Observed Signal · Aug 13, 2026 · Event · Source: Hello Partner · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Scaling the Impact of Creator Marketing
Hello Partner published a piece summarising a fireside conversation featuring Kantar creative thought leader Vera Sidlova, a senior social platform leader, and a creator about what drives high-performing creator content. Sidlova presents findings from The Creator Game Plan, a Kantar analysis of 15,000 creator assets across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, aiming to help brands decide what content to create, who to partner with, and what to scale. The article is published on August 13, 2026 and some materials are exclusive to Partner+ members on Hello Partner.
Research-backed creative insights from Kantar (analysis of 15,000 creator assets) are useful for brands and agencies scaling creator marketing, but this is not a major platform policy or technical change.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Article published on Hello Partner on 2026-08-13.
- Kantar’s creative thought leader Vera Sidlova participated in a fireside conversation about creator marketing.
- Kantar’s The Creator Game Plan is based on analysis of 15,000 creator assets across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
- The content includes gated material labelled 'Exclusively for Partner+ members' on Hello Partner.
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Ontology Mapping & Concepts
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Kantar's Creator Game Plan: 4 Key Takeaways
Kantar's 2026 report, The Creator Game Plan, analyses over 15,000 pieces of creator-led content across 19 countries on major short- and long-form social platforms and highlights how marketers must shift from simple engagement metrics to effectiveness-focused strategies. The study finds 61% of marketers plan to increase creator spend in 2026, with some brands allocating 30–40% of ad budgets to creator content. Kantar identifies three strategic creator roles (media channel, creative partner, cultural asset), shows that verbally naming the brand in creator narration boosts brand linkage by an average 22 percentile points, and warns that platform engagement aligns with brand-building or short-term sales outcomes only about one in three times. The report also calls for longer-term partnerships and transparent feedback between brands and creators.
Kantar on Creator Marketing Tools and Measurement
Kantar’s Vera Sidlova discussed creator and influencer marketing at CreatorFest, highlighting measurement gaps between platform engagement and brand outcomes. Kantar’s research, the Creator Game Plan, analyzed 15,000 creator posts across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram using Link AI to predict sales and brand-building power. The study found only 6% of content was both highly engaging and effective for brand building, and platform engagement aligned with effectiveness in only about one-third of cases. Sidlova described Link AI for Creators as a diagnostic tool that predicts metrics like cultural power, viral power and algorithm power for individual creator assets, and recommended bringing creators into debriefs and integrating creator measurement into broader marketing-mix and effectiveness practices.
CMOs Must Stop Mistaking Creator Engagement for Impact
Kantar Chief Insights Officer Jane Ostler argues that brands are rapidly increasing creator marketing spend while lacking the measurement to prove commercial or brand outcomes. Kantar’s Creator Game Plan study analysed 15,000 branded creator assets across TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram and found only 6% of creator content delivers both strong platform engagement and strong brand-building potential (27% reach medium-to-high on both when thresholds are relaxed). Ostler warns engagement metrics are a poor proxy for brand impact and urges CMOs to manage creator marketing as a strategic capability with brand-specific measurement, long-term creative platforms, and calibrated creative control. Kantar has added creator-specific benchmarking into its LINK AI model to evaluate creator content on its own terms.
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