If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: the influencer marketing landscape is constantly shifting. And while influencer marketing in 2025 brought more changes for the industry than ever, one creator economy trend remained true: if you want your brand to succeed on social, you need to understand where momentum in the creator economy is coming from.
With 2025 in the rear-view, we took a look at how 15 top industries fared in the global creator economy last year, analyzing the brands, themes, and trends that sparked social media buzz. The result is a comprehensive picture of how the creator economy shifted in 2025, reflecting and predicting macro-level market trends.
Ready to plan ahead? Let’s take a quick look back.
Overall Takeaways: The Big Picture
The creator economy is doing more than responding to trends. Last year made it clear that the industry is accelerating the shifts we see in the broader market, emerging as a powerful force for the economy as a whole.
How do we know? Because the data tells us so.
Consider some of the storylines we saw playing out across various industries and brands in 2025:
- Affordability is King: Consumers’ pursuit of value is manifesting across all industries, driving growth for budget-friendly options, encouraging accessible brands to enter the conversation, and posing challenges for upmarket options.
- The AI Boom is Real: The sudden, massive growth of the software and tech industry proves that creator marketing is a powerful accelerant for emerging technologies, especially AI.
- New Guard vs. Old Guard: Industries with newer creator marketing programs, like professional sports, are seeing significantly higher growth in performance metrics, while industries with older, more established creator marketing programs, like beauty, are stabilizing and investing more in operational scale.
- Creators as a Proxy for Consumption Habits: Some of consumers’ most beloved purchases, such as wellness, hydration, and coffee products, are translating to creator marketing success for select brands. Meanwhile, hurdles are emerging for categories like alcoholic beverages and luxury fashion.
To fully unpack these findings, we’re going to go industry by industry, highlighting notable trends, standout stats, and winning brands from each category.
Industry Deep Dive: What to Know About the Creator Economy’s Top Categories
We took a look at 15 industries spanning the creator economy, from tried-and-true industries with legacy creator programs to industries that are just starting to dip their toes in the water. While there was plenty of growth to go around in 2025, not all industries enjoyed the same success. Here’s what the data taught us about the creator marketing industry, and what your brand needs to know to excel in 2026.
Industries are listed in descending order of average YoY growth among top 100 brands by Earned Media Value (EMV):
- Software & Tech
- Non-Alcoholic Beverages
- Travel & Hospitality
- Quick-Service Restaurants
- Automotive
- Professional Sports
- Streaming Services
- Media & Entertainment
- Beauty
- Food & Beverage
- Retailers
- Alcoholic Beverages
- Home & Garden
- Apparel
- Luxury Fashion
Software & Tech
- EMV: +656%
- Impressions: +1474%
- Creator Count: +134%
- Post Count: +413%
- Engagements: +973%
- TikTok Shop
- ChatGPT
- Substack
- Google Gemini
- Deepseek
Non-Alcoholic Beverages
- EMV: +49%
- Impressions: +71%
- Creator Count: +26%
- Post Count: +42%
- Engagements: +36%
- Gamer Supps
- Dutch Bros Coffee
- JUST Water
- PepsiCo
- Electrolit
Travel & Hospitality
- EMV: +39%
- Impressions: +52%
- Creator Count: +26%
- Post Count: +21%
- Engagements: +45%
- Air India
- Conrad Hotels & Resorts
- Universal Orlando
- American Airlines
- Jet2.com
Quick-Service Restaurants
- EMV: +35%
- Impressions: +31%
- Creator Count: +19%
- Post Count: +23%
- Engagements: +34%
- Dairy Queen
- Dutch Bros Coffee
- Dave’s Hot Chicken
- 7 Brew Coffee
- Arby’s
Automotive
- EMV: +35%
- Impressions: +83%
- Creator Count: +29%
- Post Count: +32%
- Engagements: +64%
- Suzuki
- Bugatti
- BYD Auto
- Cadillac
- Mahindra Auto
Professional Sports
- EMV: +33%
- Impressions: +53%
- Creator Count: +15%
- Post Count: +24%
- Engagements: +10%
- FC Barcelona
- Philadelphia Eagles
- Indiana Pacers
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Montreal Canadiens
Streaming Services
- EMV: +39%
- Impressions: +46%
- Creator Count: +16%
- Post Count: +31%
- Engagements: +16%
- Netflix
- HBO Max
- Apple TV+
- TuneIn
- Victory+
Media & Entertainment
- EMV: +28%
- Impressions: +36%
- Creator Count: +1%
- Post Count: +12%
- Engagements: +3%
- WWE
- DAZN
- YouTube TV
- IMAX
- PBS
Beauty
- EMV: +22%
- Impressions: +31%
- Creator Count: +18%
- Post Count: +19%
- Engagements: +19%
- RHODE Skin
- Medicube
- Danessa Myricks Beauty
- Anua
- Sacheu Beauty
Food & Beverage
- EMV: +19%
- Impressions: +21%
- Creator Count: +8%
- Post Count: +12%
- Engagements: +1%
- DoorDash
- Nescafé
- Chobani
- Ben & Jerry’s
- Fruit Riot
Retailers
- EMV: +18%
- Impressions: +20%
- Creator Count: +9%
- Post Count: +15%
- Engagements: 0%
- Mercado Libre
- ShopMy
- Flipkart
- Meesho
- QVC
Alcoholic Beverages
- EMV: +15%
- Impressions: +26%
- Creator Count: +5%
- Post Count: +7%
- Engagements: +22%
- BuzzBallz
- Truly
- DAOU Vineyards
- Cutwater
- Quilmes
Home & Garden
- EMV: +10%
- Impressions: +12%
- Creator Count: +12%
- Post Count: +14%
- Engagements: -2%
- Ninja Kitchen
- Caraway
- Dreame
- Hatch
- Bang & Olufsen
Apparel
- EMV: +8%
- Impressions: +9%
- Creator Count: +11%
- Post Count: +14%
- Engagements: -4%
- Peppermayo
- Ray-Ban Meta Glasses
- Gap
- Havaianas
- Missguided
Luxury Fashion
- EMV: -2%
- Impressions: +2%
- Creator Count: 0%
- Post Count: -1%
- Engagements: -13%
- Carolina Herrera
- Chloé
- Emilio Pucci
- RHUDE
- Azzaro
Conclusions: Putting It All Together
The creator economy posed different challenges and opportunities across multiple industries in 2025. Consumer sentiment buoyed high-growth categories like software and tech, non-alcoholic beverages, and travel and hospitality, while industries like home and garden, apparel, and luxury fashion struggled against economic headwinds.
Regardless of their industry, 2025’s winning brands offer multiple lessons for brands looking to make the most of their 2026 creator marketing programs:
Prioritize Value and Affordability:
With affordability on everyone’s minds, creator marketers in QSR, retail, and apparel should focus their campaigns, and their key partnerships, on creators who can speak authentically about budget-friendly options.
Simplify the Complex:
While the AI boom boosted software and tech, marketers in every industry can learn from this success by focusing on educational, utility-driven content that makes new products accessible to a broad audience.
Lean into Wellness and Lifestyle:
For categories like non-alcoholic beverages and food and beverage, success came from leveraging consumer trends toward wellness, hydration, and coffee. Top brands from these industries should continue partnering with authentic, health-focused creators to drive momentum for functional products.
Strategically Embrace Aspirational, Experiential Content Strategically:
Consumers are keeping eyes on their budgets, but that didn’t stop industries like automotive and travel and hospitality from finding success with high-production, aspirational content. The key? These brands positioned creators as experts, allowing audiences to live vicariously through their experiences.
Harness Authentic Narratives:
Professional Sports and similar passion areas thrived on content creation surrounding major events and storylines. Marketers in all industries can capitalize on this trend by producing immersive, playful, and narrative-driven behind-the-scenes content that connects their brands to broader cultural moments.
Pivot Toward Leading Indicators:
Brands in more established or struggling industries can adapt by looking at what worked in 2025. Luxury fashion houses, for example, can pivot their creator efforts toward spotlighting emerging voices. Meanwhile, alcoholic beverages brands can focus their marketing efforts on single-serving and hard seltzer products, which showed momentum despite a difficult consumer climate.
One more lesson? No matter how individual industries fared in 2025, the creator economy only gained momentum. At a higher volume than ever, across multiple industries and all around the world, brands tapped creators to expand their audiences, champion their missions, and build resonant content. Whatever 2026 brings, creators will be right in the heart of it, helping to shape the future of marketing.
For more information on the creator economy's leading brands, check out our monthly Top 10 Leaderboards.
