As marketing spending continues to pour into the creator economy, Nestlé is working to bring greater rigor and structure to its process of turning popular social content into paid media ads. According to information exclusively obtained by Marketing Dive, the consumer packaged goods giant, which owns brands such as Nescafé, Coffee Mate, and Purina, is deploying an integrated solution jointly provided by CreatorIQ and CreativeX to identify creator posts that may perform well as ads and meet internal advertising quality standards.

This new tool sends submissions from CreatorIQ's creator management platform to CreativeX via API, thereby unifying the workflows of creator marketing and paid media. The content is then scored using artificial intelligence technology from CreativeX's creative analytics platform, with scores fed directly back into the CreatorIQ platform for campaign managers to review and optimize before any media budget is spent. The process is based on Nestlé's suitability requirements around brand presentation, storytelling ability, and content relevance, aiming to meet the consistency needs of its vast portfolio spanning thousands of products.

"Now you're starting to see that the industry truly desires to convert organic content that naturally performs better in feeds into the paid ecosystem. What we're trying to do is help simplify that process," said Tim Sovay, Chief Partnership Officer at CreatorIQ.

The launch comes as major consumer packaged goods companies like Nestlé and Unilever shift more budget previously allocated to traditional digital media toward creator-led strategies. According to recent research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, creator ad revenue is expected to reach $44 billion this year, and the strategy is evolving from one-off campaigns into a core media channel. CreatorIQ's own analysis shows that about two-thirds of current growth in creator budgets is coming directly from paid media.

Despite surging investment and increasing institutionalization of practices, creator marketing still faces obstacles such as the need for improved measurement, brand suitability, and standardization—common challenges in rapidly maturing channels. There are already numerous tools on the market that can precisely target influential creator talent, but CreatorIQ and CreativeX—both of which have worked with Nestlé for years—see an opportunity to help brands make complex decisions regarding media budgets, thereby helping brands achieve greater value, reduce risk, and accelerate production cycles.

"Incorporating creator content into our paid strategy means creators need to operate within the same framework as paid media ads, especially regarding our standards for creative hygiene and effectiveness," said Daniele Tundo, Head of Digital Content, Social Media, and Influencer Marketing at Nestlé, in prepared remarks. "This integration enables us to review and score content created by influencers and creators based on our fundamental rules for content best practices and effectiveness."

A more structured approach

Some leading social media platforms have already recognized the value of converting popular organic content into ads. Early in TikTok's rise in popularity, it launched its Spark Ads product to turn popular brand and creator assets into ads, and competitors quickly followed with similar offerings.

Meanwhile, social feeds are increasingly showing users videos from accounts they do not follow, and the overall volume of content is rapidly expanding, making it difficult for brands to sift through the vast amount of information to find valuable content. Sovay explained that the goal of CreatorIQ and CreativeX is not to convert creator posts into paid media at scale, but rather to focus on the "top 1%" of quality output, where paid strategies can serve as a meaningful amplifier. The two companies also emphasize that creator-led content, even when performing well as ads, should not be viewed as a full replacement for traditional brand messaging.

"When creator ads and brand ads work in tandem, amplifying similar messages but with a great deal of creative diversity and variation within them—that's when you truly see campaign performance soar," said Anastasia Leng, Founder and CEO of CreativeX.

The integration was available to all brands under Nestlé at launch. Tundo noted that creators are occupying a more central position in the marketer's overall communications, and a structured approach may support further investment in the coming years.

"It's still early days, but we are seeing positive signs that this integration can help us deliver better performance for our brands and give us a consolidated view of how content is performing," Tundo said.

For CreativeX and CreatorIQ, they believe this new collaborative capability is broadly applicable to the growing number of marketers undergoing a social-first transformation.

"We absolutely see the potential for this to help every brand maximize the value of its creator investments," Leng said. "Nestlé is exactly the kind of visionary architect that makes this a reality."