You have probably caught Joel Marlinarson as you scroll through TikTok, by his now-familiar hook: “Five brands that are killing it on socials, not including Ryanair or Duolingo or any of the brands everyone’s always talking about.”
Marlinarson is part of a new wave of expert creators who are both influencers and commentators, straddling the line between analysing the creator economy and participating in it. Marketer and lifestyle creator Farron Clark has built an audience by decoding the strategies behind press trips and brand campaigns. Meanwhile, American analyst Casey Lewis, whose Substack After School has more than 80,000 readers, is known for her takes on the Gen Z and Gen Alpha economies. When Lewis was gifted jeans from Hailey Bieber’s Gap collaboration, she unboxed them with the enthusiasm of a creator as much as the eye of an analyst. Her Reel has more than 21,000 views.
@farron__ How did I do 👀🫡 thanks @Marks and Spencer for the last minute date night xxxxxxx #shoppinghaul #shoppingtrip #marksandspencerhaul
Forever entrepreneurial
Marlinarson sits firmly within this cohort, reporting on trends for TikTok audiences, advising brands on strategy and representing the industry at global events through his company Coldest Creative. CORQ caught him as he touched down from Cannes Lions (where he was an ambassador) to talk about the key shifts in the influencer market.
The marketing expert has always been obsessed with making content: “My first intro into the creative industry was when I got a camcorder for Christmas when I was eight. I remember filming family weddings and being obsessed with building narratives.” His videography experience held him in good stead when, at 12-years-old, he started a kids streetwear brand called Coldest Clothing after being frustrated by the lack of cool apparel. He said: “I still have the ‘Coldest’ name”, as well as his admirable drive.
Marlinarson used to gift musicians’ security teams hats at an Icelandic festival (Secret Solstice) in case the talent got hold of them, and one ended up being worn by Justin Bieber. The resulting sales sparked something in a teen Marlinarson, because, while Bieber himself didn’t post: “His barber posted a video of him wearing the hat and there were fan accounts tagging us in the video because he’d worn it. I thought, ‘Okay, this is interesting’. Social media was the place that was happening.”
Before starting university (he studied branding at University of the Arts London), Marlinarson emailed presenter Amelia Dimoldenberg for a role at her hit YouTube series Chicken Shop Date. His experience with video, clothing and music, plus his branding degree, fed into his pitch – but nothing happened. Then, while he was at UAL, an opportunity arose to work as an assistant in the production of her show. “I started working with her and it then snowballed from there,” he said. “Still behind-the-scenes, working with broadcast talent on how they show up on socials.”
He began posting content about his experiences and things took off with his signature “five accounts” format. That throughline, he said, was “born out of my frustration that a lot of the commentary on brands is ‘Ryanair did this so let’s copy it’. When I was speaking to brands internally, they would use Ryanair or Duolingo as a benchmark when there were so many other creative examples of brands doing interesting things.” Marlinson has built an audience of more than 100,000 followers on TikTok, with his videos averaging around 49,000 views.
@coldestjoel 5 brands who are winning on social media (from a social strategist & content creator) part 7 📲 #socialmedia #creativemarketing #socialmediamarketing #marketing #socialmediastrategy 1. @lohause 2. @Argos 3. @stevemadden @stevemaddenuk 4. @Jellycat 5. @ Arny Phrat (Instagram)
Marlinarson’s speciality is providing the creator perspective. He explained: “Often when I’m working with the brand, they have a full-on marketing team. They have a social team. But there’s nobody in the room who actually creates content or has that one-to-one interaction with their audience.” Marlinarson can point to his own comment section and say “you need to try doing this because I tested that idea here and it didn’t land.”
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The creator’s creators
As a consummate trend tracker, he said personal finance creator Mia McGrath is currently inspiring him. Her profile has exploded in the past year -she coined the term “frugal chic”. Marlinarson’s take is that her strategy, as used by other creators, to publicly talk about their incomes is “almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I say ‘I’m making X, Y, Z’, then it’s like a filter for brands who can’t afford to work with that creator.”
Marlinarson is also interested in the podcast TBPN, which was sold to OpenAI. He says: “They only have 70,000 daily viewers, but those viewers are so valuable because they are powerful tech executives.” He added: “Most of their views come from clips – 250,000 views because they have this distribution network.”
He sees a similarity between the clipping economy and fan pages: “The distribution of content by other people carries a lot more weight than that of brand accounts.” Clips have value because they defy monoculture. He said: “The main benefit of the clipping culture is that one podcast can be distributed and repackaged for different niches. What people can do now with one podcast is have one hook tailored to the bookworm, or maybe there was one section of the podcast that was more health and wellness focused, and that can be planted in another area.”
@coldestjoel ad The rise of the clipping economy needs to be studied @Riverside #riversidepartner #marketing #creatoreconomy #clipping #podcaststrategy Link in bio for a month of Pro free!
One brand, many channels
For Marlinarson, the biggest mistake brands make is treating their socials like a broadcast channel. “Especially the bigger ones, they only have one page. I think the best brands treat their social media profiles like a network.” He used the example of US noodle brand Immi Ramen. The brand has two pages: “One that’s street interviews around feeling good. They’re not showing the product, but the whole brand platform is about feeling good.” The brand then has a secondary account to be more product-focused.
“I think a lot of brands don’t think enough about how they can segment their content so one account is for one niche and one is for another.” He highlights GoDaddy’s network as another example: “They have one page that’s very ‘Gen Z unhinged’ and then another page that is slightly more corporate communications, and they’re not trying to do both on the same page because then you confuse the algorithm.”
The perennial problem for the industry is tracking and value. “It’s that age-old question of attribution. You’re never going to know which TikTok was shared in the girls’ group chat or who sent your details along when they were in a store looking for something to buy, but it’s all about awareness.”
However, Marlinarson believes that the new vogue for financial transparency, as seen with the rapid rise of Farron Clark and Mia McGrath, is a reflection of this. “We’re going to see creators offering a lot more financial transparency, not just at the macro level, but more as a strategy.” He sees creators starting conversations such as “I’m starting from scratch. My goal is to get to £XYZ by the end of the year. I’m building a community as a result of it.”
One of the trends that he will be happy to see the back of is the fake “chief of” job roles: “It was interesting with Gillian Anderson and Dimoldenberg [for Marks & Spencer], but I think with the job market, maybe it’s not as politically correct to also have these A-list celebrities pretending to cosplay as an employee. I’ve noticed a real shift in the sentiment in campaigns that have used that.”
Measuring what matters
As a creator insider (one of his favourite social series is the work for Brooklyn Coffee Shop), Marlinarson is clearly interested in high-value, collectable content and sees transparency and saves as the key to unlocking social success in 2027.
“As a knowledge creator, saves are particularly important – the content had enough substance to come back to it.” For a brand, saves might be important for myriad reasons. For a restaurant, it could mean consumers think “I’m going to share this with my friend or my partner who I’m going to go on a date with next week”. For a fashion brand, he assumes “they might be focusing on inspiration.”
A consistent theme emerges from the interview: the metrics that matter are changing. Saves, shares, transparency and specialist communities all point towards audiences rewarding content that is genuinely useful rather than simply entertaining. It is a shift that has created space for a new generation of knowledge creators who analyse internet culture while actively shaping it.
Marlinarson has carved out a distinctive space between strategist, creator and commentator, using his own audience as a live testing ground. If 2026 was about attention, his evidence suggests that 2027 will belong to knowledge.
By Emilie McMeekan, insights director at CORQ.
