The creator economy isn’t about influence. It’s about infrastructure.

If someone calls them influencers, run a mile. It’s a proper giveaway they don’t understand the economics of attention of the world they're trying to harness.

The creator world isn’t a media channel. It’s a parallel media infrastructure with its own broadcasters, publishers, and community nodes. And it operates on principles that traditional paid media still struggles to grasp.

At the top sit the broadcasters. Think of The Sidemen. Beta Squad. Mr Beast. They’re not just talent, they’re a media company. They own IP, produce at scale, and command attention economies that rival (or beat) TV or streamers. They’ve built their own infrastructure for reach, relevance, and revenue.

In the middle are the community builders. Creators with deep credibility in specific domains like fitness, design, gaming, or mental health. Their value isn’t just in what they say but in the context they say it in. They shape category entry points - the moments and cues that bring a brand to mind when people are ready to buy. They don’t trade in fame; they trade in familiarity. And familiarity, as decades of marketing science shows, is what drives mental availability and market share.

At the base are the connectors. The micro and nano creators who make ideas travel. They may not bring scale, but they bring texture. They make a brand feel native to culture rather than foreign to it. They spread ideas sideways, making brands part of the conversation rather than an interruption to it.

This is where most agencies get it wrong. Media agencies often treat creators as placements, optimising for reach and CPM. As a controlled vehicle to deliver a message from A to B. Creators don’t sit at the end of a funnel; they exist at the start of a memory process. They’re part of the context in which people decide which brands fit into their world.

Ad agencies often fall into the same trap, seeing creators as new channels for brand messages. But creators don’t transmit messages; they encode meaning. When a fitness creator uses your brand, they’re not endorsing it. They’re embedding it into the shortcuts their audience uses to make decisions.

That’s why traditional frameworks break. You can’t brief a creator campaign like a telly ad because the value isn’t in the asset - it’s in the association it creates. You’re not buying creative or eyeballs. You’re buying presence in memory.

Creators aren’t talent for hire. They are modern distribution infrastructure - the scaffolding through which attention now flows. Effectiveness isn’t about persuasion anymore. It’s about being thought of more easily, more often, and more positively over time.

The power in this world is almost unparalleled. But it's essential you actually understand it, and don't just badge or buy it.

If your agency still calls them influencers, they’re probably still confusing visibility with effectiveness.

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