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Creator Content Becomes Media Infrastructure: Why Brands Are Buying Long-Term

Chili’s, Disney and Alaska Airlines are embedding creators more deeply into media, production and planning. New IAB and CreatorIQ data shows why this is increasingly becoming infrastructure rather than individual campaigns.

From Social Rocket editorial team

This text was created with AI assistance and reviewed editorially before publication. All sources are linked below.

Creator production in a video studio
Photo: Videodeck .co / Unsplash

Creator marketing is moving 2026 out of the special campaign and into everyday media operations. At Advertising Week New York, Chili’s, Disney and Alaska Airlines described how creators are now brought in earlier in planning, bound for longer periods, and how their content continues to run directly in paid media.

The trend can now also be measured beyond individual panels. The IAB expects 44 billion US dollars in creator ad spend in the US for 2026. CreatorIQ reports in its current global study that the average creator marketing budget of companies has risen to 4,8 million US dollars. At the same time, creator content is increasingly being reused as a regular advertising asset.

Creators Become Part of the Asset Pipeline

The most striking figure from the Advertising Week panel comes from Disney. According to the company, more than 40 percent of the assets in media campaigns are now creator-led. Five years ago, the share was still below ten percent.

This matches a separate CreatorIQ analysis from this year. There, creator content accounted for an average of 44 percent of paid media creatives among the surveyed brands. 92 percent of paid media managers said they use creator content in paid campaigns in at least some form.

The production process is changing as a result. Brands no longer just buy reach on a creator's channel. They increasingly buy a package of idea, face, format, raw material, usage rights, and the ability to reuse the creative in paid social or other channels.

Srocket has already observed this transition in Microsoft's creator production with 42 creators and 69 assets, as well as in the build-out of an in-house UGC studio for social ads at Fat Earth.

Long-Term Contracts Solve a Production Problem

Alaska Airlines describes a practical advantage of longer creator contracts: budgets and collaboration become more predictable. Disney also works with recurring creators across different business units, for example for film releases, parks or fan events.

This is more than relationship maintenance. When a creator already knows the rights, approvals, brand fit and production workflows, the effort for each new activation decreases. This is exactly where the efficiency comes from that is missing in many short-term campaigns.

CreatorIQ no longer names measurement as the biggest bottleneck, but rather the integration of creator data and workflows into existing marketing systems. That is a sign of maturity. The question is no longer whether creator marketing works in principle. The question is how companies organise it at scale.

Chili’s Connects Social Buzz with Product Business

At Chili’s, this shift can be seen directly in product business. The restaurant chain says the Triple Dipper's share of sales rose from about seven to 15 percent. Influencer and social activations played an important role in this.

The current campaign with Lizzo also shows how creator content is being used. Chili's produced a classic brand moment around its well-known Baby Back Ribs jingle. According to the Advertising Week panel, a much more simply produced creator video with Keila Pacheco subsequently performed better than the more elaborate spot.

This does not mean that raw creator videos generally replace classic brand production. It shows that platform fit and creator language can matter more than production value in certain environments.

Budgets are growing faster than the standards

With more money come higher demands on rights, measurement and governance. The IAB continues to name selecting suitable creators, standardisation and ROI measurement as central challenges. That is exactly why the shift toward longer partnerships makes sense: it reduces recurring selection and approval costs and creates more data points across the same partners.

At the same time, a long-term deal must not turn into an automatic renewal. Audience fit, brand safety and performance data need to be reviewed regularly. Our overview of creator marketing measurement and IAB standards explains why this infrastructure has to grow alongside budgets. For sensitive partnerships, brand safety governance for creators also remains decisive.

For 2027, the question is therefore likely to be less whether brands use creators and more how closely creator production, media buying, rights management and measurement are technically integrated.

Sources