IAB’s Zoe Soon: Creators are Becoming the Trusted ‘Concierge’ for AI-Era Discovery
Brand investment in creators is growing at twice the rate of digital advertising. But this fundamental shift is about more than money; it’s about how consumers form identities and make purchase decisions.
“The story isn’t that creators are growing. Consumer behavior is changing. For a long time, mass media drove mass culture and we thought advertising led to purchase. What we found is that identity actually leads to purchase,” Zoe Soon, head of Creator and Gaming at IAB, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “The 20th century was about brands marketing to audiences and demographics. The 21st century is going to be about earning the trust of communities where people’s identities form.”
Soon’s comments come as IAB prepares to launch IAB Global Creator Week, a September 14-18 initiative uniting 17 markets across four continents around creator economy standards, measurement frameworks, and industry best practices. The U.S. centerpiece is IAB CreatorFronts on September 15 in New York — the industry’s first upfront-style marketplace built entirely around the creator economy.
Creators are the new media companies
For the first time in history, individual creators control content, distribution, and audience relationships simultaneously — capabilities that previously required entire media organizations to execute.
“Creators are the future. They are the new media companies,” Soon said. “If you look at Markiplier’s Iron Lung that recently released, that was a $3 million production budget and it brought in $51 million and premiered in 4,100 cinemas. Creators are elevated so much beyond a tactic to the future of media.”
This elevation means creator strategy belongs in the broader media plan rather than siloed within social budgets.
AI amplifies creator trust
As synthetic content rivals human-made content in volume and quality, consumers will increasingly rely on trusted human voices to navigate overwhelming content abundance — positioning creators as essential discovery guides.
“When content becomes abundant, trust becomes scarce. And where is trust formed within communities that creators convene?” Soon said. “Increasingly consumers are not going to be looking to algorithms to navigate this content and make the recommendations. They’re going to be looking to people they trust and creators will play that almost like a concierge role.”
The historical pattern supports this trajectory — the industrial revolution elevated brands as navigational guides for physical products, the digital revolution elevated platforms, and AI’s content explosion will elevate creators as trusted community curators.
Communities are movements, campaigns are moments
Brands winning the creator opportunity engage creators early as genuine partners rather than distribution channels, embedding themselves in existing cultural conversations rather than manufacturing moments from scratch.
“Brands used to have to place a bid and hope that their campaign would take off and create a viral moment. Brands no longer need to do that. They can find those moments that are already happening within communities that creators are creating and place themselves against those moments,” Soon said. “Campaigns are moments, but communities are movements.”
CreatorFronts build infrastructure for a maturing channel
Just as IAB Playfronts established gaming’s legitimacy as a media channel, IAB CreatorFronts aims to build the buying and selling infrastructure that signals creator media’s arrival as a mainstream planning consideration.
“We’re at the point where brands are no longer asking are creators relevant or do they deserve a place in the plan? We’re at the point of building the infrastructure,” Soon said. “These events are meant to bring together the industry, connect buyers to the companies that are actively building this infrastructure. And just symbolically says to the industry, this channel has arrived.”
IAB Global Creator Week will convene events simultaneously across London, Toronto, Berlin, Dubai, São Paulo, and a dozen additional markets. IAB CEO David Cohen framed the initiative’s ambition in the announcement: “Marketers everywhere understand that the Creator Economy is a powerful component of their go-to-market plans and critical to drive business growth.”
“The age of AI will elevate creators because of the abundance of content,” Soon said. “Consumers are going to be looking to people they trust and creators will play that almost like a concierge role.”
Brand investment in creators is growing at twice the rate of digital advertising. But this fundamental shift is about more than money; it’s about how consumers form identities and make purchase decisions.
“The story isn’t that creators are growing. Consumer behavior is changing. For a long time, mass media drove mass culture and we thought advertising led to purchase. What we found is that identity actually leads to purchase,” Zoe Soon, head of Creator and Gaming at IAB, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “The 20th century was about brands marketing to audiences and demographics. The 21st century is going to be about earning the trust of communities where people’s identities form.”
Soon’s comments come as IAB prepares to launch IAB Global Creator Week, a September 14-18 initiative uniting 17 markets across four continents around creator economy standards, measurement frameworks, and industry best practices. The U.S. centerpiece is IAB CreatorFronts on September 15 in New York — the industry’s first upfront-style marketplace built entirely around the creator economy.
Creators are the new media companies
For the first time in history, individual creators control content, distribution, and audience relationships simultaneously — capabilities that previously required entire media organizations to execute.
“Creators are the future. They are the new media companies,” Soon said. “If you look at Markiplier’s Iron Lung that recently released, that was a $3 million production budget and it brought in $51 million and premiered in 4,100 cinemas. Creators are elevated so much beyond a tactic to the future of media.”
This elevation means creator strategy belongs in the broader media plan rather than siloed within social budgets.
AI amplifies creator trust
As synthetic content rivals human-made content in volume and quality, consumers will increasingly rely on trusted human voices to navigate overwhelming content abundance — positioning creators as essential discovery guides.
“When content becomes abundant, trust becomes scarce. And where is trust formed within communities that creators convene?” Soon said. “Increasingly consumers are not going to be looking to algorithms to navigate this content and make the recommendations. They’re going to be looking to people they trust and creators will play that almost like a concierge role.”
The historical pattern supports this trajectory — the industrial revolution elevated brands as navigational guides for physical products, the digital revolution elevated platforms, and AI’s content explosion will elevate creators as trusted community curators.
Communities are movements, campaigns are moments
Brands winning the creator opportunity engage creators early as genuine partners rather than distribution channels, embedding themselves in existing cultural conversations rather than manufacturing moments from scratch.
“Brands used to have to place a bid and hope that their campaign would take off and create a viral moment. Brands no longer need to do that. They can find those moments that are already happening within communities that creators are creating and place themselves against those moments,” Soon said. “Campaigns are moments, but communities are movements.”
CreatorFronts build infrastructure for a maturing channel
Just as IAB Playfronts established gaming’s legitimacy as a media channel, IAB CreatorFronts aims to build the buying and selling infrastructure that signals creator media’s arrival as a mainstream planning consideration.
“We’re at the point where brands are no longer asking are creators relevant or do they deserve a place in the plan? We’re at the point of building the infrastructure,” Soon said. “These events are meant to bring together the industry, connect buyers to the companies that are actively building this infrastructure. And just symbolically says to the industry, this channel has arrived.”
IAB Global Creator Week will convene events simultaneously across London, Toronto, Berlin, Dubai, São Paulo, and a dozen additional markets. IAB CEO David Cohen framed the initiative’s ambition in the announcement: “Marketers everywhere understand that the Creator Economy is a powerful component of their go-to-market plans and critical to drive business growth.”
“The age of AI will elevate creators because of the abundance of content,” Soon said. “Consumers are going to be looking to people they trust and creators will play that almost like a concierge role.”
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