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. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs New deals Procter & Gamble, Group Black, Tubi and Khaby Lame: Lame, the most-followed TikTok user for more than a year with over 162 million followers, jumped from the “For You” page to streaming platform Tubi with his new three-episode mini-series “Khaby is Coming to America” (a nod to the 1988 film “Coming to America”). The series follows Lame as he explores the cultures of various U.S. cities to decide where he wants to live, featuring cameos from celebrities including Alicia Keys and David Beckham. It was co-produced by the media company Group Black and Procter & Gamble, with product placement of P&G brands such as Tide and Crest scattered across the series. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Khabane Lame (@khaby00) T-Mobile and TikTok’s “fully conscious baby”: Social media has interchangeably referred to 1-year-old Kate Wise as “fully conscious baby” and “the Four Seasons baby” since her viral moment earlier this year. But her fans might have to drop the latter nickname for the internet-famous infant now that Wise and her family have expanded their brand partnerships beyond the Four Seasons through a new collaboration with T-Mobile. The T-Mobile-sponsored video continues the social media storyline of Wise being especially sophisticated for her age and features the 1-year-old donning a tuxedo (one she received in her family’s previous partnership with the Four Seasons) and “giving a presentation” to her family on T-Mobile travel perks. Read more about the viral baby here. @sobrizzle VIP Status? Check ✅ @T-Mobile☝🏼💼 #TMobilePartner ♬ original sound - Stefanie O’Brien More from Ad Age: Agencies reinvent their social teamsMLB and Alex Cooper: Cooper, host of the wildly popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast and founder of the Unwell Network (the production arm of her Gen Z media company Trending), hosted a fan meetup at Fenway Park during a Red Sox game last week. Hundreds of Cooper’s fans, known as the “Daddy Gang,” purchased tickets for the “Big Al’s Fenway Takeover” event, which also featured two other creators and podcast hosts with shows on the Unwell Network—Harry Jowsey and the newly added Hallie Batchelder. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Alex Cooper (@alexandracooper) Amazon and Megan Thee Stallion: Amazon last week recruited Grammy Award-winning rapper Megan Thee Stallion to promote its upcoming Prime Day sales event later this month. She produced a new song, “It’s Prime Day,” for the partnership. It is featured in an ad where she imagines other roles Prime Day could help her achieve, such as “Megan Thee Cosplayer” and “Megan Thee Chef.” Amazon’s Prime Day ad campaign will also feature a slew of influencers, many of whom attended Amazon’s brand trip to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, such as Monet McMichael and Meredith Duxbury. Read more: Megan Thee Stallion creates a song for Amazon Prime Day @theestallion Thee Prime Day is July 16-17 HOTTIES! I can be ANYTHING I want, and y’all can too! ♬ It's Prime Day - Megan Thee Stallion Blueland and Pattie Gonia: Eco-friendly cleaning brand Blueland yesterday teamed up with environmental activist and drag queen Pattie Gonia to promote its new “Pointless Plastic” campaign, which highlights ways consumers can reduce their consumption of single-use plastics to combat pollution. The campaign includes a social media challenge that encourages users to tag Blueland in an Instagram photo of their favorite way to swap single-use plastics for more sustainable alternatives—and, for each post, the brand will donate $10 to environmental organization Beyond Plastics. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pattie Gonia (@pattiegonia) Social media screenshot TikTok challenges Amazon Prime Day: On the heels of Amazon unveiling its Prime Day ad campaign last week, TikTok announced the launch of its own upcoming sales event, “Deals For You Days.” Starting on July 9, beauty brands—including L’Oreal Paris, Maybelline New York, Too Faced and NYX Professional Makeup—and kitchenware brands Our Place and Zwilling USA will offer sales exclusively on TikTok Shop, and creators such as Tati Westbrook will host live shopping streams on the platform. @sellwithtiktokshop_us Attention sellers! Don't miss out on Deals For You Days, one of TikTok Shop's BIGGEST campaigns of the year, running July 9th-11th. The perfect time to boost your sales and reach new customers. Head to Seller Center today to sign up and register products by June 28th. 📣 ♬ original sound - sellwithtiktokshop_us Instagram underscores the importance of shares: The number of times a given Instagram post has been shared will now appear along the platform’s standard likes and comments counters. Instagram began testing the share count metric on posts in late 2023 and appears to have rolled the feature out to more users last week. The update follows comments from Instagram head Adam Mosseri about the increased importance of a post’s share count as a performance metric. In May, for example, he said in an Instagram story that shares are “more important than watch time or like and comment counts.” Instagram also released the second episode of its “Close Friends Only” podcast (produced with Cooper’s Unwell Network) six months after the series’ December 2023 premiere. In the new episode, singer-songwriter and actress Reneé Rapp and Rachel Sennott, a comedian, actress and screenwriter, discussed how an Instagram DM prompted their first meeting and teased upcoming projects. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Instagram (@instagram) Pinterest boards cross over to new platforms: Pinterest users can now transform their collections of posts on the platform, called Pinterest boards, into short videos they can share to other social platforms. The new “board sharing” feature was inspired by Pinterest’s growing Gen Z users and their use of Pinterest boards to curate their different fashion or beauty “aesthetics” or visualize their future vacations, according to a blog post announcing the new feature. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pinterest (@pinterest) TikTok of the week @crawly_possessed Poor knights 😡 Next time I’ll bring my squad ⚔️ ♬ sonido original - sky For some TikTok users, the latest person to jump from their “For You” feeds to widespread internet fame is “Hawk Tuah Girl,” who went viral for her lewd response to a man-on-the-street interview question. But the niche TikTok user that’s been dominating the FYPs of other users (including me) is @crawly_possessed, who last week began dressing as a wizard in a green robe and skittering around malls in a crouched position. Each video in the wizard saga revolves around @crawly_possessed attempting to sneak behind the checkout counters of stores such as H&M and fast food chains including McDonald’s and Burger King, then waving a pink bug-catching net and grumbling unintelligibly when employees inevitably kick him out. Despite (or perhaps because of) the bizarre concept of @crawly_possessed’s TikTok series, each video has racked up millions of views. His most popular episode currently sits at nearly 68 million views and has amassed over 11 million likes. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Threadspotting Post by @fentybeauty View on Threads While several brands posted about last week’s presidential debate on their social channels, Fenty Beauty’s Threads post in the aftermath of the debate was the most concise—and the most amusing. Mental health app Calm also made a series of posts on Threads both during and after the debate, encouraging its followers to take deep breaths and turn off or walk away from their TVs if they felt too anxious. 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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