Creators Now Co-Develop Products, Not Just Post About Them

What the data shows

Creators just got promoted from campaign accessory to product strategist, and the numbers prove it. According to a Digiday+ Research report based on a survey of 125 brand and agency professionals, 88% of respondents now work with influencers on seasonal campaigns and 78% do so for product launches. That's not a rounding error. That's a budget line moving from top-of-funnel noise into the actual product roadmap.

Home goods brand Ruggable didn't just run ads with online chef Dan Pelosi. It co-created a product collection with him after his page on ShopMy, the platform that lets creators curate and monetize product recommendations, outperformed expectations. Ruggable's CMCO Lauren Sherman-Kaoud said ShopMy let the brand scale its influencer program 20 times over, then use that performance data to justify deeper collaborations.

Why marketers should care this week

The strategic shift is in who gets picked and why. Milani Cosmetics CMO Jeremy Lowenstein now sorts creators into three functional buckets: those who shape brand perception, those who educate (think makeup artists demonstrating technique), and affiliate-focused creators driving livestream and commerce sales. That's a targeting framework you can steal this quarter instead of treating all creators as interchangeable reach units.

Strava runs its creator program with a stricter filter: participants must authentically use the app, often pulled from a network with pro designations like Olympians or a formal verification process, said CMO Louisa Wee. If you're auditing your martech stack this budget season, add a line item for creator vetting criteria, not just spend.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents still work exclusively with external influencers, while 29% blend external and in-house talent, a split worth tracking as brands debate where creator budgets sit relative to broader 2026 budget shifts across channels. The move is this: audit whether your current creator roster maps to Lowenstein's three buckets, or whether you're still buying awareness when the market has moved to product development.