Accenture Song bought Whalar last month, bringing creator and social agency capabilities into the creator economy push that Bryan Yasko says now belongs in the CEO conversation. The deal adds operational tools and growth capabilities for brands that are trying to plan around creator marketing rather than treat it as a side campaign.
Yasko, managing director at Accenture Song, said: “The creator economy is a CMO conversation, but really it’s a CEO conversation, and they need to rethink how they develop products, what their supply chain should look like, how they should handle marketing.” He also said: “The days of building brands, doing certain communications, going after repetition, and dominating shelf space – that playbook is expiring.”
Whalar and Accenture Song
Whalar said the transaction was the largest creator economy transaction. Accenture Song had already moved in the same direction before: it acquired Unlimited in 2024 and Superdigital in 2025. Publicis acquired Influential in 2024, giving the deal a place in a broader run of consolidation around creator marketing.
The practical change for brands is less about a new slogan than about access to the operational layer around creator work. That means the acquisition sits closer to how campaigns are planned, measured, and scaled than to the simple question of which creator to hire.
Emma Harman on measurement
Emma Harman, co-CEO of Whalar, said: “The data is in, we’ve proven that.” She added: “CEOs are starting to think, ‘How do we make an investment around this? What type of infrastructure do we need to build to be more social first and creative first? What are the people we need internally? What are the agencies that we should be working with? […] How, as a brand, do we become more culturally relevant? How do we have this more personalized relationship, this more relevant”
Harman also said traditional measurement firms are entering the space, naming Kantar and Nielsen as examples of companies giving it the ability to be measured. That is the piece buyers care about now: if creator work can be measured with the same discipline as other marketing, it becomes easier to budget, compare, and defend inside a company.
Accenture Song's next question
Yasko described Whalar as part of a long-term growth shift, but the price Accenture Song paid was not disclosed. The open question is the scope of what changed inside the company: how much was paid, and which exact tools and capabilities came with the acquisition.
