. Well, yeah, let’s let’s dive in here and we’re going to talk about a few things, but I want to start with this. know, I kind of made the distinction between influencer and creator led and, let’s so let’s talk a little bit more about that. The strategic shift towards creators. So companies like Unilever plans to invest 50 percent of its marketing budget in creator partnerships. PepsiCo’s acquisition of Poppy is another signal that brands see creators as key to their growth strategy. What do these moves tell us about how brand marketing is evolving?
Brit Starr (01:58)
I think it’s really interesting your point, like creator versus influencer. think there’s a lot of misconception around specifically influencer marketing and everyone, think, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago, maybe even today, you’d get into a conversation and the second you say something like influencer, you know, everyone is picturing like Kim Kardashian. Right. And I think the beauty of the space is that it’s so much more than that. Right. And so the evolution, I think of like,
influencers, creators, it’s all kind of one in the same, but creators as a community, as individuals can do so many things for brands and business. They can actually create, right? They can be creative partners helping to supply the exponential content demands brands have today. They can be very influential, right? In driving influence purchase decisions, connection with brands.
They can be flywheels for consumer insights, right? How can you learn about your consumers, the conversation that happens behind closed doors, which I would argue is like actually what brand means today is like what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And so I think this, again, the shift from influencer to creator shows that diversification of creators as brand and business partners. Yes, some drive influence, but there are so many other ways to tap into what creators do to help you solve business problems and drive business impact and results.
Greg Kihlstrom (03:20)
Yeah, so mean, given that, how do you know the traditional brand marketers out there, what do they need to be thinking about differently? You what’s what’s what’s the playbook to remain relevant in this this world where creators are driving a lot of a lot of the change here?
Brit Starr (03:36)
Yeah, I mean, think the first, and you mentioned this earlier, the first is just acknowledgement, right? You have to understand the world you’re living in today, and it is a world that is driven largely beyond the control and bounds of the brands themselves. Like, I like to take a controversial approach, especially when I’m talking to brand marketers, which is my background. But I don’t think brands own brands anymore. I think people own brands. And so the way that the world works, say, just like,
Baseline you have to acknowledge that I think the second is you have to acknowledge that translates into true value creation and realization You mentioned the poppy acquisition by Pepsi Co earlier, you know 1.95 billion dollar exit We just saw this week elf cosmetics purchase road skincare for a billion dollars So real value creation real value realization at a rapid rate. And so I think understanding again that
This isn’t just a channel. This isn’t just a campaign. This is a true investment in community building, in the relationships that drive connection between brands and consumers at scale. And I think that scale piece is super important, right? We look at our customers and there are some that are working with hundreds of creators, but there are some that are working with hundreds of thousands of creators on a global level.
And so when you think about that, like think about the power of those conversations, that content, those connections. So I think that’s it. The other thing I think brands have to realize is that those conversations happen whether you engage with them or not. One of my favorite things to do is walk into a room and ask brands who they think their kind of top creators are and then show them the data that tells otherwise. Like these conversations are happening about brands and products, especially in passion categories.
Greg Kihlstrom (05:21)
Right?
Brit Starr (05:27)
All day, every day, right? Like we used to stand up on stage and give a 20 minute keynote and say like, in the time I’m up here on the stage or in the time we’re chatting on this podcast, there will be 17.4 million hours of video consumed on YouTube alone. That’s like watching Titanic 5.4 million times. Right?
Greg Kihlstrom (05:47)
Wow, yeah.
Brit Starr (05:48)
That’s like, it’s massive. anyway, that’s a long-winded answer to like acknowledge the space, acknowledge the true power and scale that you can operate at. But then I think the real shift to your question from traditional marketing and what traditional approaches to influencer marketing has been versus how we are seeing it again, truly operationalized is that it’s really shifting to a central role within the marketing strategy as a whole. So it is not one piece.
It is really fueling the entire marketing engine from, again, content creation, using creator content in paid ads, in owned and operated, leveraging the consumer insights that you can learn from creators. Like again, every single way creators can help you solve problems, tap into them, and then you can do more with less, which marketers are being asked to do right now more than ever.
Greg Kihlstrom (06:38)
Yeah, yeah. So I want to get to the the scalability topic in a second, but I wanted to come back to the you you mentioned first thing to do is acknowledge it. I wonder, you know, we we’ve mentioned some very, you know, PepsiCo, Unilever, some very, you know, some of the world’s biggest brands. Do you feel like most brands get it yet? Or is this, you know, are these a few like leaders and and and there’s a lot of there’s a lot of brands that need to kind of get it still?
Brit Starr (07:05)
I it’s both. think that everyone knows, and I’m using air quotes if people are to this, that they need to be in this space, that they need to participate in this space in some way, form. mean, there is a reason that investment is growing as quickly as it is. think we’ve seen, you know, 143 plus percent investment increase over the last four years, with industry leaders spending over 50 % of their total marketing budgets on creators. So that is…
massive, right, especially for some of these bigger companies. What I think hasn’t happened all the way yet is again, that true operationalization. So if you look at Beauty, which is a real leader in the space at large, they’ve been in this game for a long time. I put fashion there as well. They really understand what it looks like to put creators at the center. That’s why some of these really creator led brands are growing and scaling at such a rapid pace is because they understand that it should lead your strategy. I think we’re still catching up. Like we see enterprise brands, the biggest brands in the world. And Unilever is a good example, obviously put a huge stake in the ground in terms of investment. But what does that investment mean? It’s not just putting more money into these creators as media channels, right? It’s again, investing in multimillion dollar, multi-year transformations of what their marketing looks like, right? This operationalization. So that’s where I think we are.
Right now it’s like the year of professionalization to borrow a term from a good friend of mine, Jasmine Enverg from eMarketer. But yeah, the year of professionalization, we’re all growing up. We’re truly maturing as an industry and really unlocking the value that creators can bring.
Greg Kihlstrom (08:46)
And so to come back to scalability, but I think this is good, segue there anyway, is, you know, you mentioned some brands are working with hundreds of maybe thousands even of creators. How does this work? You know, like how does this work from not only just, you know, the operational aspect of it, but also just proving ROI across, you know, it’s one thing if you have, you know, one spokesperson and, know, either it works or it doesn’t. But, you know, we’re talking about thousands of points, you know, how do you prove ROI and how do you manage it? Big question there, I realize, but but yeah.
Brit Starr (09:19)
I think it’s the big question, right? When you’re like spending at these levels, you have to answer those questions in a way, again, if you’re spending at lower levels, maybe it’s fine if there’s a question mark behind the like, yes, it’s driving impact. I think the couple of things there is one, the use cases, like this business is quite complex, but the use cases haven’t changed dramatically over the, last decade that influencer marketing, creator marketing has really come to play.
It’s discovering the right creators for your brand. Who is safe and suitable, right? Who makes a good partner? How is their content connecting with the audiences that you want to connect with? How is it resonating? So finding the right people. The second is managing them, right? Understanding that not all creators drive the same outcomes. What outcomes are you trying to drive and how can you organize your creator community to help you achieve those outcomes? And then the third is exactly what you’re saying, measurement.
How do you measure the efficacy of that effort, of that activity? And I think what we’ve seen is that measurement in our space has gotten incredibly sophisticated. We still have a long way to go, but it’s gotten really sophisticated where brands that we work with, companies that we work with are ingesting this data into their MMMs and looking at the connection between super top of funnel into desirability metrics like site traffic.
Unbranded search like you name it and then all the way into to purchase so I think at its simplest form again It’s understanding the outcomes you’re trying to drive and then measuring your ability to achieve those or drive Incremental value or lift with creators versus traditional content or channels
Greg Kihlstrom (10:56)
Yeah, so I was wondering about the incrementality, because that’s where my head usually goes with this stuff. I was wondering if that was even a possibility with, I mean, obviously you can do it with media and stuff like that, but with creators, that, maybe talk a little bit more about how exactly does that work?
Brit Starr (11:15)
Yeah, absolutely. So I think first and foremost, you know, we say a lot, creator content works better. When we say that, what we mean is when you use creator content, say in your paid media, it is content that is one somewhat pre validated, right? Because a lot of that content starts organic in nature and you can see the momentum, you can see the reception from consumers. So you put that and you put money behind it and it excels, right? It overachieves.
It’s also significantly more efficient to produce at scale, especially when you’re looking at kind of global programs that need to operate and activate locally, right? That’s expensive. Traditional production of that kind of content is very expensive. So we see, you know, some of our customers creating content at that scale and actually A-B testing, right? How efficacious is my creator content versus my traditionally produced content? And a lot of times we see, again, creator content works better. Even if it works neck and neck, it’s so much more efficient to produce that the ROI on those programs, those campaigns are like 10, 11 X. So that’s one way. I think you can also boil it down campaign level, right? You understand again, what you’re trying to get out. You have apples to apples measurement from kind of what you would achieve or forecast for say a traditional campaign and then measure the difference of that. think that is like kind of where we are right now as an
industry is proving it out, like taking your shots, right? It’s like, prove it out every single time. You got to get those reps in and then build the playbook as you go.
Greg Kihlstrom (12:47)
So we’re talking about lots of creators potentially across, you know, multi-channel, you know, whether it’s TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, you know, all of the things. What about consistency and, you know, brand, you know, for the more traditional brand people, you know, I agree with your sentiment as far as I don’t think that brands own as much of the brand as they used to or thought they ever did really. And it’s more in the hands of the consumers. But for those that need the consistency and want the consistency. Like how do you balance that with, you you’re giving, you’re giving away a little bit to those creators, but how do you still maintain control?
Brit Starr (13:23)
I can’t take credit for this because a good friend of mine who’s like one of the smartest brand strategists I’ve ever met, her name’s Vivian Walsh. She was at a brand at Metta, she was at Uber, Visa before that. She says that the best brands are like the best humans you know. They know who they are, they’re vulnerable and they surround themselves with the best people. And I think that is how you maintain control today is you have to know who you are as a brand to operate in this space. If you don’t know who you are,
People can’t relate to you or help translate your story and it won’t feel comfortable, right? You won’t have the confidence to let other people adapt and make your story a part of their own, which is really why this space is so effective. It’s that translation layer that makes your story as a brand resonate with very diverse communities of people. It’s how you reach new communities. So I think it’s really about that. It’s being confident in who you are. think it’s also
really again acknowledging that creators are business owners. so treating them and briefing them like you would a business partner is super helpful. What’s the context? What are you trying to achieve? What’s the problem you’re trying to solve? Don’t give them a script. Give them information. Give them context and let them help you solve the problem. And I think that is where we see really efficacious content and also long-term relationships is when
you are working with a creator or creators, as we’ve talked about at scale, but really working like, what are we trying to achieve together? How can I help you? How can you help me? How can we build mutual benefit over the long term? And that really has a halo effect that impacts not just the campaigns and interactions between the brand and creator in the context of that activation or effort, but beyond, right?
It’s again, it’s human behavior. They’re going to talk about that. Other people are going to sense that they’re going to talk. That’s the, that’s the halo effect that I think is the true value. And also coming back to incrementality, you don’t get that. Like creator campaigns don’t start and stop. They shouldn’t in the confines of a campaign itself. They’re relationships that go above, beyond side by side, right? They, they go beyond that. So that halo effect I think is really the true unlock.
Greg Kihlstrom (15:36)
Yeah, I mean, I think because the danger there is that, you know, if you have thousands of very short term creator camp, it feels it feels not only transactional to the creators themselves, but like to the to the consumers, you know, generally pretty savvy about this stuff and growing, I believe, more savvy by the day. So.
It seems like they’re going to feel the transactional nature of that one off thing versus what you’re saying, which is building a longer term, you know, find the right creators, of course, but like focus on longer term relationships so that everybody kind of gets to know everybody. Right. Is that is that kind of the strategy?
Brit Starr (16:11)
I think that’s exactly right. mean, it’s like, it’s how we look at our own businesses, right? Retention is the single most important factor for growth. Creator communities, creator relationships operate the same. So we allow our customers can measure their creator retention over time periods. How many creators are continuing to create content about you? How is that value translating over time? And what we see is that the brands who are really good at retaining
those relationships, right, at driving long-term sustained conversation with the same creators, they’re the ones that are growing exponentially, right? They’re just outpacing their peers because they don’t have to constantly fill a leaky bucket, right?
Greg Kihlstrom (16:52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just to ask you, like, what is creator IQ’s role in this kind of, you know, creator relationship?
Brit Starr (17:00)
Yeah, it’s a really good question. So we are technology, software, and data. We facilitate everything that brands and agencies want to do with creators without intervening in the relationships themselves. So our software helps our customers discover the right creators for them, manage those creators effectively throughout their many multitudes of activations, campaigns, efforts.
leverage the content that they’re creating to drive the outcomes that they’re trying to achieve and then ultimately measure the impact of all of those programs. We also have deep data, 10 years of data that we’ve been learning on. And so we can really help to strategically guide our customers with that data. Where do they sit in their competitive landscape? What are the opportunities for them as a brand behaviorally, right?
Do you have more creators than your competitors talking about you? Do they talk about you more or less frequently? What’s the makeup of your community? Do you need to invest in micro creators to broaden your base? So all of these like levers for growth are really easily identified in the data. So we can bring that forward for our customers so that they can then put them into practice in the way they operate the campaigns, in the way they operate their programs, and ultimately in the way they build their business around these massive programs.
Greg Kihlstrom (18:18)
Yeah, so mean, then is that is that kind of the way you’re recommending people think about it is in terms of community. It’s not just like I’m going to hire Greg to do this thing. You know, I know we kind of talked about this already, but it’s this idea of like you’re not just building a few relationships, you’re building a community.
