Background
Whalar is a global creator and social agency that sits at the center of a fast-expanding creator economy now worth an estimated $250 billion, with forecasts to double by 2027. In this ecosystem, creators have become trusted guides for consumers who increasingly prefer creator recommendations over traditional celebrity endorsements or brand ads. Yet, while brands are investing more in creator partnerships, many still lack a clear framework for understanding how creator content works across platforms and what truly drives trust, loyalty and purchase.

Challenge
Whalar’s clients were asking tough questions: How do audiences move between platforms to follow creators they love? Which creative elements actually build trust and drive action? How should brands think about media mix when the same creator shows up on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook in different ways?

The existing metrics focused heavily on engagement and reach but did not decode the creative “why” behind performance or the role of trust and community. Whalar needed robust evidence and a cross-platform blueprint to help brands design better briefs, choose the right creators and integrate creator content with its own channels.

Solution
Whalar partnered with Alter Agents on a multimodal study across the United States and United Kingdom called The Creator Code: Cracking Cross-Platform Influence. The program combined qualitative mobile ethnographies with 20 social media users, 12 in-depth interviews with creators across key categories, and a custom online survey of 2,000 social media users that included a MaxDiff exercise. The research mapped: 

• how followers discover, evaluate, and follow creators across platforms; 
• how creators adapt content and manage brand partnerships; 
• and which creative attributes matter most for trust, loyalty, and purchase. 

The team translated findings into a set of diagnostic criteria for platform roles, content types, and creator-brand integrations, plus a practical “marketer tutorial” that outlined how to brief creators, structure campaigns and match platform motivations to campaign objectives.

Results
The research confirmed creators’ unique power as trusted, emotionally resonant voices, and revealed how that influence plays out differently across platforms. It also provided Whalar’s clients with a practical, evidence-based roadmap for briefing creators, structuring partnerships, and aligning creative goals with platform behaviors. The work became the foundation of a popular presentation at the market research industry’s largest global event, Esomar Congress,, establishing a new cross-platform framework for creator-brand strategy.

Key findings from the study included:

• Creator trust drives action: 72% of followers have purchased a product recommended by a creator they trust, confirming creators’ outsized influence on buying decisions.
• Creators fuel discovery and loyalty: 77% discovered new brands through creators, and 72% feel connected and loyal to the creators they follow, giving brands access to highly engaged communities.
• Influence moves across platforms: 85% follow creators on multiple platforms to avoid missing out, making cross-platform planning essential for brand integrations.
• Authenticity matters more than polish: Qualitative findings showed that rigid, high-production ads often hurt performance, while creator-driven, self-produced content maintained trust and engagement.
• Creators do their best work with partnership, not control: Interviews emphasized that tight briefs paired with creative freedom deliver the most effective brand content.

For Whalar and its clients, the study delivered a data-backed playbook that clarified platform roles, distilled the creative attributes audiences value most, and illustrated how creators convert trust into action, giving brands a new standard for cross-platform creator strategy.

“At Whalar, we believe in the need to measure and validate the impact of the Creator Economy, and when it came time to develop a study to produce actionable insights, Alter Agents was the clear winner; instead of offering a cookie cutter methodology, our Alter Agents team came up with a bespoke solution specifically for Whalar to help answer our questions.  The results were far more impactful than I could have hoped!” – Gaz Alushi, president, measurement & analytics, Whalar