How the Influencer Economy is Shaping Political Creative

The creator economy is drastically reshaping political creative.

Creatives are juggling traditional ad shoots with influencer partnerships, TikTok videos and organic content. At the same time, they’re racing to integrate fast-moving artificial intelligence technology into their workflows as platforms like Meta begin to roll out new AI-powered advertising features.

Taken together, the new developments are reshaping advertising and raising new questions about what political creative is – and should be.

“I actually think we should be looking at it as an integrated approach, because it’s not really ‘should we do influencer marketing, should we have shortform content, should we have organic content and should we have our traditional tent-pole advertising campaign?’ ” Colin Rogero, the co-founder and creative director at Conexión, said during a recent panel discussion at Campaigns & Elections’ Creative Summit 2025. “The answer is we should have all of that.”

“The key in doing so is how do you integrate it in an authentic way that is consistent,” he added. 

At C&E’s Creative Summit, political creatives reflected on the major trends shaping their industry ahead of the 2026 midterms. Content creators and influencers are increasingly becoming coveted messengers for campaigns, and there’s more pressure than ever for candidates to jump on social media trends. 

Emily Karr, the director of creative strategy at IMGE, said that some of the most impactful political creative she’s seen recently isn’t actually coming from campaigns, but rather from influencers and content creators. 

Consequently, she said, some of the “most compelling moments are outside the control of the campaign,” forcing creatives to integrate influencers’ style, branding and tone into their own work.

“We put a lot of effort into researching who we want to partner with and what brief we want to give them and how we’re going to structure having this kind of one-time spokesman, this one-time creative consultant,” Karr said. “But we see those ads perform extremely well, because they are credible to the audience we’re running them to. They have a credible spokesperson.”

Amrutha Chatty, an account supervisor at GMMB, said that she’s seen a rise in what she described as the “meme-ification” of online content, where campaigns and candidates are adopting the same trends and tactics of non-political creators in an effort to break through on social media.

“Anytime you scroll on TikTok, you’re seeing normal content and then you’re seeing Gavin Newsom do a TikTok dance or something, or a member of Congress engaging in these trends,” she said. “Something that I’m interested in is – and I don’t know the answer to yet – how much is that actually breaking through to audiences and what is it doing if it is breaking through?”

It’s a new playing field for political creatives and campaigns, which have long valued consistency and control in their media strategies. But at a time when voters – especially young people – are demanding authenticity from their politicians, consultants are racing to meet them where they are, even if that means relinquishing some amount of control. 

“The way they need to be communicated to is very new and very different, and I think that we’re all navigating it and I’m really curious to see what the impact of that is,” Chatty said.

Dave Martinez, a vice president at Targeted Victory, said that there’s still value in the kind of polished ads that have long dominated politics. But he also said that the “creator-influencer economy is only going to continue to grow,” and that creatives are going to have to embrace it if they want to break through in an increasingly crowded media landscape.

“I think the most powerful ads that are going to go into the next cycle and beyond probably won’t even look like an ad anymore,” Martinez said. “They’re going to come from people you know – your neighbor, your coworker, people you follow online. It may not be that polished studio spot or the shoot that you do over a week or two.”