INFLUENCER LAUNCHES CREATOR ECONOMY REPORT TO URGE BRANDS TO THINK LIKE A CREATOR OR RISK BEING LEFT BEHIND
Thinking Like a Creator Framework & White Paper Provides Guidance for Brands on how to Create Successful Influencer Campaigns by Applying Creator-Led Thinking
NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, November 24, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Influencer, a full-service marketing agency harnessing the power of creators to humanize brands, today launched the Thinking Like a Creator framework, a methodology to help brands move at the speed of culture. Unveiled in a new white paper, the framework turns creator instinct into a scalable system for modern marketing, showing brands how to blend emotional intelligence and human connection with commercial impact.
In a digital economy oversaturated with content but underdelivering on human connection, many brands are struggling to keep up with audiences who scroll past anything that doesn’t feel real. Today, Influencer, an official marketing partner of YouTube, TikTok, Snap, and Meta, is helping to bridge the gap between traditional brand systems and creator instincts.
“We created the Thinking Like a Creator framework to address a key challenge facing modern marketers: audiences are overwhelmed by the volume of content but only responsive to what feels real. We know brand teams face huge pressure to stay relevant. We built this framework to help,” said Ben Jeffries, CEO and Co-Founder of Influencer. “Campaign cycles can be slow – especially for big brands with long approval chains – while culture on social media moves at lightning speed, and audiences are tuning out anything that feels contrived or inauthentic.”
Caspar Lee, Influencer co-founder, chief visionary officer, and an original YouTube creator, explained, “Creators have figured out what really connects with their communities, and this framework gives brands the structure, tools, and the mindset to keep up by being braver, building trust and using AI to support, not replace creativity.’’
Audiences want to feel content, it’s no longer enough to see it
The accompanying Thinking Like a Creator white paper explores how audience expectations have shifted, not just because of platform trends, but due to deeper emotional drivers.
According to the white paper:
- People scroll past 10,000+ messages a day, filtering out anything feeling irrelevant or overly contrived
- 80% of global consumers expect brands to speak with human qualities, not corporate language
- 70% say they’re more loyal to brands that “act like people, not companies”
- 68% of companies report losing business opportunities due to perceptions of inauthenticity
- Trust deficits are costing brands over $2.5 trillion annually, while a lack of authenticity is linked to $3.5 trillion in lost long-term value
At the same time, creator-led content delivers 12x higher engagement and 14x greater effectiveness than brand-generated posts, showing the power of emotional connection, relevance, and trust at scale.
The takeaway is that emotional fluency and cultural relevance drive performance. Creators instinctively know how to build trust, tell stories, and connect in real time, offering a blueprint for how brands can replicate this to scale human impact without sacrificing strategy or control.
Thinking Like a Creator framework is a full operating system, not just another campaign toolkit
From cultural sprints and creator co-creation to pre-testing content with neuroscience-backed AI, the framework brings order to agility, blending creative instinct with insight, while keeping the human story at the center.
It’s structured around three core layers:
- Principles: the mindsets that guide how brands show up
- Practices: the behaviors that bring those mindsets to life through content, partnerships, and platform strategy
- Tools: the infrastructure that supports consistency, speed, and scale
“This is about helping brands think more like creators – not in how they look, but in how they listen, react, and build trust,” said Jenny Penich, President of North America at Influencer. “We’ve worked with some of the world’s most forward-thinking brands, and they’re all asking the same thing: how do we stay relevant without losing control? This framework gives them the answer. It’s not guesswork – it’s a practical system for building cultural fluency, creative consistency and commercial impact.”
The role of technology in the framework
Brands are leveraging AI-powered tools to enhance speed, minimize friction, and effectively manage growing content demands across various platforms.
While these tools can enhance efficiency, they don’t replace the human qualities that enable meaningful communication. These qualities cannot be generated solely by algorithms.
The most effective brands recognize this balance. They apply technology to improve the creative process, not override it.
The framework in action, in-market
The framework has already been adopted by leading brands across the U.S., Europe, and Middle East:
- Shark Beauty x Sabrina Carpenter Short n' Sweet tour, turning concerts into cultural beauty moments
- H&M x Creator Loyalty Campaign, positioning loyalty program membership as a passport to experience
- Nike “Style By” Campaign, evolving the brand into an everyday fashion staple
Across these campaigns, the framework has helped brands: move at creator speed without compromising rigor, deliver content that feels native to platforms and communities, and scale performance while maintaining creative integrity and emotional resonance.
Think like a creator, or risk being filtered out
Today’s audiences don’t linger around if they’re not immediately interested in something. They expect brands to show up in “the moment,” not just to exist in the market. The Thinking Like a Creator framework is built for exactly that by helping brand teams cut through the noise, meet culture where it’s happening, and build the kind of relevance that lasts. Because if creators are driving the cultural and commercial agenda, brands need to think like them—not just to be seen, but to truly connect.
To download the white paper, visit: https://www.influencer.com/knowledge-hub/thinking-like-a-creator
About Influencer
Influencer is a global creator marketing agency on a mission to shape the future of marketing by humanizing brands. By placing creators at the center, the agency delivers creator-first solutions across creative, media, and commerce that connect brands with audiences through insight-driven creator campaigns built to stop the scroll and drive measurable impact.
Founded in 2015 by YouTuber-turned-entrepreneur Caspar Lee and entrepreneur Ben Jeffries, Influencer is the world’s largest independent creator marketing agency, powered by a unique ecosystem of proprietary technology, platform partnerships, and longstanding talent relationships.
As an Official Global Marketing Partner of TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Snap, Meta, and Twitch, Influencer delivers bespoke, enterprise-level solutions powered by Waves, its AI-driven operating system. From concept to conversion, the agency blends human instinct with platform intelligence to drive measurable outcomes across the full funnel, from brand perception to performance and sales.
With 200+ team members speaking 30 languages across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, Influencer has delivered 3,000+ campaigns for leading brands including Spotify, SharkNinja, Google, Nike, Disney, and Coca-Cola.
Raphaele Schnoll
Influencer
+1 312-339-8662
raphaele.schnoll@influencer.com
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
