Creators are driving culture. While many brands are still building their TikTok strategies, creators are already shaping what millions of people talk about, care about, and buy. They're setting trends, defining what's cool, determining which brands get to participate in cultural conversations and which ones get mocked for trying too hard.
Here's why that shift matters: people don't trust brands the way they trust creators. When CeraVe generated 15.4 billion impressions before their Super Bowl ad even aired, they did it by partnering with hundreds of TikTok creators who seeded the narrative and got people talking. When Chick-fil-A shut down their viral employee-creator, Shake Shack partnered with her within days and drove meaningful new customer trials.
The difference isn't budget or production value. It's understanding that creators are cultural intermediaries, they can grant brands conditional access to their communities, but only when brands trust their cultural intelligence instead of trying to override it.
According to research on creator-led ads, content from creators achieves 70% higher click-through rates than traditional brand ads. The performance gap is interesting. But the trust gap? That's the real story.
Later's 2025 State of Influencer Marketing Report found that 70% of brands now prioritize ongoing creator partnerships over one-time activations. The brands systematizing their creator partnerships are building compounding advantages by recognizing that it requires a different approach than traditional media channels.
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The speed problem is actually a cultural intelligence problem
Yes, some TikTok trends peak in 48 hours. But culture operates at multiple timescales, and many brands struggle to navigate all of them effectively.
Viral moments come and go in 48 hours. Emerging signals like "little treat culture" or the Jet2 holiday phenomenon build over weeks and months. Then you have long-term cultural forces: the shifts that define generations. Millennials' delayed timelines for marriage, home ownership, kids. Gen Z's demand for radical transparency.
Creators understand culture at all these levels. They spot the signals early, know which viral moments connect to bigger shifts and which ones are just noise. They understand the long-game cultural transformations that determine how people think about wellness, authenticity, success, travel, identity.
Even sophisticated brand teams struggle here, not because of capability, but because of structure. When approval workflows take 9+ days, and planning runs on quarterly cycles, you're too slow for viral moments, too rigid for emerging signals, and too siloed to understand the forces shaping how audiences think.
The real issue isn't timing. It's trying to speak directly to audiences without the cultural proximity creators naturally have. Creators already live in these spaces. They know the nuances, the inside jokes, what's authentic and what's cringe. That's not something you can brief an agency on.
What cultural misreading looks like
Bumble's "Celibacy is Not the Answer" billboard campaign is a textbook example of what happens when brands try to comment on culture without understanding it. A dating app built on empowering women dismissed personal choices around sexuality, right after removing its signature "women message first" feature. The backlash was immediate. Critics called it tone-deaf, pointing out the timing amid reproductive rights debates. Bumble pulled the campaign and apologized, admitting they "misread the room."
The pattern: no creator input in strategy, no cultural testing, traditional advertising thinking applied to moments requiring genuine human connection.
When Chick-fil-A employee Miri organically generated 3.7 million likes through daily meal reviews, their PR team shut it down. Employee handbook rules, they said. They had something most brands pay millions to acquire, a prolific, authentic creator with detailed product knowledge creating content for free. Their response? Enforce policy.
Shake Shack spotted the opportunity, reached out via DM within days, and partnered with her for content that exceeded 1 million views. VP of Brand Marketing Mike McGarry confirmed it drove meaningful customer trials. The partnership launched on a Sunday, when Chick-fil-A is famously closed, for Shake Shack's Chicken Sundays campaign.
Cultural agility matters. But agility without intelligence means you'll get rejected by the communities you're trying to reach.
How creators function as translators
Creators do four things brands can't replicate internally:
1. They select and curate, deciding which brands even deserve their community's attention.
2. They legitimize participation by vouching that you're credible here.
3. They translate your brand messages into the language, references, and contexts their community actually uses.
4. They interpret how what you're selling relates to their audience's actual lives and identities.
This isn't just influence. It's cultural intermediation.
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called people who bridge production and consumption "cultural intermediaries", those who shape taste and meaning. Creators occupy exactly this space. Douglas Holt's research explains why it matters: social media "transformed how culture works" by uniting previously isolated communities into influential groups that "produce their own content so well that companies simply can't compete."
Creators who are legitimate members of these communities can grant brands conditional access. They vouch that participation is welcome and authentic. Without that vouching, audiences see you as just another brand trying to insert yourself where you don't belong.
The data backs this up. Creator-led ads achieve 70% higher click-through rates than traditional brand ads. Why? Creators have already built the trust that brands are trying to buy their way into.
A simple framework for showing up authentically
Before entering any cultural moment, apply these filters:
Does it align with brand values? Not your stated values. Your actual ones — the ones visible in how you operate, what you prioritize, who you hire. If there's a gap between what you claim and what you do, culture will find it.
Will your audience see you as credible here? Magnum ice cream can authentically participate in Pride conversations because the brand advocates for pleasure, love, and individual expression. That's genuine cultural fit, not performative participation. Ask: do you have functional relevance (product connection) or meaningful relevance (brand DNA alignment)?
Can you add something meaningful? If your contribution is just "we exist and want attention," that's not enough. What insight, perspective, or value can you bring that wouldn't exist without your participation? If the answer is nothing, strategic silence is your friend.
The operational piece that makes this possible
None of this works without structural changes.
CeraVe's Super Bowl campaign succeeded because they built it earned-first. They partnered with hundreds of creators, including hero influencers Haley Kalil, Bobbi Althoff, Caleb Simpson, and dermatologist Dr. Muneeb Shah, to seed a "fake news" narrative weeks before the Super Bowl. Kalil "caught" Michael Cera signing CeraVe bottles. Althoff "interviewed" him before he walked off when asked about his involvement. The creators led the storytelling in their authentic styles.
Result: 15.4 billion impressions, with 9 billion from earned media. Over 400 influencers organically joined the conversation. Adam Kornblum, SVP at CeraVe parent company L'Oréal, explained the philosophy: "It wasn't really about an ad, it was about building a world, earned first, so when the ad hits, the story is out there."
The key ingredients? Pre-approval frameworks that empowered creators. Long-term partnership structures that built trust. And the restraint to know that brand demands compromise the authenticity that makes creator content work.
According to Later's 2025 State of Influencer Marketing Report, brands running 10+ influencer activations annually focused on depth over volume, working strategically with fewer than 20 creators per campaign. The sweet spot? Partnerships with 5-19 creators where relationships could deepen and content quality could improve.
Looking ahead
The influencer marketing industry grew from $1.4 billion in 2014 to $32.55 billion in 2025. That's a 33%+ compound annual growth rate driven by fundamental shifts in consumer trust.
As Later's research shows, 47% of brands increased their influencer marketing investment in 2025 despite economic uncertainty. They're treating it as infrastructure now, not experimentation. The brands that systematized their creator partnerships are building compounding advantages.
For everyone else, the window is still open.
Culture will keep operating at multiple timescales, 48-hour viral moments, emerging signals building over months, and decade-long generational shifts. Creators will keep understanding these layers in ways that are difficult to build internally without a dedicated cultural intelligence infrastructure. The opportunity is in building the systems and partnerships that enable authentic participation in the cultural moments that matter to your audiences.
Creators aren't just content producers. They're cultural translators who can help brands enter conversations they haven't earned independent access to.
The best time to build these partnerships was last year. The second-best time is now.
Ready to build creator partnerships that drive real cultural impact? Book a call with Later's services team to explore what a strategy built for your brand could look like.
