Authentic lands in your inbox every Tuesday, with the deals worth studying, the strategies worth stealing, and the shifts worth watching… all from the people building the brand-creator economy from the inside. If someone forwarded you this newsletter, you can find us at liveauthentic.io.
Trending The Market
CREATOR MARKETING BUILDS ITS MIDDLE LAYER
Courtesy of Dentsu, “Igniting with Creators” at Cannes Lions 2026
Dentsu made two major moves in the creator economy at Cannes Lions, just one week apart. Together, they start to answer a bigger question for brands: how do you make creator marketing easier to plan, build, and scale?
The Big Pitch: Creator marketing is starting to look less like a series of one-off campaigns and more like a system that brands can actually run. While Dentsu’s recent partnerships with CreatorIQ and Made By Us Studios are very different deals, they address two related gaps in how creator marketing operates at scale.
The Fine Print: With CreatorIQ, Dentsu is bringing creator audience data into its own audience planning system, helping brands get smarter about which creators can put them in front of the right people.
Instead of starting with a creator’s category, follower count, or perceived relevance, brands can start with who they need to reach and work backward from there.
CreatorIQ CEO Chris Harrington framed the bigger promise as “a world where creator intelligence flows through the entire marketing stack.”
The goal is to make creator selection look more like media planning, not a separate influencer workflow.
The Made By Us Studios deal covers the content side.
Dentsu Entertainment, the company’s global entertainment division, is partnering with the creator-led studio to develop original shows, films, and formats with creators.
Instead of sponsoring creator IP after it’s already built, brands can help shape it from the first idea.
Tanya Cohen, Co-CEO of Made By Us Studios, put it cleanly: “The traditional model has always been to build a show and then find an audience. We believe the future works in reverse.”
Creators already have communities willing to follow them across formats. That’s what makes the deal interesting for brands: it’s not just about buying into creator culture once it’s moving, but co-creating “shows, films, and formats people actually want,” as Cathy Boxall, Dentsu’s Global Head of Entertainment, described it.
The Analysis: Put the two announcements together, and Dentsu isn’t just selling creator campaigns. It’s trying to make the full workflow easier to run.
CreatorIQ is the data layer. Made By Us Studios is the content layer. One gives brands more discipline around who they work with. The other gives them a cleaner path to build entertainment with those creators from the start.
And Cannes Lions was the perfect place to make that point. The festival has become the announcement stage for creator marketing’s next phase, and Dentsu wasn’t the only company using the moment to show where it’s placing its bets.
Accenture is acquiring Whalar, while CAA and TPG formed Compound Creative Holdings – a $250M company built to acquire and grow creator-led businesses. Different moves, same direction.
In other words, the intermediaries are getting organized. They’re building the data, studio, financing, and distribution pieces needed to turn creator marketing into something brands can plan around, not just experiment with.
For brands, creator marketing is starting to look less like a social add-on and more like infrastructure they will be expected to understand and plug into.
Together with Consumable
Audio For The Outcomes Era
Most media plans treat audio as a few line items: a streaming buy, maybe a podcast sponsorship. But the audio ecosystem is far bigger than that… and much of it is going untouched.
Mobile apps, addressable podcast audiences, and creator-led content extended across platforms — these are spaces where attention is intentional and trust already exists.
Consumable opens up that ecosystem.
The tool helps you reach 210M+ Comscore-verified monthly users across formats and channels.
It’s powered by listener intelligence, precision targeting, and modern identity infrastructure.
Every audio impression is measurable, addressable, and tied to real outcomes.
Consumable lets brands reach audiences wherever they listen, with the same precision and accountability marketers expect from their best digital channels.
Through immersive ad experiences that combine audio, visuals, and interactivity, brands can finally turn listening into engagement and business impact.
Building The Stack
Courtesy of Asael Peña, Unsplash
Starbucks Turns Baristas Into Creators
The employee influencer program is getting more formal. Starbucks is piloting Green Apron Creators, a custom TikTok creator network that lets baristas receive briefs, make content, and share in ad revenue. It’s a smart extension of a workforce that already shapes the brand experience every day. Baristas know the rituals, the product hacks, and the customer behavior better than almost anyone. Now, Starbucks is building a system to turn that proximity into media.
Tubi Brings Creatorverse To The Living Room
Creator programming is moving from the phone to the biggest screen in the house. Tubi is bringing its Creatorverse lineup to Amazon Fire TV, with shows from creators including Bob The Drag Queen, Keith Lee, and Joey Graceffa. The move gives digital-native talent a more traditional viewing environment, while opening the inventory to Amazon DSP advertisers. Different screen, same audience logic.
Balenciaga Bets On Substack Influence
Luxury is finding new media rooms to sit in. Balenciaga became the first fashion brand to join Substack’s native sponsorship program, backing creators directly across fashion, music, wellness, and culture. The move is less about chasing scale and more about showing up in smaller, higher-trust environments. For brands, that may be the real opportunity – not just borrowing attention, but entering the places where audiences already choose to spend it.
How is your brand thinking about creator marketing after Cannes Lions?
Social Updates
Instagram is experimenting with more algorithm controls, which could make recommendations feel more user-led.
LinkedIn is testing suggested feeds around professional interests and trending topics, adding more structure to discovery.
Roblox partnered with Ipsos and EDO to help advertisers measure immersive campaigns against traditional media.
Snapchat introduced new AI ad tools across setup, creative, shopping, Sponsored Snaps, and creator discovery, which could streamline campaign building.
Spotify added new podcast features across Q&A, sponsorships, memberships, and personalized listening, opening up more ways for creators to turn audiences into active communities.
Threads is expanding Live Chats with translations, co-hosts, and more host controls.
Twitch is opening monetization tools to more eligible streamers globally, making the path less exclusive.
WhatsApp is rolling out usernames so users can connect without sharing phone numbers.
YouTube is updating Shorts with clear screen mode, 2x speed controls, and no dislike button, bringing the experience closer to TikTok.
Wrapping Up
That’s the week in the brand-creator economy. We’ll be back in your inbox next Tuesday.
Programming for the Authentic Forum is well underway, and the room we're building in New York this November will reflect the people actually doing this work – which brings us to you.
We want to hear from the people behind real brand-creator partnerships. What you built, what made it work, and what the industry can learn from it.
If that’s you, share your work at the link below for consideration. The partnerships that are a good fit for what we're programming will earn an exclusive speaking slot at Authentic in New York this fall.
Submit here: authenticcall.aivanta.io. Entries close August 1.
– The Authentic Team