What brands are still getting wrong when working with diverse creators

Too many brands continue to treat partnerships with creators of color, LGBTQ+ creators or other marginalized creators as an opportunity to tick off a box rather than turning to those creators out of genuine interest in their content or internet persona. And, when brands collaborate with diverse creators, they often heavily sanitize that sponsored content to fit into narrow brand guidelines, creators and influencer marketing experts shared at Ad Age's NextGen Marketing Summit last week. “I’ve had many experiences where brands have been like, ‘Can she be not as loud?’ or ‘Can she not say this?’” said Kenyan content creator and “confidence queen” Achieng Agutu during the panel on Thursday. “Honey, you came here for the sauce, right? You came to me for my value. You understand why you’re stepping into Achieng Agutu’s DMs or emails. If you wanted to go and get another creator who is less loud and less vivacious and less amazing, honey, there’s less out there.” Agutu, who has been a full-time creator for roughly four years, highlighted an instance when a brand urged her to edit a sponsored post in which she said “skint care” rather than “skin care” because viewers wouldn’t understand why she was referring to the term that way. But she pushed back and told the brand, “My audience will, and they’ll buy the product and they will love it.” Agutu didn’t name the brand, but she made a sponsored TikTok post for Estée Lauder in April 2024, referencing “skint care” in the caption. @noordinarynoire Makeup and SkinT care all in one bottle?? Yeah I’m already lining up😮💨I’m really obsessing about this @Estée Lauder Futurist Skin Tint serum! 😍 Have y’all tried it out before?? #esteepartner #ad #FuturistMakeup #MyShadeMyStory ♬ original sound - Achieng Agutu | Confidence 👑 Julian Andrew, founder of talent management firm Talentiish, shared a similar situation where a brand partnering with one of his clients, drag queen Kevin Aviance, asked Aviance to name several celebrities he considered “mother,” a Gen Z slang term used to describe iconic pop culture figures. When Aviance handed his list (which included Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Honey Dijon, a DJ and producer) over to the brand, it initially swapped those names out for largely white female celebrities such as Jennifer Coolidge and Toni Collette, Andrew said. “To the, I’m sorry, 10 white girls on the brand side, that’s relatable to you, but it’s not relatable to my client, who’s a 50-something-year-old Black man who grew up in the Ballroom community in New York City,” he said. Partnering with diverse creators requires “being very careful around what the word ‘relatable’ is and what that means … and not dictating what the talent’s experiences should be.” Also: How the war on DEI is changing 2025 media market outlooks Censoring Black or LGBTQ+ creators like Agutu and Aviance isn’t just unethical—it’s also bad for business, said Shreya Mukherjee, chief strategy officer for PR firm MSL U.S. MSL research revealed that diverse creators are often expected to “not be their authentic selves” when working with brands, she said. But limiting what a creator is allowed to say defeats the purpose of partnering with that creator to “resonate with [their] audience” and will typically cause that sponsored content to perform poorly, she said. See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here Relinquishing some creative control to creators of color is even more of an “economic imperative” for brands targeting Gen Z consumers, Mukherjee added, pointing out that roughly half of U.S. Gen Zers identify as people of color. Creators of color, especially Black creators, also remain chronically underpaid compared to their white peers, Mukherjee said. White creators earn 29% more than creators of color as a whole and 35% more than Black creators, specifically, according to an MSL study. Some of the biggest factors perpetuating that pay gap are the ongoing lack of pay transparency in the influencer marketing industry and the fact that brands compensate creators of color with gifts instead of cash more often than they do white creators. Agutu brought up her ongoing work with T.J. Maxx as an example of a brand that trusts her to produce content that will perform well with her audience, rather than requiring her to follow strict brand guidelines. “They made it a goal for them to create a relationship with me, with my team, to let me know that I am the value, [and] that there is an importance in our relationship,” she said. “And right now, if I post about T.J. Maxx anything, the girls are buying, right? The girls are excited about it.” @noordinarynoire The BEST @TJ Maxx find😭😍😍😍😍 A cute Jacqmustekat from and yeahhhhhhh you cant talk to me any single HOW🗣️ @Jacquemus #fyp #tjmaxx #tjmaxxfinds ♬ original sound - Achieng Agutu | Confidence 👑 Agutu’s sales impact has extended to Kenya, where she has a large following. Many of her followers have purchased products from U.S. brands such as Topicals, Hanifa and Fenty Beauty based on her recommendations, she said. “I think if brands are in the business of making money, then they ought to be inclusive,” Agutu added.

What brands are still getting wrong when working with diverse creators

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