Inspired by the TV upfronts, the inaugural Creator Upfronts brought together over 400 creators, talent agents and marketers for a two-day conference in Los Angeles this week, organized by Forbes and Walmart Creator, the retail giant’s affiliate platform.

Nearly 24 creators pitched potential brand partners in the audience. Those pitching ranged from people who have been building online communities before the term “influencer” even existed—including comedy creator Jesus Garcia (aka MrChuy), YouTuber and magician Justin Flom—to creator economy newcomers such as TikTok comedian Grace Amaku and travel creator and accessibility advocate Marcela Marañon. One presenter, Mylene Mae, has been a full-time creator for just over a year. 

During the presentations, each creator shared a two-minute sizzle reel that included clips of their typical social content, examples of previous brand partnerships, the channels they produce content for—including podcasts or newsletters in addition to social platforms—metrics such as their average engagement rate and overall audience size, as well as their other lines of business, such as brands they’ve founded. The Forbes team then peppered each creator with follow-up questions in a five-minute Q&A session after their videos wrapped.

The debut of the Creator Upfronts reflects advertisers’ growing investment in influencers in their pursuit of Gen Z dollars. Nearly all (88%) of Gen Z adults today follow at least one creator, according to Morning Consult data. Almost one in four (22%) follow more than 50. The creator economy will be valued at $480 billion by 2027, nearly double its $250 billion market size in 2023, with brand deals fueling roughly 70% of the market’s revenue growth, according to Goldman Sachs estimates.

“This is the fastest-growing, hottest part of the marketing industry,” William White, senior VP and U.S. chief marketing officer at Walmart, said during a panel between creator presentations. “We want to be a part of it because this is a big part of our growth, and we wanted to have the opportunity to announce to creators that we’re here to play.”

As of June, the Walmart Creator program had amassed tens of thousands of creators since its beta launch in early 2023, with over 1,000 new creators joining the affiliate platform each month, White said at the time. 

The idea for the Creator Upfronts arose from a conversation between White and Seth Matlin, managing director of Forbes’ CMO Network, in early 2023, White said onstage. When Matlin proposed the event, White “didn’t have to think about” whether he wanted to partner with Forbes to organize the conference. “Creators are the lifeblood of social commerce, and we wanted to get closer to that,” he said. 

A creator economy milestone

Forbes envisioned the Creator Upfronts as an opportunity for “both the creators in the room to learn, and also for the brands in the room to learn and maybe find good matches” in terms of potential creator collaborators, Steven Bertoni, assistant managing editor of Forbes’ Founders team, told Ad Age. 

The 400 or so conference attendees were almost evenly split between creators and marketers, Bertoni said. Social media and influencer marketers from brands such as AT&T, United Airlines, Hulu, American Eagle and Lululemon attended, along with influencer agency executives such as Gabe Gordon, CEO of Reach Agency, and Neil Waller, co-founder and co-CEO of Whalar Group, which also sponsored the event. 

Both Gordon and Waller said they view the Creator Upfronts as a significant milestone in influencer marketing’s ongoing integration into the traditional ad industry.

“I don’t think anyone doesn’t know the term creator economy or think about it as a tactic,” Waller said, but events such as the Creator Upfronts and the creator programming track at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity “help slightly older marketers see the importance of it, because they don’t live and breathe this stuff every day.” 

Opinions of the conference among creators in the audience were mixed. Many of those who gave upfront presentations thanked Forbes for giving them a platform to highlight their social content and other business endeavors. But few, if any, of the creators at the conference—both the presenters and those in the audience—were familiar with the TV upfronts or the structure of that event when they applied to participate in the Creator Upfronts. 

Presenters were advised to effectively create a “movie trailer” that showcases their social content and how they work with brands, Mae, one of the presenters, told Ad Age. Bertoni said Forbes provided the creators with a list of recommended elements to include in their videos, such as who their audience is, what their creative process involves and what sets them apart from their fellow creators. 

Also read: Creator and influencer trends for brand marketers

But many of the creators in the audience lacked the context that the upfronts, which made up the majority of the conference programming, would revolve around creators pitching themselves to brands. Joy Ofodu, a voice actor and content creator, told Ad Age she didn’t see the value for creators in sitting through those presentations, and had assumed the creators’ presentations would feature insights and advice for creators, rather than spiels aimed at marketers. 

“It’s great to see my friends and peers onstage, but I don’t feel they’re being prompted with anything I couldn’t glean from their public profiles,” Ofodu wrote in a Threads post on the first day of the Creator Upfronts. “Everyone here has 50k+ followers as a barrier to entry and already knows the basics.”

Creator entrepreneurs

One clear takeaway for both aspiring creators and marketers emerged from the upfront presentations: the vast majority of the roughly two dozen creators who took the stage have evolved their personal brands beyond social media, with many launching podcasts, newsletters or even their own brands.

Flom, for example, capitalized on his post-upfront Q&A session to promote the new airbrush kit he had launched in 2,000 U.S. Walmart stores that same day. Amanda Li-Paige, a model and lifestyle influencer, stocked the bar tops around the event space with cans of her iced tea brand, Kirra. In her presentation, Li-Page emphasized her desire to facilitate collaborations between Kirra and other brands, not just partner with brands to promote their products. 

Ashley Alexander, a lifestyle creator who launched matcha brand Nami in July, walked creators through her experience starting the brand in a breakout session sponsored by Whalar, whose talent agency, Sixteenth, represents her. 

“[Matcha] is something that is really a staple in my life that I love so much,” she said. “I was like, ‘What if I can kind of diversify a little bit and have my own business?’ And then when I looked into it even further, I realized that … the matcha industry is very male-dominated. And I wanted to make my own mark.” Last month, roughly a year and a half after she first began developing Nami, over 1,300 consumers flocked to her one-day brand pop-up in New York. 

Even Khaby Lame, the most-followed user on TikTok with 162.7 million followers, promoted his upcoming spy-themed comedy film “00Khaby” in a rare speaking appearance as the closing fireside of the Creator Upfronts. Lame also described his journey from a factory worker and dishwasher to a famed silent comedian during the conversation.

Aspiring creators “should not care about making money … because if you are just too in a rush to make money, you’re not going to make it” as a creator, Lame told the audience. He started making comedy videos on TikTok to cheer up viewers during the first months of the pandemic—they just got a bit more attention than he expected.