Why Surfrider Foundation Would Rather Educate an Influencer Than Cut Them Loose

Some brands worry that strict values-based filters will hurt campaign performance. Do you think that's a fair concern?

I do think there's a real backlash happening, at least around environmental topics. We're taking steps backward. Just this morning I came across a post showing that smoking is cool again, with certain creators posing with cigarettes, after years of content that had actually shifted the conversation and made smoking seem considerably less glamorous.

And I find myself asking: to what extent is activist content being quietly discredited? Does it really matter to brands in 2026 to work with creators who have a clean record? I'm genuinely asking, because I can see clearly that people are getting on planes again more than ever, that environmental messaging is landing with less force than it used to. That's a real trend, and we have to be honest about it.

On the environmental side, we've learned to lead with a positive, non-judgmental message if we want to stay credible and reach people who aren't already convinced. But even then, eco-content is getting less and less organic reach. I feel like the algorithms have shifted, and content that touches on environmental issues gets treated as if it were political, bumped down behind entertainment.

That said, it really does depend on the market. In Spain, for example, the content we cross-post with certain creators consistently outperforms what we put out on our French accounts. Environmental topics seem to resonate much more deeply there with the communities we reach. So I wouldn't make any sweeping claims. It's country-specific, audience-specific.

Surfrider operates across multiple countries. How does your creator selection approach change by market?

In Germany, our community is still fairly small, so I focus on a small number of creators who are a very precise fit for what we're doing. The creator I worked with recently is a PhD researcher studying coral reefs who makes educational content about the ocean. It was her very first paid contract, which was genuinely touching. She has 20,000 followers. But she was a perfect match for our participatory science and cleanup program, now called Retrace. The goal was to reach her community and get them engaged enough to actually come out and do cleanups. I worked with her across several pieces of content to build something focused and consistent.

In Spain, the community of creators I work with reaches somewhere around 200,000 to 300,000 followers in total, and the content has always performed really well, often better than what we put out on the Surfrider France account. It genuinely does vary by country.

As for cleanups themselves, we've been doing them for 30 years and we're always asking ourselves how to keep talking about them in a way that makes people actually want to show up. That's ongoing work.

What would you say to a nonprofit or brand that's hesitant about influencer marketing because they're afraid of losing control of their message?

I genuinely believe that working on social media, working with ambassadors, working with influencers, is one of the best ways to reach a new audience that's actually qualified for the topics you're trying to raise. Choose the right people, and they've already figured out everything about social media that you, as a brand or organization, haven't cracked yet. Content creators are professionals. They know how these platforms work.

The anxiety around control is understandable, but the dynamic isn't that different from traditional media: you give an ambassador a platform, you brief them, you make sure they understand the message. The difference with social media is that you don't have to wait for the broadcast. You get the content beforehand. You can review it, approve it or not. For scientific content especially, that's a huge advantage.

The brand safety question, meaning not knowing whose content yours will sit next to, is also about relationships. That's why, and it may sound obvious, I never start a call by jumping straight into the brief. I always start with: how are you doing? Where are you working right now? Which brands are you collaborating with these days? Some creators work with five to ten brands a month. That matters. It tells you what ecosystem you're stepping into. Because when someone scrolls a creator's feed, they see everything, all the collaborations, in sequence.

Beyond content management, brands also need to get more comfortable handing the mic to communities that aren't their own. Creators are there to get conversations going, and that's only becoming more true in 2026, where everything flows through the comments section.

We did something last year with a creator who's also a competitive runner and genuinely committed to the environment. He opened a piece of content with the question: should cigarettes be banned from stadiums? And he made the case from multiple angles: health reasons for athletes, and the environmental argument that everything dropped on the ground ends up in the ocean. He knew exactly how to reach his audience. He generated real debate and engagement around a subject we struggle to bring to life on our own. That's what outside creators bring: they ask the questions ordinary people are asking, and they give you something you can't manufacture from the inside.

And beyond digital altogether, invest in real-world gatherings. People want to come together in person, and that feeling is only growing in 2026. Social media can be a great way to talk about events, but building one around an influencer and a cause reaches people in a way that digital content alone just can't anymore.