Tara Walpert Levy at AWNY: The Creator Economy Is ‘a Capability, Not a Channel’
Brands are beginning to treat creator marketing the way they once treated digital advertising — as something important that nobody quite knows how to operationalize at scale. The answer, says Tara Walpert Levy speaking at the New York Stock Exchange during Advertising Week NY, is the same one that worked 15 years ago.
“Everyone gets the importance and few people know what to do about it. Much like I felt about digital 10 or 15 years ago, the actual biggest way to get your head around it is to start playing with it,” Walpert Levy, board member of Braze and Edelman, told Beet.TV correspondent Mike Shields.“They need people in their organization who are living and breathing this stuff because that’s how they’re going to make sure that what they’re doing comes across as culturally relevant and authentic.”
Walpert Levy, a former YouTube executive and one of the architects of digital advertising, sees creator marketing at an inflection point. The infrastructure is still catching up, but the trajectory is clear.
Creator as capability, not channel
The instinct to assign creator marketing its own budget line and measure it separately misframes the opportunity. Walpert Levy’s advice to CEOs and CMOs starts with a reframe.
“Creator should be a capability, not a channel. If we’re going to call it a channel, should it be one thing? Yes. Will it be anytime soon? No,” she said. “We’ve lived this with digital video and television budgets. They’re still not fully together in those places.”
The implications of treating it as a capability rather than a channel reach well beyond marketing into product development, strategy, and internal culture. Some CEOs are already hiring creators on staff for precisely that reason.
Scaling requires automation and a cross-platform view
Unilever’s commitment to allocate half its budget to creator marketing signals where the industry is heading. Getting there requires solving the operational challenge, from matchmaking to measurement to logistics.
“In order for it to truly scale, there has to be a lot more automation and process throughout the operations,” Walpert Levy said. “The industry has gotten much better at finding the creators who are already talking about them or should be, and then using them essentially for authentic ads that outperform, and boosting that in a more traditional paid media way.”
The infrastructure layer will likely emerge from the ecosystem of specialist companies already building cross-platform tools, following a pattern familiar from the early days of digital. Holding companies acquiring influencer marketing firms is already underway.
“TikTok and Meta are just exploding in terms of vertical video because 60% of people in this country are millennials or younger,” Walpert Levy added. “They consume a ton more video on their phone and that is only growing rapidly.”
AI expands storytelling
AI gives creators the ability to build sets, expand narratives, and automate production tasks that previously required significant resources. Where the line falls between tool and replacement remains unsettled.
“The things that are going to be most valuable is looking across the typical creator production process, whether that is from ideation to editing to auto-dubbing, and using it to get even better stories for more people,” Walpert Levy said. “That’s candidly where people are struggling — to figure out where that line is.”
Old goals, new effectiveness
Creator marketing currently operates with more flexibility on measurement than other channels, but CFO scrutiny is coming. The right response is integrating creator performance into standard marketing metrics rather than building a parallel measurement system.
“Eventually it will get there. This is a new way to be effective in old goals and so we need to see the measurement be consistent,” Walpert Levy said. “At scale, this has to be about straight up marketing and media.”
A CEO-level conversation
The most significant shift Walpert Levy identifies is where creator decisions are now being made inside organizations. The influence creators have over how people allocate trust, time, and taste runs deeper than any single marketing channel.
“This is not a channel. This is a fundamentally different way that people are allocating trust and time and determining taste,” Walpert Levy said. “The agility, the real-time nature, the speed, the impact of what they’re able to do has ripple effects across their whole business.”
Brands are beginning to treat creator marketing the way they once treated digital advertising — as something important that nobody quite knows how to operationalize at scale. The answer, says Tara Walpert Levy speaking at the New York Stock Exchange during Advertising Week NY, is the same one that worked 15 years ago.
“Everyone gets the importance and few people know what to do about it. Much like I felt about digital 10 or 15 years ago, the actual biggest way to get your head around it is to start playing with it,” Walpert Levy, board member of Braze and Edelman, told Beet.TV correspondent Mike Shields.“They need people in their organization who are living and breathing this stuff because that’s how they’re going to make sure that what they’re doing comes across as culturally relevant and authentic.”
Walpert Levy, a former YouTube executive and one of the architects of digital advertising, sees creator marketing at an inflection point. The infrastructure is still catching up, but the trajectory is clear.
Creator as capability, not channel
The instinct to assign creator marketing its own budget line and measure it separately misframes the opportunity. Walpert Levy’s advice to CEOs and CMOs starts with a reframe.
“Creator should be a capability, not a channel. If we’re going to call it a channel, should it be one thing? Yes. Will it be anytime soon? No,” she said. “We’ve lived this with digital video and television budgets. They’re still not fully together in those places.”
The implications of treating it as a capability rather than a channel reach well beyond marketing into product development, strategy, and internal culture. Some CEOs are already hiring creators on staff for precisely that reason.
Scaling requires automation and a cross-platform view
Unilever’s commitment to allocate half its budget to creator marketing signals where the industry is heading. Getting there requires solving the operational challenge, from matchmaking to measurement to logistics.
“In order for it to truly scale, there has to be a lot more automation and process throughout the operations,” Walpert Levy said. “The industry has gotten much better at finding the creators who are already talking about them or should be, and then using them essentially for authentic ads that outperform, and boosting that in a more traditional paid media way.”
The infrastructure layer will likely emerge from the ecosystem of specialist companies already building cross-platform tools, following a pattern familiar from the early days of digital. Holding companies acquiring influencer marketing firms is already underway.
“TikTok and Meta are just exploding in terms of vertical video because 60% of people in this country are millennials or younger,” Walpert Levy added. “They consume a ton more video on their phone and that is only growing rapidly.”
AI expands storytelling
AI gives creators the ability to build sets, expand narratives, and automate production tasks that previously required significant resources. Where the line falls between tool and replacement remains unsettled.
“The things that are going to be most valuable is looking across the typical creator production process, whether that is from ideation to editing to auto-dubbing, and using it to get even better stories for more people,” Walpert Levy said. “That’s candidly where people are struggling — to figure out where that line is.”
Old goals, new effectiveness
Creator marketing currently operates with more flexibility on measurement than other channels, but CFO scrutiny is coming. The right response is integrating creator performance into standard marketing metrics rather than building a parallel measurement system.
“Eventually it will get there. This is a new way to be effective in old goals and so we need to see the measurement be consistent,” Walpert Levy said. “At scale, this has to be about straight up marketing and media.”
A CEO-level conversation
The most significant shift Walpert Levy identifies is where creator decisions are now being made inside organizations. The influence creators have over how people allocate trust, time, and taste runs deeper than any single marketing channel.
“This is not a channel. This is a fundamentally different way that people are allocating trust and time and determining taste,” Walpert Levy said. “The agility, the real-time nature, the speed, the impact of what they’re able to do has ripple effects across their whole business.”
