Creator and influencer trends brand marketers need to know about right now

Welcome to Ad Age’s influencer marketing news roundup. Each week, we’ll be highlighting the latest developments at the intersection between brands and the creator economy, including new partnerships between brands and creators, notable new features across social media platforms and the growth of creator-led businesses. Sign up for our influencer marketing newsletter here. Have tips or news to share about influencer marketing and the creator economy? Email Gillian Follett at gillian.follett@adage.com. New deals ESPN and Cassandra Botnick, The Aussie Fam, @kerrymyworld and more: ESPN cast a wide net for its TikTok influencer push to promote the College Football Playoff National Championship. The sports broadcaster got parenting creators, lifestyle influencers, a disability activist and even a “professional mermaid” to advertise the upcoming championship by adding sports commentary to mundane activities such as applying makeup or cleaning. @kerrymyworld If building my wheelchair was a highlight #CFPonESPN @ESPN #wheelchairlife ♬ 2020 College Football Theme - ESPN More news: ESPN begins prepping for its streaming launch Dove and Fernanda Martin, Estefania Elisa and more: Each year, roughly one in every two women across the U.S. and U.K. make New Year’s resolutions tied to dissatisfaction with their weight or appearance, according to Dove research. The Unilever body care brand is challenging that trend with a new global influencer campaign encouraging women to instead commit to a New Year’s “unresolution” and appreciate their natural beauty rather than spend 2025 attempting to conform to unrealistic beauty standards. Dove partnered with dozens of creators for its #NewYearsUnresolution campaign, including radio broadcaster and creator Fernanda Martin and TikTok star Estefania Elisa. @estefaniaelisa Anzeige | Neues Jahr, neues Ich? Nope. Dieses Jahr geht’s um Selbstliebe statt unrealistische Ziele. 🩷✨ Danke @Dove Beauty & Personal Care für die #BodyConfidence Serie – lasst uns echte Schönheit feiern! 💪🏽 #NewYearsUnresolution #DovePartnerin ♬ Originalton - Estefaniaelisa Also read: Why Dove and Crumbl partnered on a body care line Bumble and Amelia Dimoldenberg: Speaking of New Year’s resolutions, “Chicken Shop Date” host Amelia Dimoldenberg is teaming up with Bumble to help fulfill her goal to “date more” in 2025. Dimoldenberg shared several of her “golden rules of dating” with the dating app in an Instagram post and will continue collaborating with Bumble on a year-long social content series tied to dating tips and Dimoldenberg’s tales of her “Flirty Firsts,” such as her first kiss. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bumble (@bumble) CBS and Chris Olsen and celebrity lookalikes: Several influencers mingled with Hollywood stars at the Golden Globes on Sunday—such as Drew Afualo, who served as a red carpet correspondent for InStyle magazine, and TikTok stars Josh Richards and Brianna LaPaglia (aka “Brianna Chickenfry”). CBS, which broadcasted the Golden Globes, brought a handful of influencers to the awards show, too, including Chris Olsen and the winners of recent celebrity look-alike contests for Timothée Chalamet and Glen Powell, respectively. Ultimately, however, the influencer presence at this year’s Golden Globes felt somewhat muted compared to last year’s awards show. View this post on Instagram A post shared by CBS (@cbstv) Sabrina Carpenter and Dunkin’: The Gen Z pop star’s latest brand collab connected to her hit song “Espresso” is a limited-time “Sabrina’s Brown Sugar Shakin’ Espresso” at Dunkin’. The breakfast and coffee chain promoted the new drink with an ad campaign leaning into Carpenter’s penchant for suggestive innuendos, where she, her grandmother and several others “shake that ess.” @dunkin What’s not to love? ♬ original sound - Dunkin' Doechii and Urban Decay: Doechii, another breakout Gen Z artist, teamed up with Urban Decay to promote the beauty brand’s new liquid highlighter in the music video for her song “Denial Is a River,” which premiered on YouTube last Thursday. The rapper also shared a sponsored TikTok video showing a behind-the-scenes look at how the product shot in the music video came together. @iamdoechii_ What can I say? The sh*t glows, it feels good. @urbandecaycosmetics ♬ original sound - Doechii Social media screenshot TikTok heads to court: TikTok is taking its challenge against the looming U.S. ban on the app to the Supreme Court on Friday. The hearing comes just days before the law that would force TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell the platform is set to take effect on Jan. 19. President-elect Donald Trump has also urged the Supreme Court to pause the ban until after his Jan. 20 inauguration. Meanwhile, an internal memo shared with Ad Age revealed Sameer Singh, TikTok’s head of ad sales in North America, is leaving the company. Also read: TikTok ad leader exits as app faces potential US ban Meta deletes its AI accounts after backlash: On Friday, Meta removed roughly a dozen Instagram and Facebook accounts the company created for several AI-generated avatars. While the AI accounts have existed across the two platforms since late 2023, they faced a surge of backlash last week after a Meta executive’s Financial Times interview about the AI accounts sparked viral discussions on X, formerly Twitter, about the AI-generated characters. Meta said in a statement that it took down the AI accounts due to an issue that prevented Instagram and Facebook users from blocking the accounts—something several users attempted to do after finding out about them. Here's one of the AI-generated profiles Meta is testing out: pic.twitter.com/qc1vU7lZRP— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 3, 2025 TikTok of the week @lilly_claire8 i didn’t even know it was this bad. #projectpan #underconsumption #fyp#projectpan2025 #organzing #startingprojectpan #projectpaninspo #sephora #makeup #skincare ♬ Vogue (Edit) - Madonna TikTok’s “underconsumption” movement—a rejection of excessive product consumption that took off on the platform in mid-2024—appears to still be going strong in 2025. One of the first TikTok trends to emerge in the new year is “Project Pan,” which challenges users to completely empty all of their beauty products before purchasing new ones, particularly if they own multiple products in the same category (such as dozens of different bottles of lotion). Although “Project Pan” has technically been around since the late 2010s, it’s gained greater traction this year due to the ongoing discussions about underconsumption on TikTok. Over 3,000 videos using the hashtag have been posted to the platform in just the past seven days, according to TikTok data. NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today Threadspotting View on Threads CBS extended its Golden Globes influencer campaign to Threads. The broadcaster sent comedian Adam Rose to the awards show and sponsored a Threads post with a video he filmed on the red carpet. Follow us on social media X Bluesky Instagram LinkedIn YouTube

Creator and influencer trends brand marketers need to know about right now

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