---
title: "Why Creators Launch Their Own Brands"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/994ce510-19a3-44e0-8e63-146c528ba6d0
source_url: "https://wwz.unibas.ch/de/wwz-forum/projekte-und-publikationen/fv-126/"
stack: https://stacklist.com/c/business/stack/115f94ce-fec0-4688-a4f5-631afa03ee90
summary: "This research examines why creators are shifting from endorsements to launching their own product brands, focusing on the tension between maintaining authenticity and managing operational complexity. The study proposes testing the \"affordable authenticity hypothesis\" through randomized controlled trials across supplements, beauty, and beverage categories, with insights into follower perceptions throughout the brand launch journey."
tags: "creator-economy, brand-launch, authenticity, micro-creators, manufacturer-partnerships, user-generated-content"
key_entities: "Andreas U. Lanz (person), Jimmy Donaldson (person), Boas Bamberger (person), Philip Pollmann-Fervers (person), Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät (organization), affordable-authenticity-hypothesis (concept), creator-economy (concept), MrBeast Burger (technology), Feastable (technology)"
classification: "analysis"
content_hash: "sha256:4efb20c7fdebc9254514b197ae6cae1a8ecf2297bff89d8c0969446a11e39f34"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 1107
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# Why Creators Launch Their Own Brands

Kontakt Notfall Intranet       Suche Suche Suche Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät Suche Suche Suche Democratizing the Creator Economy II (FV-126) 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. Quick Links UB Wirtschaft | SWA ITSC JBH Pinboard Alumni WWZ Basel Alumni Basel SVG Basel WWZnewsletter RealWWZ Fachgruppe WiWi Social Media LinkedIn Youtube WWZFaculty Blog © Universität Basel Datenschutz Impressum Cookies Nach oben