At Tech for Retail, one of Europe’s largest retail trade show, Trax was on-site and had the privilege of taking the stage with our customer, Pernod Ricard, to dive deep into a trend reshaping the CPG industry – and quite frankly, most industries, at unprecedented speed: creator and celebrity-founded brands, and the real impact they’re having in retail stores.
Let’s take a quick second to introduce what creator brands are: a creator or celebrity brand is a consumer brand built around a public figure (think actor, influencer, artist, athlete, etc.), who brings an existing audience, cultural relevance, and built-in demand. Unlike traditional brands, creator-led brands enter retail with an upper hand, using audience trust as their primary growth strategy. Any of these names ring a bell? George Clooney, Kendall Jenner, MrBeast, Dwayne Johnson, Lewis Hamilton… what do they have in common? They all have CPG brands sold in major retailers around the world.
These brands aren’t just launching fast and with an audience ready to buy. They’re changing how loyalty is built, how categories grow, and how competition shows up on the shelf.
From Endorsement to Ownership
What separates today’s creator brands from traditional celebrity endorsements is commitment. These founders aren’t just faces, they’re operators, investors, and storytellers, bringing their personal brand equity directly into the product.
In the spirits category alone, the shift has been dramatic. There were approximately 40 celebrity-led spirit brands in 2018, today there are nearly 400 brands led by celebrities / creators.
As Henri Mercier, Perfect Store Product Manager at Pernod Ricard, explained:
“It’s not just brand awareness. With the right budget, anyone can do that. What’s different here is the emotional connection.”
That connection matters. Celebrity-founded spirit brands show nearly 80% repeat purchase from their customers, a loyalty level that directly impacts sales.
Category Growth Starts with Shelf Disruption
Tequila offers a clear signal. Several celebrity founders have launched agave-based brands, and the momentum hasn’t just lifted individual SKUs, it’s helped the tequila industry grow a record 14% year-over-year, a staggering 10%+ growth compared to other spirit categories.
For brands like Pernod Ricard, this makes visibility critical.
“For us, we need to see how these trends affect the store,” Henri noted.
Because this kind of growth doesn’t wait for quarterly reports, it shows up first in distribution gains, shelf presence, and execution gaps.”
Loyalty That Actually Shows Up in Store
Creator brands’ consumers behave differently too.
While only 25% of households currently report purchasing creator-owned brands, over 70% of shoppers say they trust a brand more when they feel connected to the founder behind it.
David Gottlieb, Trax’s Chief Revenue Officer, illustrated this with the example of MrBeast, a world-known YouTuber, and his brand, Feastables. Despite massive online reach and rapid retail distribution, the brand encountered a familiar reality that many CPG manufacturers face daily: disrupted shelves, missing products, and poor placement.
MrBeast’s response was unconventional, he asked fans to help fix it, because he had the platform to do it… And they did.
“These consumers feel very connected to these founders,” David said.
“They’re willing to do more in terms of their expression of loyalty.”
While most brands won’t inspire fans to merchandise shelves, the takeaway is clear: engagement has changed and so has the speed of disruption.
What’s the So What and why should brands pay attention to creator-led brands?
In this environment, watching a short list of known competitors or tracking incremental share shifts isn’t enough. Watching what a creator-led brand is doing via social media won’t keep you ahead of the market.
As David put it, “That doesn’t really serve us well when disruption is coming from places we aren’t expecting.”
With the nuances of the industry and the rapid success – and continuation of creator-led brands, CPG manufacturers need a systematic way to stay ahead:
“It’s no longer an option to not have a plan in place to track, monitor and analyze this new ‘trend’… it’s imperative to stay competitive.” David explains.
At Trax, we help brands understand what’s happening inside the store, on the shelf, at any retailer across the globe.
Using image recognition, sales teams can capture live shelf conditions during visits, act faster, and create more value in-store. That data then feeds analytics and AI-driven recommendations that support smarter decisions across revenue growth management, trade marketing, category management, and portfolio strategy.
Newer capabilities, like augmented reality–based audits (p.s. Trax offers our AR-based On-Device IR solution), make it possible to capture rich shelf data quickly, even in stores where time and execution options are limited.
As Henri explained: “It allows our sales representatives to act faster and better — generating more value from every visit.”
Creator brands are accelerating category change. The shelf is where that change becomes visible first. Technology isn’t about reacting faster; it’s about seeing earlier, understanding better, and acting with confidence in a market that’s moving faster than ever.
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