Stop treating your channels like a shop window, says this marketing veteran

A brand veteran says the affiliate link era is basically over. Here’s what’s replacing 

Here’s what nobody running a brand wants to hear: most of what working in influencer marketing over the last 5 years is dying, if it isn’t dead already.

When I started out, influencer marketing meant celebrity only – seeding products to stylists and quietly praying it turned up on someone in a tabloid. Working with an old celebrity-owned handbag brand, it was about trying to get anything on Lindsay Lohan, because she was the It Girl at the time. I’ve watched every cycle since, from inside some of the fastest-scaling brands in the country, and the ones who’ll win the next phase are already moving differently. 

Creators are moving into the C-suite

The old model was a collaboration and an affiliate link. You paid for a post, tracked a code, you moved on. That model is on its way out. The creators who matter next aren’t running a one-off campaign for you.They’re in the room where the actual decisions get made, and they’re taking equity while they’re there. We watched this happen with Alix Earle and Poppi, a relationship that was so 360 from Coachella activations, photoshoots, sponsored TikToks and everything in between, which likely eventuated to a seven figure payout for the creator. 

This is the bit that brands keep getting wrong. Authenticity stops being a note in the content brief and becomes a structural thing. You can’t bolt a creator onto a launch and expect anyone to believe it’s real. They have to be genuinely integrated, part of the bigger picture, with real skin in the game. The affiliate era trained everyone, creators and audiences both, to spot a transaction from a mile off. What replaces it is ownership. 

The wins are moving to intimate experiences

The next shift is where the good content actually gets made. The big, glossy, cast-of-thousands activation still has its place, but it’s not where the wins are anymore. Those are moving to something smaller, like dinners, rooms, and moments you can’t buy your way into. 

There are two reasons this matters, and brands usually only clock the first one. Yes, intimate experiences are where the scroll-stopping content comes from now. But the part everyone misses is the feedback. You put your product in a room with real people and watch their faces in real time, and you’ll learn more in one night than you will from a quarter of survey data. It’s the fastest, most honest response loop you’re ever going to get, and it happens to make beautiful content while it’s at it. 

While at Nu Harvest Supplements, we learned that the most impactful moments came from something as simple as a well-intentioned and authentic sunrise pilates experience to celebrate a creator launch. Not only did we connect with the community, we saw a 360 content win across every channel. I currently feel Sabo is leading the game with this concept, it always feels intentional and never rinse and repeat. 

Your channels can’t just be a catalogue

Soon you won’t be able to tell the difference between a meme account and a brand. That’s exactly where this is heading. 

The brands people are genuinely obsessed with have stopped treating their channels as a product catalogue. They’ve built a brand world instead, somewhere that entertains you whether or not you ever buy anything. One day it’s a product, the next it’s a joke, the next it’s a moment that has nothing to do with what they sell and everything to do with who they are. That’s what earns the follow and that what earns the sale later. 

If your grid is still just a product on a white background with a price next to it, you’re a catalogue. And a catalogue is the easiest thing in the world to scroll straight past.

None of this is far off. It always starts at the top, with the brands willing to move first, and then it comes for everyone else. You can keep running the playbook that’s already fading, or you can start building the thing people can’t stop watching. I know which one I’d bet on. 

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