Photo provided by RetailWire
July 3, 2025
What Can Retail Learn From the Creator Economy? Insights from ‘The Diary of a CEO’
In modern retail, building a brand is no longer just about selling products, it’s about creating movements, nurturing community, and telling stories that resonate.
Grace Andrews, brand director at Flight Story Studio, brings experience from both the creator and brand strategy sides. She joined “The Diary of a CEO,” a globally recognized business podcast and YouTube channel hosted by British entrepreneur and BBC “Dragon’s Den” investor Steven Bartlett, when it had just 8,000 YouTube subscribers. Since then, she has played a key role in scaling the channel to nearly 11 million subscribers.
At eTail London, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Grace to unpack what it really takes to thrive in today’s creator economy. Grace has seen both sides of the coin: She’s helped shape brands from the inside, and knows first-hand what it means to build an audience from the ground up.
The Power of Deep Audience Insight
Grace’s first lesson is simple: “A great brand story isn’t just heard, it’s felt.”
Too many brands, she said, overlook the most important phase — which is to truly understand their audience. It’s not just about demographics, age brackets, or male/female split, but about knowing what your audience cares about, where they spend their time, and the conversations they’re having, both online and offline.
Brands often fall into what Grace calls the “audience gap, ” which she explained as the disconnect between who they think they’re speaking to and who’s actually listening. The only way to close this gap is to invest real time in audience research, immersing yourself in their world to build the trust and emotional resonance that underpins every great brand story.
The question is: How much time are big brands and teams really spending to truly get to know their customers, beyond the data?
From Transactional Marketing to Genuine Connection
In 2025, it’s not enough to simply deliver products or content to your audience. Grace emphasized that brands should bring their audience into the journey, not just the outcome. “Don’t just put a poll on Instagram after you’ve already made the decision,” she said. “Build the infrastructure that lets customers genuinely shape your products and your story.”
When customers are actively involved in product development or brand decisions, they become your most passionate advocates. “Your biggest advocate for the marketing that’s going to do the marketing itself is a customer who has helped you produce that product,” Grace explains. These advocates create a ripple effect, spreading your message organically and fueling sustainable growth.
Community: The Engine of Brand Longevity
Community is more than a buzzword, it’s the foundation of brand resilience. Grace was very direct on this point: “Community is the most fundamental part of brand building in 2025.” Yet, she was honest about her own journey with “The Diary of a CEO” — while they built a massive audience, they only recently began to take the notion of community seriously.
So, what’s the difference? An audience listens. A community participates, connects, and even exists without you at the center. True community requires a place to belong, a two-way stream of communication, and shared values that go beyond the product.
Grace made the comparison of virality to a sugar rush: exciting, but short-lived. On the other hand, she compared community to a balanced meal — it sustains your brand for the long haul.
Are retail brands truly empowering their audiences to build meaningful connections and shared values with each other, or are most still focused on one-way communication and transactional relationships?
Storytelling: Your Ultimate Differentiator
Storytelling isn’t just an advertising tool, it’s your unique selling point. “Your story is actually your USP,” Grace said. In a crowded market, it’s your narrative, woven through every customer touchpoint, that builds trust and loyalty.
Authenticity is key. “Trying to be authentic is, ironically, inauthentic,” Grace pointed out. The brands that win are those that consistently share their real story and values, not just in a founder video, but in every touchpoint. Be that email, website visit, and social post.
PerfectTed: A Case Study in Storytelling and Community
Grace pointed to PerfectTed, a brand she’s worked with through Steven Bartlett’s investments on BBC’s “Dragon’s Den,” as a standout example of creator economy principles in action.
PerfectTed is a UK-based beverage company specializing in matcha energy drinks, founded by young entrepreneurs who pitched their business on “Dragon’s Den” and then secured investment from Bartlett.
Recently named the fastest-growing founder-led brand in the UK, PerfectTed has “nailed their story,” Grace said. Their success isn’t just about product innovation, but about consistently communicating their values, story, and mission across every touchpoint.
What Retail Can Learn from the Creator Economy
Creators excel at capturing attention, understanding platform nuances, and building loyal communities — because their livelihoods depend on it. Grace said a growing trend is brands bringing creators in-house to tap into this expertise.
In 2025, attention is the currency, but community is the vault that keeps it safe. The old marketing funnel is gone. Today, it’s about “maps of influence, ” the moments and spaces where attention and belonging are forged.
How are brands weaving creator economy principles — like co-creation, authentic storytelling, and true community building — into their retail strategies to drive deeper connection and long-term loyalty?
Grace Andrews’ journey with “The Diary of a CEO” shows that audience growth is only the beginning. The real opportunity for retail leaders lies in building genuine community, inviting customers into the brand journey, and telling stories that truly resonate.
In a world of endless choice and fleeting attention, it’s these human connections that will set your brand apart. In 2025, community appears to be retail’s most valuable currency.
Discussion Questions
Are most retailers truly closing the “audience gap” by deeply understanding their customers’ values and behaviors, or are they still relying too heavily on surface-level data?
How can retail brands ensure their storytelling goes beyond surface-level messaging to create a brand narrative that’s genuinely felt and remembered by customers?
In a world where community is retail’s most valuable currency, what concrete actions can brands take to turn a passive audience into an engaged, self-sustaining community built on shared values and real connection?
Poll
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Mohamed Amer, PhD
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Lucille DeHart
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In a world that is crowded with marketing and advertising, retailers need to explore other routes to reach consumers. Even more so because modern consumers are fragmented in their content consumption: they’re on multiple channels, including non-traditional media. Creators basically allow access to many of these platforms, and they also help capture attention. If done correctly, they become advocates for brands and retailers which helps drive trust and interest. The proviso is that this is done in an authentic and interesting way via storytelling. It cannot just be about using a creator to try and flog product.
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You have outdone yourself this time, Lavina! The session with Grace Andrews was at once provocative, paradigm-breaking, and simple. The Creator Economy challenges fundamental assumptions about the brand-audience relationship. The biggest takeaway from Grace should send shudders to a retail CMO: Stop building audiences and start building communities that can exist without you. “An audience listens. A community participates, connects, and even exists without you at the center.” Most retailers are hooked on the dopamine hit of viral moments, campaign metrics, and quarterly spikes, yet sustainable growth comes from relationships that compound over time. Being patient, relinquishing control, and maintaining narrative consistency bring customers to the center as protagonists, not targets of a brand’s messages. Can retailers become a hub for human connection rather than merely destinations for transaction completion? I believe the former facilitates the latter outcome while building authentic and lasting communities. REI, Sephora, and Patagonia are leaders in this space, but traditional retail metrics and short-termism hinder them and others from truly embracing this paradigm shift.
Thank you, Mohamed, I appreciate your kind words and reflection. Grace’s session offered such a powerful reframing, particularly for retail in how we think about audience vs. community. Her point that “an audience listens, but a community participates and exists without you” challenges so much of traditional retail thinking. It is interesting to see how things are rapidly shifting.
While this seems new, it is really a digital reinvention of the “tribe” concept. Brands like Harley Davidson created community content before content was king. Consumers no longer need to relate to brands, rather, brands need to be reflections of the consumers.
Didn’t we used to call this “word of mouth” advertising? Sounds archaic and overly simplistic, but it’s still deeply true. And yes, these days it is storytelling on a much more sophisticated level. Lots more stories by lots more people in lots more media. The competition for my eyes, my ears, and my brain is relentless and overwhelming. Then again, all I have to do is put my phone down. Nah……that wouldn’t be any fun.