Digiday·2026-08-14

An anatomy of the creator brand trip’s midlife crisis

The uproar over OpenAI’s luxury creator trip to New York — in which around 30 creators stayed at a high-end farm resort, ate farm-to-table meals and learned beekeeping — has died down. The backlash exposed that brand trips can work, but the format needs to change. If brands continue to rely on in-your-face luxury or overly curated events as ways to activate creators and reach their loyal (and incr

The uproar over OpenAI’s luxury creator trip to New York — in which around 30 creators stayed at a high-end farm resort, ate farm-to-table meals and learned beekeeping — has died down. The backlash exposed that brand trips can work, but the format needs to change. If brands continue to rely on in-your-face luxury or overly curated events as ways to activate creators and reach their loyal (and incr