Creator ad spend is still climbing, so why do so many brands feel their UGC is going stale? According to the IAB creator economy report, spend is projected to hit $37 billion in 2025. The money isn’t leaving. It’s leaving hauls and unboxings. These new UGC formats are where it lands.
The pullback is a reallocation, not a retreat
Read the headlines and you’d think brands are quitting creators. The data says otherwise. The IAB creator economy report projects creator ad spend at $37 billion for 2025, a 26% increase year-over-year, which it says is about 4x faster than the media industry overall (5.7%). In the same IAB report, 48% of ad spenders consider creators a “must buy.”
So what is actually being cut? The generic, interchangeable stuff. The “look what arrived” haul. The unboxing where a creator holds up a product, says “obsessed,” and offers nothing a shopper can verify.
I’ve sat in enough budget reviews to know why. Those formats are cheap to produce, but they are also cheap to ignore. When every brand in a category ships the same box to the same tier of creator, the content blurs together. Cost per view looks fine. Cost per incremental sale does not.
Brands aren’t spending less on creators. They’re spending less on content that asks viewers to trust a product they can’t see working.
Why hauls and unboxings stopped carrying the load
Three pressures stacked up at once.
- Sameness. Gifting at scale produced near-identical videos. Viewers learned to scroll past the format within a second.
- Proof gaps. A first impression says nothing about durability, results, or fit. Legal teams and performance teams both want more than enthusiasm.
- Measurement pressure. According to the IAB study, 40% of buyers rank overall ROI as their top KPI for creator campaigns. Awareness-style formats struggle to defend themselves in that conversation.
The same IAB study found that creator reputation (58%) and audience alignment (56%) are among the top criteria brands use when choosing creators. In other words, buyers care less about who can open a box and more about who their audience believes.
Format one: questions as content
Comment reply videos are the cleanest replacement for the haul. The brief starts with real audience objections: “Does it shrink?” “Is it worth the price?” The creator answers on camera, usually with the product in use.
Why does it work? The hook is pre-validated by a real viewer, and the answer handles an objection that would otherwise stall a purchase. Our guide to comment reply videos covers how to source those questions without cherry-picking only the flattering ones.
A practical tip: ask creators to include at least one critical comment per batch. It reads as honest, and it gives your team real product feedback.
Format two: story first, product second
Text-on-screen storytime flips the unboxing structure. Instead of the product opening the video, a short narrative does: a problem, a failed fix, a turn. The product arrives as the resolution.
This format scales for a boring reason. It needs no studio, no on-camera polish, and the script can be templated. Our breakdown of text on screen storytime shows how to brief it so seeding volume doesn’t flatten the story.
Pair it with a repeatable skeleton and you can test ten openings in a week. That is the logic behind hook velocity testing, where the first three seconds are the variable and everything else stays fixed.
Format three: proof you can see
Here the unboxing gets replaced by demonstration. Think process videos, before-and-after reveals, and structured challenges.
- Process videos show how a product is made or how it performs under stress. They suit claims that need visible backup. See our piece on satisfying process videos.
- Before-and-after reels work best in home, beauty, and cleaning categories, as long as the “before” isn’t staged to exaggerate. We cover the guardrails in before and after reels.
- Timed challenges create a built-in reason to return for a second and third video.
What do these share? Each one lets a viewer check the claim with their own eyes. That is exactly what a haul can’t do.
Format four: reaction and split-screen
Reaction-style content borrows the energy of an unboxing and swaps the product reveal for a human response. A creator tries something unfamiliar and reacts in real time, which makes the first impression feel earned rather than performed.
Split-screen and duet formats go a step further, putting the creator next to a competitor demo, a customer clip, or a claim being tested. They are punchy, but they carry rights risk, since you are often building on someone else’s footage. Before you brief either one, read our notes on reaction style UGC and the split screen duet rights checklist.
Do these formats carry more compliance risk?
Sometimes, yes. And the FTC’s rules on reviews and testimonials are the reason to pay attention.
According to the FTC’s questions and answers on the reviews rule, the rule went into effect on October 21, 2024, and it authorizes courts to impose civil penalties for knowing violations. A few points from that guidance matter for UGC programs:
- You can’t provide compensation or incentives conditioned on a particular sentiment. A brief that says “post positive feedback in exchange for the product” invites trouble.
- The rule’s only disclosure requirements relate to certain situations involving company insiders. Still, the FTC notes that failing to disclose influencer and brand relationships could violate the FTC Act.
- The rule has no blanket prohibition on AI-generated avatars in marketing. That said, the FTC says AI “stock avatars” would not be giving “consumer reviews” as the rule defines them.
The AI point deserves a pause. The IAB report found that 95% of advertisers have concerns about using AI in creator marketing overall. If you are tempted to fill a content gap with synthetic testimonials, remember that legal permissibility and audience trust are two separate tests.
Write the disclosure and the claim substantiation into the brief, not into the review round. Fixing it after the creator posts costs more than writing it in at the start.
How to brief these formats without losing control
The fear with newer formats is that they’re harder to manage than a simple haul. They aren’t, if the structure lives in the brief.
- Lock the skeleton, free the voice. Fix the sequence (hook, proof, ask) and let creators phrase it. Our guide to repeatable creator formats goes deeper on this.
- Pre-approve claims. Give creators a short list of substantiated statements and a list of banned ones.
- Write rights terms up front. If you plan to repurpose creator videos as ads, say so in the contract.
- Tag by format. Report performance per format, not per campaign, so you know which replacement is working.
Are you wondering whether to move budget all at once? Don’t. Shift a slice of gifting spend into two formats, run them against your current haul content, and compare cost per purchase rather than views.
FAQs
Are hauls and unboxings dead as UGC formats?
No. They still work for launch moments and for categories where the physical product is the draw. What has weakened is their value as the default format for every seeding program. Treat them as one tool, not the whole toolkit.
Are brands actually cutting creator budgets?
The IAB report puts 2025 creator ad spend at $37 billion, up 26% year-over-year. The shift is in what brands buy, not whether they buy. Money is moving toward formats with clearer proof and measurable outcomes.
Which new UGC format should I test first?
Start with comment reply videos or text-on-screen storytime. Both are low-cost, easy to template, and simple to brief. Run each against your current best haul video and compare cost per purchase.
Do the FTC’s review rules apply to creator content?
The FTC states that the rule’s only disclosure requirements relate to certain company-insider situations. It also says that failing to disclose influencer and brand relationships could violate the FTC Act. Brands should still require clear disclosure in every brief.
Can I use AI-generated avatars for UGC-style videos?
The FTC says the rule has no blanket prohibition on AI-generated avatars in marketing. Even so, the IAB report found that 95% of advertisers have concerns about AI in creator marketing, so weigh audience trust alongside legal risk.
How do I measure whether a new format is working?
Tag every video by format and compare cost per purchase, not views. The IAB report found 40% of buyers rank overall ROI as their top creator KPI, so build your reporting around that.
Next step: pull your last ten seeded videos, label each by format, and swap two of your next batch of briefs from haul to comment reply or storytime. Compare the results in 30 days.
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