In short. Five shifts are shaping how toy, baby and family brands get heard next year. AI assistants now answer buyers’ questions from earned coverage, so PR has become a discovery channel. Creators are being chosen like creative partners, and earned creator coverage is harder to get than paid. The rules for reaching kids and teens are tightening on every platform and in Ottawa. Canada is being used as the test market for US launches, helped by the exchange rate and the tariff reshuffle. And the platforms are rewarding content that sounds like a person. Here’s each one, with what we’re doing about it.
When a parent asks ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overview which toy to buy, the answer comes from sources the model trusts. Muck Rack’s analysis of more than a million AI citations found 89% point to earned media (Muck Rack, 2025), and Gartner expects PR and earned media budgets to double by 2027 for that reason (Gartner, 2026 Comms Predictions).
What we’re doing: treating every placement as a citation, not just a clip. Case studies with named clients and dates, executive quotes in trade stories, and a press release when there’s real news behind it. We wrote up the full argument in why PR is becoming the most important driver of AI visibility.
The brands getting results from creators have stopped buying reach and started investing in influence. Follower counts and engagement rates get a creator onto a shortlist; what gets them the brief is whether they can educate and entertain, whether they’ve earned trust in a specific community and whether their work travels across social, retail and PR.
At the same time, earned creator coverage is the hardest thing in the business to get. Creators have paid options for everything, and shipping a product is not the same as a yes. That’s why it’s worth more.
What we’re doing: evaluating creators on more than numbers, making earned easy (good product, clear ask, creative freedom), and running paid and earned creator work from one plan so the earned story gives the paid placement something to point at. More on how we think about creators and AI in what AI influencers mean for family brands.
Three fronts at once. Meta’s new restrictions on how teens are reached through ads (US-only for now) mean fewer passive impressions and more reliance on creators teens already follow. Canada’s proposed online harms law is still a proposal with a long road through Parliament, but its direction, making platforms safer for young people rather than banning kids from them, is a signal for every brand that sells to families. And Ad Standards’ updated disclosure guidelines (October 2025) ask creators with child audiences to make advertising obvious in ways children understand, and put AI-generated influencers under the same #Ad rules as humans (Ad Standards, 2025).
What we’re doing: building disclosure into every creator brief as a design element, not a disclaimer, and planning teen and tween programs around creators and events rather than ad targeting that may not exist next year.
I’ve made this case all year, and the inbound calls say US brands are listening. A Canadian launch can mirror a US plan, digital, creators, PR, retail and events, at a fraction of the cost, and the learning carries over. The exchange rate stretches a US budget, and in 2026 the tariff picture added a second reason: while US importers were paying new duties, Canadian imports of many of the same goods weren’t, and the autumn US-China tariff relief list for toys and other consumer categories changed the math again. The long version is on my Substack, why global brands use Canada to test new products before the US.
What we’re doing: running US and Canadian launches on one plan and one calendar, so the Canadian test produces something a US team can use. See how we work with US brands.
LinkedIn’s 2026 algorithm changes read like a crackdown on templated AI content: the platform is rewarding original perspective, lived experience, niche expertise and real storytelling, and measuring dwell time over quick likes. The same instinct is showing up in hiring, where an obviously AI-generated headshot now reads as hiding something. Real beats perfect.
What we’re doing: using AI for production (translation, editing, first drafts a human rewrites) and keeping the point of view human. For clients, that means executives who post as themselves, with opinions, in their category, consistently enough that the platform and the audience know what they’re for.
No. Search still carries the volume. The growth is in AI answers, and those answers are built from the same earned coverage that lifts search. Run them as one program.
For family brands the split is artificial. The creators who matter are chosen with the same judgment as the reporters, and the best programs put both in the same launch window.
They'll hurt reach that depended on ad targeting of minors. Reach through creators, events and earned coverage is where the budget is heading anyway.
Lower cost, similar consumers, a complete media and retail ecosystem, and data you can take to a US rollout. My Substack piece has the full argument.
About the author
Andrew Wagar founded Swerve Strategic Marketing in 2010 and runs it as President and CEO. He’s spent more than 30 years in PR and marketing, including PR Manager roles at Spin Master and the Canadian Standards Association.
He’s an Accredited Public Relations Professional (APR) with the Canadian Public Relations Society and has served on the Canadian Toy Association board since 2018, where he chairs marketing communications. Reporters covering the toy business call him when they need a source.
