The 14 most innovative influencer marketers of 2026

Lindsay Burstein jumps into act whenever promotion opportunities display up unexpectedly, akin whenever TikTok creator Romeo Bingham posted an impromptu Dr Pepper jingle that went viral and gathered complete 100 myriad views.

Burstein oversees a social squad that plant on creator partnerships, social listening, and digital community construction at Keurig Dr Pepper, which has a portfolio of beverage brands akin 7UP, Dr Pepper, and Snapple.

"We're continually looking for ways to do it faster and in a way that feels additional real-time so that we're keeping up alongside the gait and the civilization of the internet," Burstein said.

In the case of the Bingham Dr Pepper jingle, the business reached out to the creator to licence the opus for a Dr Pepper business that aired during the College Football Playoff national championship.

Other latest projects Burstein worked on included a 7UP LuluLime creator run tied to the US Open and a Snapple-sponsored wit night alongside Pete Davidson and Colin Jost on their decommissioned Staten Island Ferry.

Burstein plant alongside celebrities and top influencers, as fine as creators alongside smaller audiences who have posted positively concerning the company's brands.

"We akin to reward our fans," Burstein said. "An example could be letting them sensation test a new sensation first. They're a big fan. Maybe we dispatch them item that's going to be on the shelves in two weeks, like, 'Hey, we cognize you're a huge fan. Why don't you try this first?'"

Charlie Crideford has turned Pepsi Max's creator efforts from an test into a pillar of its promotion since taking complete the zero-sugar soda's UK activity alongside creators in 2022.

Working alongside the NewGen agency, Crideford grew Pepsi Pioneers, a program that uses creators to advise and form campaigns for Pepsi, from 15 to 80 group throughout music, sports, food, and lifestyle.

Over the former year, satisfied created by Pioneers creators has additional than tripled its reach, during the disbursal to attain those audiences has fallen by 61%. Under Crideford, Pioneers earlier helped spark two extremely impactful earned-media campaigns — Pepsi's Iconic Corner Shop and Cherry Ring Popper — and a Christmas TV spot.

Crideford has additional planned. She's aiming to create Pioneers a imperishable part of PepsiCo's promotion approach. She's additionally extending the program to Ireland and the Nordics and construction creator rosters for all market's culture.

Word of mouth is how Rothy's, the footwear brand finest known for its comfortable flats, got on the map. Influencers are the next development of that, and Anna Doré knows it.

Doré is turning to Substack to discover the next generation of creators spreading the gospel concerning Rothy's shoes.

"People prosecute these Substack writers since they are in the know," Doré said. "They are arbiters of taste."

While Rothy's is motionless operating alongside creators on Instagram and TikTok content, Substack has been a place to test alongside its marketing. For example, as part of Rothy's 10-year commemoration promotion campaign, the brand partnered alongside five Substack creators to compose essays concerning their own individual growth. Rothy's has seen an 18% year-over-year addition in mentions on the newsletter and blogging platform.

Doré is additionally pushing for additional in-real-life (IRL) promotion experiences alongside creators. Creators, particularly Substackers, "want to obtain their communities out of the inbox and into the world," Doré said. Rothy's has been assisting creators do fair that, sponsoring niche events akin a vintage pop-up or a pizza party.

Events have genuine endeavor impact, too. Rothy's worked alongside Substacker Erika Veurink on an in-store activation at among the brand's New York locations, anywhere Veurink hosted a vintage sale. The event brought in additional than 200 group and risen shop ft traffic by 75%, according to Rothy's. The brand additionally worked alongside Substacker and journey author Denna Nazem following Doré spotted that the creator was organically talking concerning Rothy's shoes in her newsletter. It caused a travel-themed event promoting the initiate of Rothy's at Nordstrom and a new gathering of its shoes, boosting orders for its Cruiser gathering and doubling merchandise saves on the affiliate phase ShopMy.

Substackers have "really rabid fans and followers who attention deeply concerning what the writers are putting out there and desire to nexus in person," Doré said.

Sarah Henry has expanded Walmart's creator promotion push, giving customers additional ways to detect and shop at the retailing giant.

With oversight of content, influencer marketing, and social commerce, Henry unified the hundreds of thousands of creators Walmart plant alongside into its broader plans fairly than treating them as a stand-alone promotion channel.

Under Henry, the Walmart Creator program has grown from a small cohort in 2022 to a ample network of brand advocates, and added new ways they can acquire and activity alongside brands. Walmart stated dollar revenue driven by the program have tripled in the former year.

Henry has struck partnerships alongside affiliate platforms, including YouTube Shopping, ShopMy, and LTK.

She has additionally pushed Walmart into creator-led amusement content. This summer, she tapped creators akin Nick DiGiovanni, Raven Elyse, and Eric Wang to create first episodic sequence about dorm makeovers, cooking, and additional to keep Walmart top of intellect for back-to-school shoppers. Walmart stated the sequence demonstrated that it can create shoppable satisfied that drives purchases.

Kemma Kefalas rebuilt Yahoo's social scheme following joining in 2024, alongside theatrical results. Its TikTok and Instagram existence has soared, during her splashy creator-led campaigns have reintroduced a bequest brand to audiences.

Kefalas' activity alongside creators the two raised awareness and contributed to tangible endeavor results.

Yahoo partnered alongside oliva oil creator Graza onward of the winter holidays to initiate "Sssshhhhizzle" Keyboard Oil, a riff on the agency archetype of the too-loud typer, continuing Yahoo's sequence of satirical "techcessories" that dramatize mundane digital frustrations. Boosted by LinkedIn influencers including Jade Walters and Brandon Smithwrick, the run earned nearly 3.5 myriad social views.

For Planner, a new AI-driven characteristic in Yahoo Mail, Kefalas helped mold Cardi B for a run that tapped into what it called "FOMSI": Fear of Missing Something Important. Yahoo stated the "Cardi B Busy" place was its most-viewed, engaged-with, liked, and commented-on brand social article ever, and helped run Yahoo Mail's app shop rankings. The run delivered additional than 10 myriad views and 600,000 likes throughout Yahoo's TikTok and Instagram accounts in its archetypal two days.

To initiate a new Yahoo Weather app in July, Yahoo partnered alongside TV character Kyle Cooke, the cofounder of Loverboy canned cocktails, as the "Weatherboy" to bring energy to the new app.

And for April Fools' Day, Kemma's squad introduced The Scrōll Stoppr, a $4.99 digit accessory that physically blocks the thumb from touching the screen. The merchandise tapped into a worldwide ache item of mindless scrolling and promoted the idea of Yahoo as a brand that helps group get things done. Creators including Nicky Reardon, Gavin Fernand, and AJ Eckstein amplified the campaign, contributing to 4.5 myriad social views and 97 media stories, including an NBC News segment.

Engagement is a common buzzword in influencer marketing. But for The Knot, which connects millions of couples alongside wedding vendors, it method item more: a possible new creator to activity alongside onward of their nuptials.

Kiara Kempski runs The Knot's lean but mighty influencer team, operating alongside busy influencers getting prepared for their big day. In February, The Knot — which owns multiple wedding preparedness brands — launched a new ambassador program for couples called "The Knot Wedding Party." The Knot afterward takes that satisfied from its ambassador program and repurposes it into paid media.

The Knot's "Win a Honeymoon" campaign, which worked alongside creators to advance its sweepstakes, caused a 55% year-over-year addition in register creations, according to the company.

Kempski has focused The Knot's influencer scheme on nano and micro influencers — those alongside comparatively small follower counts — who can inform mundane stories concerning the wedding-planning process.

"Going alongside smaller creators gives us that breadth of distinct types of weddings and accessibility that's really crucial to couples, particularly whenever we're trying to power decision-making," Kempski said.

Samantha Maltin leads promotion and brand administration for ALSAC, the fundraising institution rearward St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Previously a promotion exec at Sesame Street's Sesame Workshop, Maltin now focuses on expanding St. Jude's brand awareness, overseeing a community administration squad that sets up creator and community fig fundraising and promotion opportunities for St. Jude.

"We vet extremely carefully any creator or influencer that we're going to activity with," Maltin said. "We desire to create certain that we portion values, that they are as passionate concerning the goal as we are."

Last year, Maltin's squad worked alongside YouTuber Ryan Trahan to rotate his "50 States in 50 Days" sequence into a fundraising run for St. Jude's, raising complete $11.6 myriad for the investigation hospital.

Longtime Adobe marketer Stacy Martinet led two of its most aspiring creator promotion stunts this former year, including important moments in Times Square and at Cannes Lions.

For Firefly, Adobe's suite of AI tools, Martinet put the creator community that makes up a important part of its client basis at the center of its "Just Imagine" campaign. Instead of using creators as spokespeople, Adobe created a documentary-style video sequence that featured the likes of Kinigra Deon, Valerie Zhang, and Pablo Rochat using Firefly in their own manufacturing work.

Martinet afterward moved that idea to one of advertising's most iconic stages alongside a Times Square takeover this former spring. Twenty-three creators' Firefly-generated activity lit up 38 screens throughout six city blocks, during self-serve stations let the community create their own Firefly portraits that were published live onto 12-foot LED screens on-site.

"Our goal was to say: We desire group to cognize that Adobe Firefly is a location anywhere you can move from ideation to innovation into manufacturing extremely quickly," Martinet said. "And we wanted these creators to display how that plant in their world."

Adobe was additionally the archetypal header partner of Lions Creators, the creator-economy program of the Cannes Lions ad-industry blowout. More than 250 creators participated in the authoritative Cannes creator programming. Adobe stated the attempt was its biggest Cannes funding to date.

Martinet, who lately expanded her remit, volition continue to create Adobe's case alongside creators at Adobe Max in November, its three-day ingenuity conference. Max volition contain initiatives specified as the Creator Playground, a dedicated destination anywhere influencers can create satisfied on-site using Adobe's tools; a stand-alone Creator Track; and additional creator-economy programming.

Christina Nguyen has helped guide creators from the sidelines of movie promotion into the center of the action.

From sending creators onto sets, to pairing them alongside Hollywood stars, and construction complete storylines about them, Nguyen's activity has generated hundreds of millions of views and helped run audiences to theaters.

To build excitement for "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning," Nguyen assembled creators from distinct niches — including Hero DW, Angelica Trae, Joe Mele, and Sam Hutchinson — for a social sequence in which basketball creator Lethal Shooter tried to resolve an unfolding case. The narrative culminated at the film's red carpet premiere, anywhere Lethal Shooter and Mele met Tom Cruise.

For "Scream's" 30th anniversary, Nguyen and the squad created a "Scream Kill Tour" T-shirt and sent it to actors who had played victims in the franchise. An first limited-edition autumn of 700 liberated tees was claimed nearly instantly, prompting the business to publish an updated type for transaction on the Paramount Shop.

Nguyen additionally demonstrates how being scrappy can pay off. Ahead of the mold filming a day of media interviews to advance the publish of "By Any Means," Nguyen squeezed in 30 minutes for the YouTuber Adam W to quickly fire several satisfied alongside the film's stars. The resulting videos melded Adam W's comedic manner alongside the movie's questioning theme. They generated nearly 10 myriad views throughout Instagram and TikTok, per the imaginative agency Armed Mind, which plant alongside Paramount Pictures.

She's additionally breaking new dirt in creator promotion alongside innovative partnerships. For the initiate of "Running Man" final year, Nguyen and the squad partnered alongside Strava to initiate "The Running Man Challenge," encouraging top operating creators and another users to complete 200 minutes of fitness activities inside 30 days to unlock a particular badge. More than 139,000 group participated, Strava said.

"She really approaches all heading and chance as its own imaginative platform; a puzzle as opposed to an influencer-marketing equation that needs refreshing," stated Michael Rudin, originator of Armed Mind.

Patrick O'Keefe has helped create E.l.f. Cosmetics into a brand that creators desire to really create with, not merely promote.

He does that by operating alongside creators in ways that are native to their voices. This year, Emma Norton made a 2-minute cinematic adaptation of E.l.f.'s true crime-style mockumentary run tackling composition clutter, "Vanity Vandals." It generated nearly 900,000 views and nearly $90,000 in earned media value, a measure of the monetary value of that exposure. A musical article she made for E.l.f.'s mock-horror campaign, Unglammy Valley, that poked fun at the difficulty of finding the correct basis shade, delivered akin results.

Showing its awareness of humor, E.l.f. tapped wit creator Big Foot Bae, a pink bow-wearing Sasquatch, to amplify its Bigfoot-themed tress attention run online and in person. E.l.f. stated it was among the company's most prosperous creator launches, generating additional than 1,300 posts and reaching 166 myriad people.

E.l.f. additionally knows whenever to jump into culture. When "Sailing alongside Phoenix," a creator who remaining his company existence to sail alongside his cat, started gaining steam, E.l.f. dropped a attention bundle to him in the center of the sea final year. The stunt went viral throughout social channels and traditional media.

"E.l.f. is leaning into purpose, and what we saw was a guy living his dreams, and we wanted to be there to assistance him," O'Keefe said.

Jason Ossenmacher has helped create creator promotion a top customer-acquisition conduit at Auto Club Enterprises, the century-old associate association inside the American Automobile Association (AAA) federation, which has additional than 17 myriad members.

With consumers facing anxiety concerning rising costs, Ossenmacher identified that creator-content formats could assistance create AAA's products, in areas specified as journey and residence insurance, additional individual and attainable.

He's helped develop AAA's creator satisfied throughout multiple channels, including Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, Snap, and connected TV. It's worked alongside creators akin the journey influencer Alexander James to advance its travel-focused credit card, and the Minnesota Twins second baseman Kody Clemens on its coverage products. And Ossenmacher has used promotion mix modeling to measure how creator promotion stacks up against paid search, social, and another digital promotion channels.

"What distinguishes Jason is his capability to comprehend how creator promotion fits inside the general picture," stated Jourdan Gariepy, managing director of AAA's creator promotion agency Props.

Creator promotion is now one of AAA's biggest acquisition channels, delivering complete 67% of new members between 25 and 54 years old so far this year, per AAA. Adding creator promotion to the mix helped lift the AAA credit card's use endorsement charge to 50% from 9% previously, AAA said.

Samim Sadrzadeh has made creators chief to how Disney launches its biggest films and connects its stories alongside fans.

For "The Devil Wears Prada 2," Sadrzadeh tapped additional than 200 creators — including Wisdom Kaye, Lyas, Nicky Campbell, Malu Borges, and Dylan Kelly — to rotate the publish into a traditional moment. The effort, which included fashion, entertainment, and manner creators, boosted a larger run that helped the movie acquire complete $676 myriad globally, additional than twice the first film's life box office, pushing the franchise former $1 milliard in earth ticket sales.

Sadrzadeh additionally played a key function in Disney's creator program that surrounded D23, the company's annual fan event. Disney hosted concerning 300 digital creators, giving them admission to stories, talent, and experiences spanning Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Experiences. In this way, he helped Disney's biggest announcements attain fandoms about the world. Disney stated in the archetypal 24 hours following D23, satisfied from the event generated additional than twice as much involvement (likes, comments, and shares) as the former D23.

Up next, Sadrzadeh plans to create creator promotion a additional accordant and bigger growth motor by moving beyond one-off promotional activations toward longer-term partnerships, involving creators before in the promotion process, and more.

Sophia Sesto's heading may create it appear akin she runs HR for Poppi. But the prebiotic soda executive's job is "pop culture," Sesto told Business Insider.

Being chronically online is part of the job clarification for Sesto and the remainder of Poppi's squad operating alongside creators. Scrolling through the For You Page is how Poppi finds creators to activity alongside and prosecute traditional moments or trends that could be the brand's next viral campaign.

Case in point: Poppi's "Amaya Papaya" drink, a fictional sensation of the soda that the brand posted as a gag during the "Love Island" 2025 season. People wanted the flavor, and Poppi quickly made it happen, launching a constricted type of an "Amaya Island Colada" sensation at Target and tracking downward Amaya Espinal, the "Love Island" star, to be part of the campaign.

"We moved at the speed of culture," Sesto said. "We turned it from a meme to reality."

Sesto rode the achievement of the Amaya run and established a broader scheme about the actuality TV show. The brand worked alongside creators on observe parties and digital content, generating additional than 212 myriad views, according to Poppi.

Part of Sesto's command is to keep Poppi playful and pop-culture savvy following PepsiCo's acquisition of the soda brand.

"They're loving the Poppi flair," she said. "They're certainly letting us do our thing."

Ian Trombetta's goal is to affect the NFL's center fans during expanding the league's spectators and finding ways to bring clips and first satisfied to social feeds.

Trombetta heads up social, creator, and satisfied promotion at the NFL, overseeing efforts throughout its association accounts, 32 squad accounts, creator partnerships, and another initiatives.

The association enlists complete 150 social producers to go out and fire satisfied alongside players and influencers, and has worked alongside creators akin MrBeast, Dhar Mann, and Brazilian influencer CazeTV on collaborations. It looks for big social opportunities neighboring to what happens on the field, akin posting satisfied about Taylor Swift and the Kansas City Chiefs.

"Where we typically discover the most value although operating alongside creators is reaching additional informal fans, oftentimes, additional global fans," Trombetta said. "We see our female fan basis really engaging a lot alongside creators, which is great. So depending on what the undertaking is, we do expend fairly a bit of period on trying to attain those incremental audiences that may not be observing all Sunday."

Prior to joining the NFL, Trombetta worked at Red Bull and Activision.