IAB Ireland held its first Creator Marketing Summit in Dublin on September 9, bringing brands, creators, agencies, publishers and major social platforms together to discuss the changing shape of creator marketing.
The event took place at 1WML in Dublin 2 and formed part of the wider IAB Global Creator Week 2026 initiative. The programme focused on areas that now matter far beyond follower counts, including audience trust, disclosure, campaign measurement, creator-brand relationships and the growing role of platforms in shaping the creator economy.
Creator Marketing Is Moving Deeper Into Brand Strategy
Creator partnerships have existed for years, but their role inside marketing plans is changing. Brands are increasingly treating creators as part of the core campaign strategy rather than as a final promotional layer added after the main creative work is finished. That shift was reflected throughout the IAB Ireland Creator Marketing Summit, where discussions covered campaign planning, platform opportunities, measurement and the development of longer-term partnerships between brands and creators.
The event also brought different parts of the industry into the same conversation. Advertisers heard from platforms, creators joined discussions alongside agencies and talent representatives, and publishers contributed their own perspective on how creator-led storytelling can work alongside established media. That broader mix reflects how creator marketing now sits across advertising, entertainment, commerce and digital media rather than belonging to just one part of the marketing industry.
New Research Highlights the Creator Trust Gap
One of the summit’s key discussions focused on new Irish research from RED C Research, commissioned by IAB Ireland to examine how audiences respond to creator content. The findings showed that creators can play a meaningful role in brand discovery, with 38% of heavy online media users saying creator content had encouraged them to research a product or brand further, while 36% said it had introduced them to something new.
The more uncomfortable finding involved trust. Authenticity was considered important by 72% of Irish adults surveyed, yet only 17% believed sponsored creator content currently feels authentic. Transparency showed a similar gap, with 68% saying that clear disclosure of advertising relationships matters, while only 21% felt creators were sufficiently transparent about paid partnerships. The numbers point to a growing tension in the creator economy: audiences are influenced by creators, but they are also becoming more alert to how commercial those relationships can feel.
YouTube, Meta and TikTok Discuss the Changing Creator Ecosystem
YouTube, Meta and TikTok were also part of the summit, with representatives discussing how creator opportunities are evolving across their platforms. Among those taking part were YouTube Ireland Ambassador Rob Malone and TikTok Ireland Head of SMB Claire Mulhern. Meta also contributed to the conversation around how brands and creators are working together inside increasingly complex platform ecosystems.
The platform angle matters because creator marketing no longer behaves like a simple advertising placement. A single creator video can introduce a product, trigger a search, lead someone to a brand account and eventually contribute to a purchase without following the neat funnel brands once used to measure traditional advertising. That makes attribution harder, but it also explains why platforms are investing more heavily in creator tools, partnerships and commerce features.
Irish Brands Put Creator Campaigns Under the Microscope
The summit also looked at real campaigns from the Irish market, giving attendees a closer view of how creator strategies are being used in practice. The Irish Times Group and Dulux Paints Ireland examined the use of premium publisher content alongside creator collaboration for Dulux Heritage, while Core and An Post discussed the thinking behind An Post’s #BookTok activity.
THINKHOUSE and Heineken Ireland also presented work around the Orchard Thieves Fox Pack, focusing on a creator-first approach rather than treating creators simply as distribution partners. These examples showed how brands are trying to work inside communities and formats that already have their own language and culture. The stronger campaigns are not necessarily the ones that feel most polished. Often, they are the ones that feel native to the creator and the audience.
Regulation Is Becoming Harder to Ignore
Advertising regulation and disclosure also featured prominently during the summit. Michael Lee, Deputy Chief Executive of Ireland’s Advertising Standards Authority, addressed advertising standards, transparency and the regulatory expectations surrounding creator partnerships. That side of creator marketing may not attract the same attention as viral campaigns or platform growth, but it is becoming increasingly important as more advertising spend moves into the space.
Brands need to know that their campaigns comply with advertising rules, while creators have to disclose commercial relationships without making the content feel unnatural or overly scripted. The issue is likely to become even more complicated as AI-generated and AI-modified content becomes more common. IAB Ireland’s RED C research found that 80% of respondents believed creators should clearly disclose when AI has been used to create or significantly alter content, while only 33% felt confident that they could reliably distinguish human-created content from AI-generated material.
Good Creator Marketing Is Becoming Harder to Define
The summit closed with a wider discussion about what good creator marketing actually looks like. Creators, talent representatives and industry figures explored the factors that make partnerships work, including audience fit, authenticity, transparency, creative control and the length of the relationship between a brand and a creator.
The discussion reflects a broader shift in how companies evaluate creator campaigns. A large following can still generate reach, but it does not automatically create trust or relevance. Brands are being pushed to look beyond audience size and think more carefully about whether the creator is a natural fit for the campaign, whether the partnership gives the creator enough creative freedom and whether the audience is likely to view the collaboration as believable.
Ireland Joins a Wider Global Creator Marketing Push
The Dublin event was part of IAB Global Creator Week 2026, a broader international programme focused on creator marketing education, standards, collaboration and professional development. Creator-focused events and discussions are taking place across multiple markets as IAB organisations respond to the rapid growth of the creator economy.
Ireland’s participation is another sign that creator marketing is moving into a more mature phase. Agencies are building dedicated creator teams, platforms are adding more creator-focused advertising products, talent management is becoming more professionalized and brands are putting more money into the channel. The infrastructure around creator marketing is catching up with the scale of the industry itself.
Creator Marketing’s Next Phase Will Depend on Trust
The first IAB Ireland Creator Marketing Summit arrived at a moment when creator marketing is becoming both more powerful and more complicated. Brands clearly want access to creator audiences, platforms want to make those partnerships easier and creators themselves are increasingly operating like independent media businesses.
The challenge is keeping the relationship credible. Audiences can quickly detect partnerships that feel forced, repetitive or disconnected from the creator’s usual content. As more money moves into creator campaigns, the industry will have to professionalize without stripping away the personality and trust that made creators valuable in the first place.
That may be the most important takeaway from the summit. Creator marketing no longer needs to prove that it matters. The bigger question now is how brands, creators, platforms and regulators can make it work without weakening the trust that drives the entire ecosystem.
Sources
AdWorld: https://www.adworld.ie/2026/09/11/iab-ireland-to-hold-first-creator-marketing-summit-in-dublin-2/
IAB Ireland: https://iabireland.ie/event/iab-ireland-creator-event-new/
AdWorld Creator Research: https://www.adworld.ie/2026/09/11/creator-content-is-driving-brand-discovery-but-trust-gap-persists/
IAB Global Creator Week: https://www.iab.com/?p=210539