Digiday's Future of Marketing Briefing, published October 9, 2026, reports that the biggest creators are shrinking the number of brands they work with — and asking the partners they keep for more than a fee. Alix Earle has said she'd rather work with five or six brands a year than a hundred, and is weighing equity stakes with the ones she keeps instead of a straight sponsorship check. Jordan Howlett skipped the one-off-deal track entirely and became Blenders Eyewear's chief content officer earlier this year, with standing input on creative direction and product. If your outreach deck still pitches a top-tier creator the way you'd pitch anyone else — one fee, one deliverable, one campaign — that's the assumption to check before you send it.
What exactly does the trend show?
The briefing reports that the largest creators are narrowing the list of brands they work with and raising what they expect from the ones who stay on. Instead of stacking one-off sponsored posts across as many brands as will pay, creators at this tier are reportedly treating each remaining partner as a longer, deeper relationship — closer to a joint venture than a vendor booking. Earle is the briefing's lead example: she's said she'd rather work with five or six brands a year than a hundred, and that preference lines up with a pattern already visible in her portfolio. She's taken equity stakes in Poppi, SipMargs, and Gorgie, and, as of August 2026, in the supplement brand Cymbiotika — rather than treating every brand relationship as an interchangeable paid post.
What are top creators asking for instead of a flat fee?
The briefing describes three asks layered on top of, or instead of, cash: equity, product input, and in at least one case a formal title. Howlett is the briefing's example on the title end of that spectrum. He became Blenders Eyewear's chief content officer earlier in 2026 — a role the eyewear brand created specifically for him — with oversight of creative development, campaign ideation, product storytelling, and social-first programming across the brand's marketing, creative, and product teams, not just the deliverables from a single campaign. We've already covered the first ask — equity in place of a fee — in detail, including why it can turn a marketing contract into a securities-law question and what it does to your FTC disclosure duty. If equity comes up in your next conversation, that's its own review track before anyone agrees to terms.
Why is this happening now?
The briefing frames this as a scarcity move by creators who already have more inbound requests than they can take, not a reaction to any single platform policy. If a creator's time is the real constraint, trading a hundred interchangeable one-off deals for five or six relationships with real upside only makes sense once you're already turning away most of the hundred — a position only a small slice of the creator population is actually in. That's worth sitting with before you assume it applies to the creators on your own list.
Does this apply to every creator on your list?
No — and the briefing itself is built on a handful of named, mega-tier creators, not a survey of the creator economy. Treat it as a signal about where the top of the market is heading, not a new default to impose on every negotiation. A mid-tier or emerging creator who's still building reach is very unlikely to turn down a standard paid post in favor of a title or an equity stake, and pushing that structure onto someone who hasn't asked for it just slows your own pipeline down. The useful move is to check, case by case, whether the specific creator you're approaching is the type this briefing describes — already selective, already turning away comparable deals — before you change how you pitch them.
What should you check before your next pitch?
- Decide internally, before you reach out, whether you're offering a single campaign or proposing an ongoing relationship. If the creator is the type this trend describes, a one-off pitch may simply get no response.
- Route any equity ask to legal and finance before you agree to terms, not after a verbal yes — the disclosure and securities-law questions are the same ones that come up whenever a creator asks for equity instead of a fee.
- If they ask for product input or a title, decide in advance who inside your company actually has the authority to grant that — that's a product and org-chart decision, not something to improvise on a call.
- Don't assume this applies to everyone on your roster. Example: if nine of your ten creator partners are still happy with a standard per-post fee, restructuring your entire outreach model around the tenth, mega-tier exception wastes time on the other nine.
- Budget more time for these conversations. A relationship-style deal with legal, equity, or title implications takes longer to close than a standard sponsored post — build that into your campaign timeline, not just your contract.
- Re-check the specifics the next time this comes up. The reporting here rests on a handful of named examples from the past week, not an industry-wide standard, and the shape of these deals is still being worked out in public.
Whether a creator is paid in cash, equity, or a title, the question that actually protects your budget is the same one it's always been: is this specific creator's audience buying your product. Get started to see that answer in real sales numbers before your next pitch, not after.
