For years, digital marketing treated content creators like walking banners.
They paid for a post, measured reach, analyzed engagement — and life went on.

But this underestimates the most powerful asset of the new creative economy: the creator's ability to influence not only the audience but the product itself, the brand's language, and the culture surrounding it.

Creators are not just media channels.
They are laboratories of narrative, style, trend, and strategy.
They shape desires, create vocabulary, test hypotheses in real-time. And when well integrated, they deliver something that even the best agency cannot achieve alone: relevance with depth.

The question every brand should ask itself in 2025 is not "which creator has the most followers?"
It is:

"Who is shaping conversations that my product should lead?"

Understanding the creator as product and not just as media is turning the key from superficiality to building a real brand.

In the upcoming sections, we will show how this translates into practice — and why brands that see this double value are racing ahead.

Creators as media: the model that was born with sponsored content

The first big leap in the creator economy was realizing that attention was no longer with the vehicles — it was with the people.
Thus, sponsored content emerged: brands renting the attention of creators, much like buying ad space in a magazine. Only this time, it came with more charisma, more intimacy, and often, more results.

This model — the creator as channel — is based on three pillars:

• Reach: how many people will see this brand?

• Engagement: how many will like, comment, share?

• Conversion: how many will click, buy, download?

This is the game of media, with the aesthetics and timing of social networks.

It’s no small feat. Creators deliver impressive numbers:

• A creator with 10,000 followers can already influence more sales than a poorly targeted paid campaign on Google Ads

• Organic posts have already generated tens of thousands of dollars in direct sales, as we saw in the panel with Ashwin and Tony Bravo

This model works. But it is limited when you see the creator only through this lens.

Because the creator can be more than media.
They can be idea, product, language, strategy.

And that’s what we will discuss in the next section.

Creators as product: when the creator becomes strategy

When you hire a creator just to post, you are tapping only a fraction of what they can offer.
But when you involve this creator in the creation, conception, or evolution of the product, you are accessing a much deeper layer: the cultural intelligence that only those who live the algorithm understand.

Creators as creative consultants

• Toni Bravo: not only the face of the brand but an active voice in product development, campaigns, and tone of voice

• Ashwinn Krishnaswamy and consumer brands: direct influence on branding and strategic positioning

• Creators as specialists in platform culture — something many agencies are still trying to decipher from the outside

Creators as product designers

• Alix Earle co-creating cosmetics with brands

• Creators working on packaging design, UX, activation, and visual storytelling

• When the creator understands the audience better than the marketing team, they stop being media — they become R&D

Creators as brand language

• Commercials with TikTok aesthetics, fast cuts, immediate hooks

• McDonald's making app icons visible on TV to reinforce the content’s origin

• Royal Caribbean sending creators on a 9-month trip to create buzz — and associate the brand with culture, not just tourism

In this context, the creator is not an influencer.
They are a creative asset that delivers differentiation, something that brands desperately seek in a sea of identical campaigns.

In the next section, we will show why this key shift is also related to the notion of IP (intellectual property) — and how this completely repositions the value of a creator.

Creators as IP: influence that becomes an asset

For a long time, creators lived by renting attention.
Today, the most strategic are learning to build assets — products, brands, platforms, and experiences that do not rely on contracts, algorithms, or briefs.

This movement is the real professionalization of the creator economy:

Creators moving from being “media” to becoming proprietary IP.

Cases that show this shift:

• Emma Chamberlain, who transitioned from youtuber to owner of a global coffee brand with original branding, unique aesthetics, and direct distribution

• Ryan Holiday, who turned the Daily Stoic channel into a business with newsletters, events, a store, courses, and symbolic products (like his famous coin)

• Taylor Swift, who re-recorded her own albums to retain rights to her music — and showed an entire generation the value of owning what you create

Creators who understand the value of their IP build more resilient brands.
They have margin, narrative, and freedom to dictate their own game.

Moreover: they are creators that brands are starting to respect as business partners, not just “charismatic distribution channels.”

When the audience becomes a community, content becomes a brand, and the creator becomes IP — you are no longer doing marketing. You are creating value.

In the next section, we will show what all this means for those on the brand side.

The impact for brands: what changes when you see the creator as an asset and not just as media

When a brand sees the creator merely as a channel, all it gains is reach.
But when it understands the creator as a creative asset, what it gains is vision, language, legitimacy, and differentiation.

This change in perception requires a change in posture:

How you think differently:

• From “how many views does he deliver?” to “how does this person expand my brand’s perception?”

• From “what do I need him to say?” to “what can only he say about me?”

• From “let’s do a sponsored post” to “let’s create something that only makes sense with this voice”

This transforms:

• The way you write the brief

• The way you measure performance

• The type of contract you propose

• And the creator's place in your process (from the end of the chain to the center)

Creators are not interchangeable. They are not media slots.
They are strategic assets in a saturated market of brands that sound alike.

The companies that are growing the most in this new landscape have already understood this.
And they are redesigning their way of choosing, hiring, and collaborating with creators.

Creators are not media. They are brands. And those who understand this grow.

The creator economy is not a content playground.
It is an ecosystem of influence, culture, and real business.

Brands that see creators merely as media channels are falling behind.
Because the creators who truly drive opinion, desire, and community are those who act as much more: consultants, strategists, entrepreneurs, and designers of attention.

Understanding that a creator delivers media and product changes everything.

It changes the way you choose who to relate to.
It changes the type of project you propose.
It changes the value you create — and how the market responds to it.

And for that, more than creativity is needed. Structure is required.

Are you hiring a creator to post, or to think together?

DUX exists to strengthen the creative economy with capital at the speed of culture.
We anticipate creators' and brands' receivables so you don't miss the timing of the right idea, the right collaboration, or the strategic turnaround your operation needs.

Learn more on our website.