The way brands earn relevance in social has fundamentally changed. Feeds are personalized. Culture moves in real time, sparked by creators, accelerated by platforms, and shaped collectively by communities. And brand affinity is increasingly built through genuine interactions within those communities, not pushed into them from the outside.
That shift — from brand-down to community-up — sits at the heart of Next Gen Social: dentsu's tech-enabled approach that unlocks better, faster, and smarter decisioning across paid, owned, and earned activities. Within the world of integrated social, creators have become one of the most powerful growth drivers available. CMOs recognize it: 89% plan to maintain or increase investment in influencer marketing over the next year, reflecting the growing importance of creator partnerships and earned attention in how brands are built and sustained.
Our latest thought leadership, The Creator Catalyst, reveals the tensions brands must address for those investments to work. One of the shifts that needs to happen: moving from a “content extra” mindset to a cultural engine.
Creators Are Not Influencers
To get creator relationships right, brands must understand that creators are more than influencers. “Influencer" has become a catch-all that flattens an enormous amount of diversity. The term reduces creators to a monolithic group that is used to persuade people to do or buy something.
But creators, by definition, “create.” They’re storytellers, educators, community builders, and cultural translators. Each creator has a unique capability and sphere of influence. When that gets reduced to a single word and everyone receives the same brief, the output will fall short.
The data backs up why this distinction matters. Influencer-led content captures up to 73% more attention than brand-led ads because work that doesn't feel like an ad stops the scroll. That attention premium only materializes when creators are genuinely empowered to shape the content, not just deliver it.
The Control Problem
Ninety-one percent of CMOs agree that brand marketing will increasingly become a partnership between brands, creators, and platforms. Yet 82% admit they struggle with the loss of control those partnerships introduce. So brands play it safe, bringing creators in only after ideas are locked. When that happens, creator work becomes executional rather than cultural: “ideas activated on social,” rather than “social-first ideas.”
That's the gap. And closing it doesn't require brands to surrender control; it requires a different way of working. The Creator Catalyst frames this as giving creators context rather than constraints: bringing them into the thinking early, so their understanding of their audience shapes the idea while brand direction stays intact. When that balance is struck, the work gains cultural relevance without losing coherence. Campaigns that combine creator content with social advertising deliver a 1.7x higher contribution to sales than branded content alone.
"What’s most exciting about our Next Gen Social technology and tooling in its current evolution is the ability to blend first-party data, AI, and potential influence into an actual recommendation model. We believe that this audience-driven, creator-led mechanism is the next frontier to targeted influence. As our capabilities continue to evolve, we will continue to unlock new opportunities for creativity and growth.” —Alec Piliafas, EVP of Paid Social, dentsu X
What That Looks Like: Chili's Grill & Bar
Dentsu X's work on the Chili's "3 For Me" campaign is a direct expression of that approach.
Rather than just broadcasting a brand message, Chili's partnered with popular food creators who filmed themselves enjoying the “3 For Me” meal in-restaurant. The content felt natural to how audiences discover food because creators shaped it to their unique audiences. This is Xperience Planning in action—dentsu X's approach to shifting focus from buying media to designing meaningful, people-centered experiences. Paired with a three-day Meta Moment Maker to amplify at scale, Chili’s turned a simple value meal into a cultural moment.
The results: 46 million consumers reached in three days, a 15.2-point lift in ad recall, and a 9-point lift in intent to visit Chili’s.
The Bigger Opportunity
The creator economy is projected to reach $528B by 2030. The brands positioned to grow within it are those treating creators as genuine collaborators — embedded in the idea early, empowered to bring their authentic voices, and supported with the paid infrastructure to scale what works.
That's what Next Gen Social is designed to enable. And The Creator Catalyst is dentsu X and Meta's practical guide to building the system behind it. Read the full report here.
