Publicis Nabs PepsiCo Account, Minecraft Launches AI Creator Partnership

This week’s performance marketing roundup delivered two announcements that will reshape creator partnership strategy for gaming, entertainment and esports brands over the next 18 months. First, Publicis Groupe has secured a consolidated global creative, media and performance marketing account for PepsiCo, a win that marks a major shift in how mass-market consumer brands approach creator-led campaigns. Second, Mojang, the developer behind global gaming hit Minecraft, has unveiled a new generative AI partnership built explicitly for creators building content within the game’s ecosystem, cutting through months of industry uncertainty about AI’s role in creator marketing to deliver a use case rooted in creator autonomy and control. For CMOs who have spent the last two years navigating fluctuating creator budgets, AI hype and shifting audience preferences, these moves offer clear signals about where the industry is headed, and how to align their strategies for long-term success.

Publicis’s PepsiCo win covers all creative, media and performance marketing services across 12 global markets, with a stated focus on creator-led campaign strategy for the brand’s youth-focused beverage and snack portfolio. Mojang’s new AI tool, set to launch in closed beta for 5,000 creators in Q4 2024, will allow users to generate custom in-game assets and narrative beats without requiring advanced coding or 3D modeling skills.

For years, creator marketing was treated as a siloed, experimental line item for CPG brands like PepsiCo, often managed by small, disconnected teams with limited budget and no integration into broader brand strategy. The decision to hand the brand’s full global account to Publicis, which has invested heavily in building a dedicated creator practice over the last three years, signals that creator partnerships are now a core component of mass-market brand marketing, not a side project. For CMOs in gaming, esports and entertainment, this is a critical bellwether: if a brand with PepsiCo’s global reach, multi-billion dollar marketing budget and focus on youth audiences is prioritizing creator-first strategy, it validates the investments many have already made in building robust, integrated creator partnership programs. It also signals that holding companies and agency partners will increasingly prioritize creator expertise in their own talent and tech stacks, making it easier for brand teams to access the resources they need to run high-impact creator campaigns. This win also underscores a broader shift away from one-off creator sponsorships, where a creator posts a single paid post for a brand, toward long-term, collaborative partnerships where creators are involved in campaign development, product design and audience engagement from the earliest stages.

For the better part of two years, the creator marketing industry has been divided over generative AI, with many creators fearing that brands would use the technology to cut costs by replacing human creators with AI-generated content, or to reduce creator pay by framing AI tools as a substitute for creative work. Mojang’s announcement cuts through that noise by centering creator needs in its AI rollout, rather than positioning the tool as a cost-cutting measure for brands. The closed beta structure, which will bring 5,000 existing Minecraft creators into the testing process before a full public launch, is a deliberate choice to ensure the tool aligns with creator workflows and needs, rather than forcing creators to adapt to a brand-built tool that undermines their value. For gaming and entertainment CMOs, this is a clear template for how to roll out AI tools in creator partnerships without alienating the creator communities that make those campaigns successful. Brands that have hesitated to adopt AI tools for fear of backlash from creators can look to Mojang’s model of co-creation with the creator community as a low-risk way to test AI use cases that benefit both creators and brand teams. The tool also opens up new possibilities for Minecraft-focused creator campaigns: brands can partner with creators to build custom in-game experiences, limited-time assets and narrative-driven content far faster than was possible with traditional 3D modeling and coding workflows, without sacrificing the authentic creative voice that makes creator content effective.

These two announcements point to three core trends that will shape creator marketing strategy for gaming, esports and entertainment brands in the coming year. First, the line between CPG, gaming and entertainment creator strategy is blurring: as mass-market brands like PepsiCo invest more heavily in creator-led campaigns, the playbooks for reaching youth audiences will become increasingly similar across verticals, making it easier for gaming and esports CMOs to adopt proven CPG creator strategies, and for CPG brands to learn from the deep creator expertise that gaming and entertainment teams have built over the last decade. Second, long-term creator partnerships are becoming the default, not the exception: both Publicis’s win with PepsiCo and Mojang’s AI rollout prioritize sustained, collaborative relationships with creators over one-off transactions, a shift that will require CMOs to adjust their budgeting and team structures to support longer creator onboarding and campaign development timelines. Third, AI tools that prioritize creator autonomy will outperform those that frame creators as replaceable: the backlash against AI tools that cut creators out of the process has already led to failed product launches and damaged brand-creator relationships, while tools that augment creator work, like Mojang’s new offering, are being adopted quickly and enthusiastically by creator communities. For CMOs, this means that any AI investment in creator marketing should be evaluated first on how it benefits creators, not just how it cuts brand costs.

Will Publicis’s PepsiCo win lead to more creator budget allocated to gaming and esports brands? Not directly, but it validates that creator-led strategy delivers measurable ROI for mass-market brands, which will encourage more CMOs in gaming and entertainment to secure dedicated creator budget rather than treating it as a discretionary line item that can be cut during economic downturns.

How will Minecraft’s AI tool impact the cost of creator partnerships for brands? It will likely lower production costs for custom in-game campaign assets, but brands will still need to pay creators for their creative vision and audience trust, as the AI is designed to augment creator work, not replace the human connection that makes creator content effective.

Should CMOs adjust their creator partnership strategies in response to these announcements? Yes, both moves signal that long-term, collaborative creator partnerships and AI tools that support creator autonomy will deliver better campaign performance than one-off sponsored posts or AI tools that cut creators out of the creative process.

For years, the creator marketing industry has been caught up in a false dichotomy: either prioritize human creator talent, or prioritize technology to streamline campaigns and cut costs. These two announcements make clear that the most successful brands and platforms are those that reject that either/or framing, and instead use technology to amplify the unique value that human creators bring. Publicis’s win with PepsiCo is rooted in the understanding that no algorithm can replicate the authentic audience connection that a trusted creator brings to a brand campaign, while Mojang’s AI tool is built to give creators more time and flexibility to focus on the creative, community-building work that makes their audiences loyal, rather than forcing them to spend hours on repetitive production tasks.

At Miela, we have long held that exceptional creator marketing comes from pairing top-tier human talent with proprietary technology that handles administrative, operational and production heavy lifting, freeing creators to do what they do best. These announcements are a clear signal that the industry is finally catching up to that philosophy, and we expect to see more brands and platforms prioritize this human-first, tech-enabled approach in the coming year, as they look to build creator partnerships that deliver sustainable, long-term ROI rather than short-term viral hits.

Performance Marketing World — Account win roundup: Publicis wins PepsiCo and Minecraft unveils AI partnership - Performance Marketing World