Creators Are the New Home of Gift Guides, and Traditional PR Is Dead

By the time your glossy gift guide hits print, TikTok has already moved on.

In 2024, holiday gift guides on TikTok pulled in over 2 billion views between October and December. Consumers were not flipping through magazines. They were scrolling feeds, watching creators shape what got bought next.

For decades, the playbook looked the same: pitch journalists months in advance, ship samples, pray for a December spread.

Traditional PR gifting is:

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  Slow. Lead times lock months in advance.
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  Scarce. Only a handful of products make it in.
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  Impersonal. Editors write for the masses.
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  Low trust. Consumers see straight through transactional endorsements.
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  Lower reach. Editors reach thousands through a December spread.

PR cannot keep up with the speed of culture, cannot prove impact, and cannot capture how people really shop.

Editors versus creators is no contest:

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  Editors reach hundreds of thousands. Creators reach millions.
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  Editors publish once. Creators post weekly, even daily.
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  Editors speak broadly. Creators speak to niches
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  Editors follow calendars. Creators move at the speed of culture.

Consumer behaviour makes this shift unavoidable. People are exhausted by micro-trends, pressured to shop sustainably, and hyper-selective with every purchase. They do not buy because an editor told them to. They buy because a recommendation feels authentic and personal.

Traditional PR flattens nuance into generic recommendations. It treats audiences as one broad mass.

Take Gen Z. One of Adland’s biggest issues is treating Gen Z like a monolith. In reality, it is a patchwork of niches, each craving nuance.

Creators speak to those nuances directly. They shape micro-communities where people subscribe to aesthetics, identities and lifestyles, a behaviour we see in trends like nichemaxxing.

It is not possible for traditional PR to capture this intersectionality. Gift ideas now live inside subcultures, and creators curate what feels relevant and what gets bought.

Our analysis of 150,000 gifting videos on TikTok shows exactly why creators own the gifting moment:

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  2B+ views. Gift guide content reached billions in Q4 2024.
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  Consumers move first. In the US, half of shoppers had already started by early October. In the UK, 69% had started by August and 85% by October. Brands need to act when consumers do, not wait for December.
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  Creators move with them. By mid-October, creators were already posting in cadence: weekly hauls, serial gift guide series, countdowns.
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  90% of top-performing gifting videos opened with a sharp hook: “Gifts under £25”, “For the homebody”, “What your teen actually wants.”
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  Formats that dominated: listicle guides, curated baskets and problem-to-solution tutorials.
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  Categories that overperformed: beauty framed as everyday luxury, cosy home goods framed as aspirational but practical, budget-friendly finds positioned as things you will actually use.
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  Creative devices that drove trust: direct-to-camera recommendations, ASMR unboxings, fast-cut tutorials and seasonal props. Content felt like a friend’s advice, not a marketer’s push.

PR shows up late. Traditional gift guides still publish in November or December. By then, consumers are already shopping and creators have already set the cultural agenda. Even though PR pitching starts in July, the public does not see results until the end of the year, which is completely out of sync with shopper behaviour.

PR gift guides were built for 2005. In 2025, they no longer carry the impact they once did. If you are still pitching editors for holiday spreads, you are already behind.

Culture now lives in subcultures, and creators own those spaces. They are not just joining the holiday conversation, they are shaping it.

Brands that pivot early will capture Q4 momentum. Brands that cling to outdated PR playbooks will be invisible when it matters most.

The future of gifting is already here, and it is creator-led.

You made it to the end, so here is the bonus. From our analysis of 150,000 gifting videos on TikTok, these are the top five creator posts that defined 2024 across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, homeware and craft.

We’re already running creator-led gifting campaigns for clients right now. If you’d like to see how Kyra can do the same for your brand, get in touch.