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. Also read: TikTok creators call out shady brands New deals Microsoft and Keith Lee: TikTok food critic Keith Lee is no stranger to teaming up with brands in the food and restaurant industry, with previous brand partners including PepsiCo, Pizza Hut and Chipotle (though his recent criticism of the latter kicked off a wave of backlash against the restaurant chain). Now, Lee is expanding into the tech space with a new collaboration with Microsoft on a video series called “The Reheat.” The series will feature Lee revisiting several Black-owned restaurants he’s previously reviewed on his TikTok channel and connecting them with Microsoft’s AI tools, such as its AI chatbot, Copilot. @microsoft introducing The Reheat with Keith Lee, Presented by Microsoft. 🔥 @Keith Lee @Pretty Soul Kitchen @brunchaholics_ @Monday | Restaurant + Bar #Microsoft #FYP #KeithLee #TheReheatWithKeithLee ♬ original sound - Microsoft Supergoop and Sarita Cuervo, Melodie Perez and more: Coachella isn’t the only music festival where brands are showing up with influencer partners in tow. Supergoop was one of several brands that activated at New York City’s Governors Ball over the weekend in a bid to connect with the festival’s large Gen Z audience, amplifying those efforts through partnerships with Gen Z beauty influencers including Sarita Cuervo and Melodie Perez. Several other brands teamed up with creators to extend their Gov Ball activations to larger Gen Z audiences, too, including Dunkin’ and CoverGirl. Stella Artois, meanwhile, brought its ongoing partnership with YouTube interview series “Hot Ones” to the festival. View this post on Instagram A post shared by SARAH CUERVO (@sarita.cu) See Ad Age’s Tech Power List honoring marketing leaders Van Leeuwen and Sabrina Carpenter: Speaking of Gov Ball, ice cream brand Van Leeuwen is collaborating with one of the festival’s headliners, Sabrina Carpenter, on a new flavor inspired by her mega-popular “Espresso,” which much of the internet has dubbed the “song of the summer.” Carpenter announced the partnership over the weekend in an Instagram story that quickly circulated among the pop star’s fans across X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, among other platforms. Posts from the sabrinacarpenterfans community on Reddit Gorton’s Seafood and Carly Barett, Bodie the Golden and more: Gorton’s is partnering with a slew of creators across the U.S., as well as several of its own employees, to perform 175 “acts of joy” in honor of its 175th anniversary, all featuring Gorton’s sunshine-yellow brand color. The campaign launched yesterday across TikTok and Instagram and has thus far included videos such as elementary school teacher Carly Barett decorating her classroom door with yellow construction paper and “petfluencer” Bodie the Golden gifting a new yellow chew toy to one of his golden retriever friends. @gortonsseafood SPREADING SOME JOY 🤩 We performed 175 surprise acts of joy in celebration of our big anniversary—bringing smiles to those near and far. 💛 #Gortons175 ♬ original sound - Gorton’s Seafood Facebook and Tiff Baira: Facebook head Tom Alison recently announced the platform is experiencing an influx of young adult users, who Alison defines as those between ages 18 and 29. According to Alison, many of those young adults returning to Facebook are heading to its in-app dating platform, Facebook Dating, which has seen a 20% jump in daily active users over the past year. To promote its dating feature, Facebook partnered with Tiff Baira, host of matchmaking video series “Street Hearts,” to set up attendees on blind dates at a recent Facebook event. @streetheartsnyc We checked-in to @Facebook Dating to poke ❤️’s and make some #FacebookIRL matches. #ad #FacebookPartner ♬ Facebook IRL - Street Hearts with Tiff Baira Social media screenshot YouTube pilots new generative AI features: YouTube last week began testing two generative AI tools with a select group of Shorts creators—its “Dream Screen” feature, (announced at the “Made on YouTube” event last September), which allows creators to generate video backgrounds using AI, and a new “✨Topics” tool that leverages AI to pull out recurring themes from the comments sections of creators’ Shorts. And yes, the sparkle emoji is part of the feature’s official name. Instagram rolls out Broadcast Channel updates: Instagram announced several new features included in Broadcast Channels, the platform’s one-to-many messaging tool. Instagram users can now host livestreams exclusive to members of their Broadcast Channel and customize their Broadcast Channel theme, among other updates. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators) Pinterest launches a new global campaign: Last week, just a few days after Snap launched the latest phase of its anti-social media campaign, Pinterest rolled out its own marketing push. The global in-house effort uses surreal imagery to highlight several fashion and beauty trends identified by the platform. Also read: Pinterest’s campaign makes surreal dreams a reality TikTok introduces messaging “Streaks”: TikTok appears to be encouraging users to leverage direct messaging on the platform with its test of a new “Streaks” feature modeled after Snapchat’s feature of the same name. Like on Snapchat, Streaks rewards users who message one another for at least three days in a row with a “Streak Badge” that appears in their private chat. If the two users don’t interact for 24 hours, however, their messaging streak will break and the badge will disappear. TikTok of the week @drkayla_md Replying to @Ali Marie #greenscreen THE LONG AWAITED UPDATE!!! Thank you everyone, i have had the best time reading all the comments. You all are so sweet!! And follow along for an unboxing video! #prada #unboxing #trend #girls #pradavideo ♬ original sound - kayla Earlier this month, TikTok user @drkayla_md posted a video with a screenshot of a text conversation between her and her husband, asking him how many likes her video needed to get in order for him to buy her a $2,350 Prada purse. He responded “50K. And Prada has to comment.” Her video ended up receiving over 10 million likes and 65 million views—and though Prada itself didn’t leave a comment, several of the top comments on her video are from Prada employees and dozens of other brands, from Burt’s Bees to Pizza Hut. Sephora commented, too, writing “We sell Prada Beauty, does that count?” Don’t worry, though—even without Prada commenting on the video, her husband still bought her the bag, which she announced in the above video. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Threadspotting Post by @eosproducts View on Threads Over the past week, several brands, including eos and Jersey Mike’s, indicated their Threads posts were being made by interns. It’s unclear whether the writers of those posts were truly interns—but the trend faced some backlash on X after freelance social media marketer Jon-Stephen Stansel shared a screenshot of a handful of the “intern’s” Threads posts. 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Creator and influencer trends brand marketers need to know about right now

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