Prof. Dr. Andreas U. Lanz

Digital Marketing Analytics

Research Topic
The creator economy is undergoing a seismic shift from creators merely endorsing
others to launching their own product brands. Over the past years, income from
such creator brands has grown 82% year-over-year, three times faster than income
from paid endorsements. In contrast to paid endorsements, which primarily
require creators to keep their followers engaged, launching their own product
brand necessitates a creator to simultaneously manage their community ties,
business operations, and financial risks. Mega-creators like Jimmy Donaldson—
with more than 437M followers—have the operational and financial resources to
launch, test, and iterate several creator brands, such as MrBeast Burger or Feastable,
which generated $240 million in revenue in 2024. Yet, micro-creators, despite their
comparatively stronger community engagement and conversion rates for endorsing
products, need partners to overcome operational and financial resource limitations.
As user-generated content platforms and manufacturers prepare to embrace the
shift from creators-as-endorsers to creators-as-entrepreneurs, understanding
creators’ brand launch decisions and preferences for manufacturer partnerships
becomes paramount.

Description of the Problem
This proposal builds on and extends the project outlined in last year’s
proposal––hence the title Democratizing the Creator Economy II––which
funded two studies and was granted CHF 15‘000 (see FV-120). As part of last
year’s proposal, we conducted 36 in-depth interviews with micro-creators who
market their own products (Study 1). In line with prior literature, maintaining
authenticity emerged as the top factor for creator brand success. Interviewees
emphasized that significant personal effort and financial risk-taking are necessary
for product launches, under-scoring a fundamental tension between maintaining
their authentic creator identity and managing operational complexity. Notably,
a subsequent choice-based conjoint analysis with about 250 creators (Study 2)
revealed a striking gap between the stated top success factor and revealed creator
preferences: despite claiming that authenticity matters most, creators systematically
trade product customization—a central lever for maintaining authenticity—for
reduced personal effort and financial risk.
Based on the qualitative insights and initial results from a choice task (i.e.,
simulated manufacturer partnership offers for launching a supplement product),
we hypothesize that entrepreneur-turned creators carefully consider whether they
can afford authenticity under the constraints of personal efforts and fi nancial risk.
This affordable authenticity hypothesis may have relevant implications for guiding
partnerships between creators and manufacturers, and for platforms trying to
orchestrate this shift (see section 5). Yet, to substantiate and causally test the
affordable authenticity hypothesis, a randomized controlled trial and crosscategory
evidence are needed. Furthermore, insights into followers’ perceptions of
creators’ authenticity across the journey of a creator brand launch (i.e., pre-launch,
launch, post-launch) may off er nuanced insights into how creators can mitigate
potential harm to their authenticity.

Objectives
In this research with Boas Bamberger and Philip Pollmann-Fervers, we want to
(1) causally test the affordable authenticity hypothesis in the supplements context,
(2) extend this causal test to additional categories (i.e., beauty and beverages), and
(3) survey followers’ perceptions of creators’ authenticity when launching a brand.

Importance, Usefulness and Novelty of the Project
Creators are pivoting from paid endorsements to launching their own brands.
Funding this project will generate insights to help micro-creators, manufacturers,
and platforms collaborate and democratize the creator economy, while securing
new revenue streams by aggregating demand across highly engaged and profi table
niches.