Ad Age Insider

Gillian Follett, social marketing and influencer reporter at Ad Age, breaks down how brand-creator partnerships have evolved in 2026, from creators taking on strategic roles in product development and marketing decisions to equity deals reshaping the influencer economy. The conversation covers creator advisory boards at holding companies, the rise of creator-founded agencies producing social-first branded content and the growing use of livestreaming creators in brand campaigns. It also gets into an emerging trend: brands working with creators to optimize content for AI search tools.
Host Parker Herren digs into where traditional, one-off sponsored posts still fit, why influencer fatigue is pushing brands toward more selective partnerships, and what's overhyped in the scripted branded-content boom right now. Subscribe to Ad Age Insider for more conversations that turn Ad Age's reporting into strategy marketers can implement now.
Dig deeper on the topics mentioned in this week's episode:
~Subscribe to The Creator Brief by Ad Age!
~A new creator agency with an advisory board model gives talent a seat at the strategy table
~How four friends built a creator business—and landed 30 brand deals in four months
~OpenAI's creator trip fallout—what to do before signing an AI brand deal
~Inside the rise of creator-brand equity deals—and how they're reshaping creator marketing
~4 ways creator-brand partnerships are evolving

Planters named Martin, the agency behind the Geico Gecko, its creative agency of record without running a formal review, betting on character-driven branding to sharpen Mr. Peanut's point of view. Plus, Callaway ended its Good Good Golf partnership after a controversial ad, exposing gaps in how brands vet creator-made content; The Trade Desk overhauled Kokai with more visibility into automated ad buying OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft and Google are marketing AI to two audiences at once, exposing a marketing dilemma; and new sunscreen brand Pasty Man is targeting men with a an elderly dancer's backside.
Host Parker Herren breaks down what each story means for marketers navigating agency hiring strategy, creator content oversight, ad tech transparency and AI trust building. Subscribe for weekly industry news roundups.
Dig deeper on the topics mentioned in this week's episode:
~Planters hires Martin to help Mr. Peanut win the protein wars
~Callaway controversy reveals gaps in how brands review creator ads
~The Trade Desk is overhauling its ad-buying platform—here's what marketers need to know
~Why AI CMOs have a problem that goes beyond advertising
~Pasty Man uses a 90-year-old butt to make its case for sunscreen

Catch the full conversation: https://adage.substack.com/p/ai-is-all-over-earnings-calls-ai
Ad Age's senior tech editor Garett Sloane joins Parker to answer the question everyone's asking: is the AI bubble about to pop, or are we still just getting started? They get into AI search (AEO), the OpenAI-vs-Google power struggle, and why Garett thinks holograms are the next big sleeper trend—plus a chatbot customer service story gone hilariously wrong.

YouTube is doubling the watch time and engagement thresholds creators need to qualify for its Partner Program starting February 2027, a shift that matters less than it sounds since brands are already striking direct deals with creators regardless of their eligibility status. Plus, The Variable acquired Gen Z and Gen Alpha-focused agency Carson+Doyle; Athleta launched "My World, My Rules," aiming to reverse a sales decline; Nielsen will begin applying Latency Adjusted DASH Universe Estimates to its Big Data Plus Panel currency, changing how TV and streaming viewing gets weighted; and Spotify and Uncommon New York turned real user playlist titles into outdoor ad headlines across New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.
Host Parker Herren breaks down what each story means for marketers navigating creator partnerships, agency M&A, TV measurement shifts and brand repositioning. Subscribe for weekly industry news roundups, plus biweekly deep-dive conversations with Ad Age reporters.
Dig deeper on the topics mentioned in this week's episode:
~The Variable acquires a Gen Z marketing agency—behind the move
~Athleta's first campaign with Invisible Dynamics underscores its female-first brand identity
~Nielsen announces latency tweaks for DASH universe estimates
~How YouTube monetization is changing for the platform's smaller creators
~Spotify features users' playlist titles as headlines in witty OOH campaign

Ad Age senior tech editor Garett Sloane unpacks why AI dominates earnings calls at companies from Meta and Google to Colgate-Palmolive, Amazon and Booking Holdings even if it's not yet moving the bottom line for most. The conversation covers AI search and chatbots reshaping consumer discovery, ChatGPT's ad business outlook, agentic commerce experiments and the slow, standards-limited rollout of agentic ad buying across PubMatic, Criteo and Magnite.
Sloane and host Parker Herren discuss where the AI hype-to-results gap is widest, and why even the companies racing forward are still working with incomplete data on what's actually working. They dig into why ChatGPT ad spend remains experimental, what a real agentic buying breakthrough would take and the state of the "AI bubble" conversation. Subscribe to Ad Age Insider for more conversations that turn Ad Age's reporting into what marketers actually need to know.
Dig deeper on the topics mentioned in this week's episode:
~AI is reshaping ad infrastructure but hasn't boosted company results just yet
~ChatGPT beefs up ad measurement, but gaps remain for buyers
~Amazon's AI shelf—what brands must do to compete for visibility