Thursday, February 05th

📊 Did you know?

OpenAI now requires a $200K minimum commitment for ChatGPT ads.

(Adweek, 2026)

🚀 Top January Creator Campaigns

Every month, I round up the best influencer and creator marketing campaigns that you can learn from and copy.

These campaigns show how brands are working with creators today — and the exact tactics you can reuse in your own activations 👇️ 

1️⃣ Kendall Jenner × Fanatics

This is my favourite campaign of January - why? It’s so smart!

For their first Super Bowl ad, Fanatics turned the long-running “Kardashian Kurse” joke into a participatory betting campaign.

→ “Bet on Kendall” had Jenner joking about her NBA exes — but this time she’s betting on games, not dating players.

Before the spot even aired, launch content hit +42M views on Instagram.

Fans can follow her real Super Bowl picks and choose to bet with or against her.

As a campaign extension, she even called Tom Brady live on Jimmy Kimmel to place a bet — turning PR into more content fuel.

Why it worked:

• Humor disarmed the category

• The celebrity became part of the product experience

• Interactive mechanic turned attention into action

💡 Lesson for brands: Ideas win when they’re rooted in the ambassador’s personal story people already relate to.

2️⃣ L’Oréal – Ski Trip

L’Oréal hosted its first-ever community ski trip in Val d’Isère to launch a 90-minute hydrogel mask.

Guests wore the masks during their 90-minute flight — product use became the content.

The experience was wild: an extensionist toboggan down the mountain, a Glass Skin robot delivering products, and a gondola pop-up hair salon.

Out of 7 guests, 6 were real community members and 1 was a TikTok competition winner.

Why it worked:

• Product lived inside the experience

• Real customers > rented influencers

• Visual spectacle built for short-form

💡 Lesson: Events beat posts when the product is part of the story, not the caption.

3️⃣ Dr Pepper – From TikTok to TV

Creator Romeo Bingham posted a homemade Dr Pepper jingle on TikTok.
It exploded to +25M views, sparking remixes, dances and fan ads.

Dr Pepper licensed the original audio and aired it during the College Football Championship — with the creator credited on screen like a music video. The brand even replaced a planned ad slot to react in time.

Why it worked:

• They didn’t kill the meme

• The creator got paid and credited

• Speed beat “perfect branding”

💡 Lesson: Join culture without trying to own it.

4️⃣ Adidas × Molly-Mae

Adidas signed Molly-Mae as global brand ambassador for apparel and lifestyle.

The launch got huge resonance:
+7M views, 500K+ likes, 2,000+ comments.

This deal felt obvious 👇️ 
She wore Adidas for years → small collabs → now a long-term partnership.
Audience fit is real: 4% of Adidas UK followers also follow Molly-Mae.

Why it worked:

• Organic history with the brand

• Fashion authority over promo posts

• Access to a new Gen-Z audience

💡 Lesson: Formalize the relationships audiences already believe.

5️⃣ NYX × Paloma Sanchez

NYX had removed and reformulated its cult “Cold Brew” lip liner — and fans weren’t happy.

Beauty creator Paloma Sanchez spent 450 days documenting her hunt for a true dupe.
What started as frustration turned into a viral TikTok series and a community movement.

NYX listened — and brought the shade back as “OG Brew” in collaboration with her.
Result: sold out in 5 hours.

Why it worked:

• The creator voiced a real consumer pain

• The brand admitted the mistake

• Community felt co-ownership of the comeback

💡 Lesson: When creators represent genuine demand, they can guide product decisions better than focus groups.

What you can copy for your campaigns

• Turn attention into participation – add mechanics people can play with, not just watch (Kendall × Fanatics).

• Design experiences around usage – make the product part of the moment, not the prop (L’Oréal Glacier Glitch).

• Move at internet speed – license the meme before it dies (Dr Pepper).

• Formalize organic love – sign creators who already live your brand (Adidas × Molly-Mae).

• Let creators guide product – real complaints = better roadmap than surveys (NYX × Paloma).

🧠 YouTube overtakes Reddit as the top AI search citation

📌 Pinterest cuts 15% staff to focus on AI

🎙 YouTube expands auto-dubbing to all creators

💰 X awards $1M to January’s top article

🎬 Meta tests a standalone AI video app

📊 X launches Brand Ranx for Super Bowl ads

📣 Threads rolls out ads worldwide

🍎 Apple launches Creator Studio subscription

🆕 Instagram adds “New” label on recent posts