Cannes, June 22, 2026, 14:05 CEST
- Creator marketing is becoming a main part of U.S. media budgets, not just a campaign extra. Creator ad spending is set to hit roughly $44 billion in 2026.
- Cannes Lions started this week with its new LIONS Creators programme, aiming to bring influencers into the mix with brands, platforms and agency executives.
- Brands are pushing for longer deals with creators and more concrete evidence of sales, but tracking return on investment is still shaky.
Creator marketing kept moving into ad budgets on Monday, as new reports put U.S. creator ad spend close to $44 billion in 2026. Brands are pushing more into longer-term, trackable partnerships, less reliant on single sponsored posts. ECIKS, pulling from Global Brands Magazine, said that in 2026, deals with performance targets—where pay is based on clicks, sales or similar results—hit 53% of all arrangements. That’s up from 23% in 2024.
Cannes Lions, the industry’s top ad event, kicked off Monday and goes through June 26. That’s a live backdrop for creator marketing as CMOs are under pressure to deliver more than just social buzz—now it’s about showing this content can drive revenue, not just attention.
More than 250 creators are set to attend Cannes this year, Business Insider said, naming podcaster Alex Cooper, TikTok’s Josh Richards and Keith Lee, and YouTube’s Dhar Mann among those headed to the event. “The marketing of today is consumers talking about our brands,” Bain & Company’s Shweta Bhardwaj told the outlet. Dhar Mann added that brands have to “move at the speed of culture.” Business Insider
The change isn’t only on a cultural level. The Interactive Advertising Bureau expects U.S. ad spend in the creator economy to hit $37 billion in 2025, a 26% jump from last year. Close to half of creator ad buyers now say creators are a “must buy”—not just for testing, but as a required piece of the media plan. IAB CEO David Cohen called creator marketing “essential,” not “experimental.” Chris Bruderle, vice president for industry insights and content strategy at IAB, said it’s “proving its value across the full funnel.” prnewswire.com
Mumbrella in Australia wrote up a YouTube-backed Mumbrella360 panel that discussed the change in media from broadcast messages to what the speakers called two-way culture. Caroline Oates, who heads YouTube and programmatic media at Google for Australia and New Zealand, and creator Beau Miles both spoke in the session, saying trust now matters more than ad spend.
Brands are shifting where their money goes. Aspire said 63% of creators now want long-term deals instead of one-off campaigns. The report also notes that 54% of marketers mostly use nano and micro creators—these smaller accounts often have tighter, more active audiences. On top of that, 77% of marketers repurpose influencer content for ads, putting creator posts to work outside the original channel.
Linqia’s 2026 State of Influencer Marketing report found budget pressure showing up in spending plans. Around 62% of enterprise marketers told the firm their influencer budgets have increased. Nearly a third plan to drop over $5 million on influencer work in 2026. On performance, 81% of respondents said creator content was doing better than material brands made themselves.
Platforms like Meta’s Instagram, Alphabet’s YouTube and TikTok keep competing for brands wanting access to short-form video, creators and social commerce. EMARKETER says U.S. influencer marketing spending is set to rise 15.7% in 2026, reaching $13.7 billion by 2027, using a narrower definition than wider creator-economy ad spend.
Creator pressure isn’t always obvious. In a BBC piece picked up by AOL and Yahoo, Lauren Davies, a talent manager in Cheshire with over 300,000 Instagram followers and 18 clients at her agency, said, “It’s daunting to put yourself online.” Davies said people don’t see how hard the work is. “It’s hard,” she said. AOL
But piling into creator media isn’t without problems. Linqia says 79% of marketers see ROI as their top hurdle, with 48% struggling most with attribution—figuring out which creator or post led to a sale. IAB says the industry still lacks strong standards, transparency, and better tools to connect brands and credible creators.
Creators are acting as both a media channel and the production side. Brands like the quick, trusted reach creators offer but still need contracts, usage rights, reliable data, and fewer risks. It’s more work than just buying a post and watching the likes add up.
The next stage is about whether creators hold on to the close feel that draws listeners, even as big advertisers push for stricter reporting. Money is shifting. The rules are, too.
