In this year-end episode, hosts Ceci Carloni and Nii Ahene explore three stories that reveal how brands are fundamentally restructuring around creator-first strategies:

🧼 Unilever Admits Defeat (And Wins): The CPG giant's home care division transformed Cleanipedia—a 20-year-old cleaning tips website—into a global creator platform working with 2,000 creators across multiple countries. Their new CEO strategy includes "Said by Others" as a core pillar, essentially admitting that creators deliver brand messages better than Unilever itself. We explore this massive power shift and whether raw, unpolished, socially-native content from regular people is now the winning formula for legacy brands.

🏨 Radisson's Creator Hub Revolution: The global hospitality brand launched a platform specifically for nano influencers across 210 hotels, trading free three-night stays for content instead of cash payments. We debate whether this democratizes access for smaller creators or risks normalizing unpaid work, and if brands building their own internal creator systems signals the end of agencies and marketplaces.

📊 The M&A Market Awakens: Despite a 69% drop in deals last year, 2025 saw a major rebound with blockbuster acquisitions like Publicis buying Captivate for $175M. Quartermass Advisors' new report predicts even more $100M+ deals in 2026—but here's the twist: all the value is going to companies that help brands work with creators, not companies that help creators themselves. We explore what this means for where the real power and money sits in the creator economy.

From Unilever giving up brand control to Radisson building creator infrastructure to M&A revealing who actually captures value—this episode shows how 2025 reshaped the fundamental structure of the creator economy.

The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.