NRF 2026: What Marketers Should Steal From This Year's Creator + AI Playbook
NRF's Retail's Big Show in New York made one thing obvious: brands are running influencer programs as full-funnel systems, and AI is the multiplier. The focus has shifted from "influencer posts" to a blended engine that earns attention, drives action, and feeds every channel with content - without losing authenticity.
If you're leading growth or brand, this is your field guide.
See the NRF event overview for broader context.
Authenticity sells - and creators do it better than brands
Consumers want real voices, not brand scripts. A Gen-Z panel made it blunt: "I don't make a purchase unless I check Reddit first," said Clay Lute. High school senior Sofia Sahai called out reviews from "real people" as the trust layer that beats polished campaigns.
Translation: let creators speak in their voice, or your performance tanks.
Build a tiered creator bench
Executives described a spectrum approach across celebrity, macro, micro, and affiliate partners - each with a job to do.
- Top tier for reach and heat: Fabletics taps Khloé Kardashian and Kevin Hart. H&M's roster spans Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Charli XCX and Tyla. American Eagle used Martha Stewart to bridge generations during the holidays.
- Middle and micro for trust: Pattern Beauty activates micro-influencers across diverse hair textures to show product efficacy and disarm skepticism. Kitsch partners with creators spanning hair types as it moves deeper into shampoo and conditioner.
- Founder-celebrity hybrid: Actor Jesse Metcalfe launched Nutrl skin care and personally carries education across TV and social - proof that a well-prepped founder can handle both awareness and conversion.
Affiliate is the performance layer
Affiliate partners are now a major slice of the influencer pie. Walmart manages "tens of thousands" via its Walmart Creator platform plus networks like LTK. The goal: traffic and conversions at scale.
Kitsch is onboarding affiliates who already tag the brand and training them on how to actually earn. American Eagle treats "anyone with a phone" - including office employees - as potential creators to jump on trends fast without studio overhead.
Stop handcuffing creators
Walmart learned that prescriptive briefs kill results. Now the team shares content ideas and trend data from social listening, then gets out of the way. Fabletics avoids forcing copy, because audiences smell fake from a mile away.
Let them talk like humans. Performance follows.
Creators as your content engine
Brands are using creator content across the entire stack: paid social, email, out-of-home, and even product detail pages. Fabletics embeds influencer videos on PDPs to show fit on real bodies and lift conversion. Walmart uses creator content to make its site more "fun" and to spark discovery.
H&M put it simply: creator content beats branded assets - by a lot.
Go beyond Meta and TikTok
Yes, Meta and TikTok still dominate. But teams are redistributing attention where engagement is deeper. Substack is a current "hot word" thanks to highly engaged, paying communities and room for long-form storytelling. Pinterest is a bright spot for American Eagle and H&M - a place to influence higher-intent, full-price customers and where creators set their strategy.
AI is doing the heavy lifting
Media buying and personalization are increasingly automated. The bigger pain is content volume. "Content is currency," as one executive put it - and no team can meet demand alone.
AI fills gaps, speeds production, and helps teams produce at the pace platforms reward. Use it to brief faster, version smarter, and repurpose at scale - then point your creators at the highest-leverage ideas.
Social is now a store - measure accordingly
With TikTok Shop and other integrated tools, the funnel is blurring. That changes measurement. Pattern Beauty and H&M look beyond short-term KPIs to read sentiment and conversation quality.
American Eagle runs a simple "3 Rs" model: Reach (are we hitting the right people?), Resonance (did it land and earn engagement?), Reaction (traffic, conversions, revenue). Celebrities skew reach and acquisition; affiliates skew reaction. Plan your mix accordingly.
"The store" is now multi-channel - and your .com still matters
Shopify president Harley Finkelstein captured the shift: "The online store is always going to be important… For modern brands, the hub is really the online store. You just have alternative channels. Whether it's Roblox, YouTube Shopping, Instagram, agentic, brick-and-mortar, or wholesale - wherever customers want to buy, make it easy."
Physical retail is a subscriber engine
Stores are pulling weight beyond sales. Fabletics says half of in-store shoppers sign up for its VIP membership. The company plans 40 store openings this year, 20 in international markets like Mexico, Guatemala and Dubai.
At Coterie, 90% of sales are DTC, yet 12% of new subscribers first try the brand via retail. It's carried in Whole Foods, Wegmans and Erewhon, and commands 86% of category sales at Whole Foods - a strong on-ramp back to subscription.
Action plan: Put this to work next quarter
- Map creators by job: celebrities for reach, mids for credibility, micros for depth, affiliates for conversion.
- Loosen briefs. Share insights and trends, then let creators speak in their own voice.
- Turn creators into a content engine. Pipe their assets into PDPs, paid, email, and OOH.
- Add channels where engagement compounds: test Substack and Pinterest alongside Meta and TikTok.
- Stand up (or scale) affiliate. Own tracking, payouts, and education to grow the long tail.
- Adopt the "3 Rs" metric stack. Align partners to the R they're built to drive.
- Prepare for social commerce. Treat TikTok, Instagram, and others as shoppable touchpoints from day one.
- Use stores to fuel subscriptions. Build trials, member offers, and fast paths to recurring revenue.
- Use AI to close the content gap: idea generation, versioning, and rapid creative testing.
Level up your AI skills (for marketers)
If you're formalizing your AI playbook for content, media, and measurement, this resource is useful: AI Certification for Marketing Specialists.
Your membership also unlocks:
