{"id":6590,"date":"2026-06-10T11:41:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=6590"},"modified":"2026-06-10T11:41:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:41:48","slug":"jamie-laing-thinks-tomorrows-fortune-500-will-be-built-by-creators-he-might-be-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=6590","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Laing thinks tomorrow’s Fortune 500 will be built by creators. He might be right.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cThe next big business owners are going to be content creators,\u201d Jamie Laing, the reality star-turned-sweet entrepreneur, tells\u00a0Fortune.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think Coca-Cola can really come up any\u00a0more without a content creator helping build the brand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Those may sound like fighting words from\u2014surprise, surprise\u2014a content creator. But there are signs\u00a0the\u00a0future\u00a0may one day belong to brands with faces, not logos and legacy.?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laing founded Candy Kittens, the premium vegan sweets brand, with his business partner Ed Williams 15 years ago. Today, it\u00a0reportedly generates\u00a0\u00a315m in annual revenue. The\u00a0colorful, aesthetically\u00a0packaged, cat-shaped\u00a0gummies\u00a0sit on the shelves of Tesco and Sainsbury\u2019s alongside products from confectionery giants that have dominated the aisles for generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For decades, companies such as Mars\u2014which generates $50bn in annual sales\u2014and Nestl\u00e9, with CHF 90bn ($113.1bn), built their empires through mass advertising and distribution. Candy Kittens is not about\u00a0to topple\u00a0either of them, but\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0doing\u00a0a good job\u00a0of winning shelf space, consumer attention, and market share without the mega marketing machine that made those giants.?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once a novelty side project for a reality TV personality, Candy Kittens has grown into a credible challenger brand.?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sweet spot?\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Late 2025\u00a0saw what\u00a0is\u00a0perhaps Candy Kittens\u2019 boldest move\u00a0to date: snapping up snack brand Graze from Unilever for \u00a336m.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a deal that says as much about the opportunity Laing saw as it does about the limitations of big corporate ownership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For\u00a0Laing, the acquisition is a case study in exactly what gives smaller, creator-led brands their edge in the current market. \u201cBig corporations aren\u2019t agile at all,\u201d Laing says. \u201cThey\u2019re so stuck in their ways.\u201d At Candy Kittens, an idea can go from concept to shelf in a matter of months, he adds.?\u00a0For a business the size of Unilever, Graze was a mere footnote. \u201cIt had kind of lost its sparkle,\u201d Laing says. \u201cThe brand deserves more. It needs love,\u00a0nurturing\u00a0and energy.\u201d For any executive watching from a large FMCG group, it raises an uncomfortable question: how many footnotes do\u00a0you\u00a0have?\u00a0<\/p>\n

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You\u2019ve given and given\u2026and now, when you ask your audience to come with you and build something, they do. Because they already believe in you\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Nestl\u00e9 owns more than 2,000 brands globally and is cutting the number that receive media support from more than 400 to just 150 in 2026, according to\u00a0its\u00a0latest investor report. Whether a conglomerate is shedding brands it can no longer nurture or piling on acquisitions in pursuit of critical mass, the result is the same. That somewhere in the portfolio, something with potential is not getting the love it needs.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0gap\u00a0businesses like Candy Kittens are\u00a0only too\u00a0happy to exploit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The creator\u00a0advantage\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Laing argues that creator-led companies are nimbler, more culturally attuned, and closer to their communities. \u201cI think consumers now trust content-led brands more than the big corporations because we have personality and authenticity,\u201d he says.?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consumers are not abandoning traditional brands\u00a0en\u00a0masse, but younger shoppers are proving particularly receptive to creator-led businesses. Research from LTK\u00a0found\u00a073% of Gen-Z consumers rely on creators when making purchasing decisions, while an Adobe survey found that two-thirds of Gen-Z shoppers have bought from a creator-founded brand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Laing, these statistics reflect a broader change in how people want to engage with companies. \u201cPeople don\u2019t really like being sold to,\u201d he says. \u201cActually, we\u2019re sort of allergic to it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This dynamic has changed how brands have to\u00a0behave,\u00a0he continues.\u00a0For decades, consumer goods companies spent fortunes\u00a0acquiring\u00a0customers through advertising,\u00a0whereas\u00a0creator-led brands are built on years of giving, sharing, entertaining,\u00a0and\u00a0letting an audience in, before ever asking for anything in return. \u201cIt\u2019s that jab, jab, jab, hook technique,\u201d Laing explains. \u201cYou\u2019ve given and given and given\u2026and now, when you ask your audience to come with you and build something, they do. Because they already believe in you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a media landscape where attention is the\u00a0scarcest\u00a0commodity and skepticism of nameless corporations runs high, that kind of earned loyalty may come more easily to creators with\u00a0an\u00a0established\u00a0cohort of eager\u00a0followers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0new U.K. advertising restrictions\u00a0on high-fat, sugar, and salt products may favor the nimble over the mighty. Legacy portfolios built\u00a0on precisely\u00a0the categories now facing restriction are far harder to pivot than a fifteen-year-old challenger brand with a fraction of the fixed costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taking the biscuit?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Still, there is\u00a0reason\u00a0to be skeptical. Creator-led brands have proven they can shift products and\u00a0punch\u00a0above their weight. But can they survive when the founder steps back, or the cultural moment moves on? And how do you value a business built around a personality?\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a question that hangs over many founder-led companies and one\u00a0investors\u00a0continue\u00a0to grapple with.?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople questioned the\u00a0longevity,\u201d Laing\u00a0says of\u00a0Candy Kittens. \u201cThey\u00a0said it was\u00a0a\u00a0fad.\u00a0That it\u00a0didn\u2019t really have legs.\u201d? <\/p>\n

The European investment community, historically more cautious about personality-driven businesses than its American counterpart, has been particularly reluctant to buy into the model.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laing\u2019s ultimate ambition is to one day\u00a0acquire\u00a0McVitie\u2019s, the biscuit brand originally built by his own great-great-grandfather before it was absorbed into a conglomerate. It is easy to dismiss such lofty ambitions. The posh-boy profile alone is enough to invite eye rolls. But Laing\u2019s business strategy speaks to a broader shift.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brand ownership has spent the better part of a century flowing in one direction, away from founders, toward the corporations with the capital to grow them. What Candy Kittens\u00a0represents, and what the Graze acquisition\u00a0hints at, is the possibility that the tide is beginning to turn.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Jamie #Laing #thinks #tomorrows #Fortune #built #creators<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe next big business owners are going to be content creators,\u201d Jamie Laing, the reality star-turned-sweet entrepreneur, tells\u00a0Fortune.\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think Coca-Cola can really come up any\u00a0more without a content creator… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1039,9007,5444,3255,133,1288,9008,3140,3301,9009],"class_list":["post-6590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-built","tag-creator-economy","tag-creators","tag-europe","tag-fortune","tag-jamie","tag-laing","tag-leadership","tag-thinks","tag-tomorrows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}