Influencer Marketing Isn’t Dead, Brands Just Stopped Doing It Right

Influencer marketing isn’t dying. It’s evolving. And the only brands winning right now are the ones who understand the difference between renting attention and earning community. If you need proof, look no further than Agua de Kefir, the brand that just showed the entire industry what modern influencer marketing is supposed to look like.

The Campaign Everyone Is Talking About

This summer, Love Island went nuclear online: memes, edits, lore, fan accounts, everything. Instead of doing the usual “one post with one influencer,” Agua de Kefir made a different choice: They didn’t just partner with creators.They embedded themselves inside the fan ecosystem. Their smartest move? Leaning fully into the internet’s favorite couples!

While other brands sent their generic briefs, Agua de Kefir built a campaign engineered for the exact community that was obsessed with this couple. They used the inside jokes, the nicknames, the references only fans understood and suddenly, the content wasn’t an ad.

It was entertainment.

Why This Worked (And Why Most Brands Fail)

• They didn’t chase reach. They chased relevance. They spoke the language of the community instead of forcing a brand tone.

• They didn’t do a one-off. They created a story arc. The campaign unfolded like chapters in the Love Island universe, not isolated ads.

• They didn’t insert themselves. They aligned themselves. Fans felt like the brand “got it,” which instantly created emotional buy-in.

This is what most brands miss: Influencer marketing isn’t about creators posting your product. It’s about your brand becoming part of a world people already care about. 

The Results Prove It

Agua de Kefir didn’t just rack up vanity metrics.

They got real, measurable outcomes:

• 120M+ views across social

• 47,000+ new followers

• 40% increase in retail sales

This is influencer marketing done right: community-first, culturally fluent, creator-led. It’s not about paying for attention. It’s about integrating into the audience’s universe so naturally that the campaign becomes part of the fandom itself.

Pophaus Take

Influencer marketing isn’t dead, lazy influencer marketing is.

The brands that will win in 2025 and beyond are the ones willing to go beyond traditional posts and step into the cultural conversations their audiences actually care about. Agua de Kefir didn’t buy influence. They earned belonging and the numbers show it.

✨ The lesson: Don’t just hire creators. Embed your brand into their world and watch what happens.