Creators, whether they meant to or not, have found themselves at the forefront of media channels and marketing execution — all of it in remarkably little time. They’ve also helped to make social media a far more valuable channel than it had been, certainly since the pandemic made all of us pay far more attention to it than before.
Because of these factors, some marketers — with the help of their agencies — are tapping into creators as a sort of test lab for trying out new campaigns. Horizon Media’s one example, through its Blue Hour Studios, which is working with advertisers like SharkNinja to pressure-test and adapt campaigns on the fly, using creators in the beginning stages — even letting them have a say sometimes in product development as well as campaign development.
Instead of relying solely on traditional research, social listening, or post-campaign measurement, Horizon and clients like SharkNinja are starting to treat creators as an always-on signal layer: interpreting audience behavior, pressure-testing ideas, and informing creative direction before anything goes to market. In this model, creators aren’t just executing briefs – they’re helping write them.
“The marketing funnel has certainly changed — the importance of brand relevance looks different than it has before, and what that means for a brand in terms of ultimately driving purchase,” said Sarah Bachman, evp and head of Blue Hour Studios. “We’re really thinking about how we can use creators and influencers to be an engine to help drive virality in support of different product launches, and having a really close eye on making sure that we get outsized impact of that content, and look at the full, full ecosystem of the Creator space.”
For SharkNinja specifically, Bachman said ”We have a lot of benchmarks established and a lot of rigor that is going into how can we predict the performance of this content and make sure that we are accurately pulling together the right list of people to represent this product launch.”
Stacy Carpenter, head of global social at SharkNinja, believes this is part of the evolution of marketing in a creator-driven world, but one full of nuances that need to be understood along the consumer’s purchase path.
“Not every viral moment is meant to convert – and the brands who understand that are the ones driving the most content efficiency,” said Carpenter, who is joining a panel with Bachman as well as influencer Kat Stickler and Amazon Ads’ Jay Symonds at Possible this week. “Virality lives in an ecosystem: there’s culture and entertainment, there’s co-creation and credibility, and there’s conversion. The brands asking the second and third questions – why did this pop, what does it tell us, where does it live in that ecosystem – are the ones who turn moments into momentum.”