Substack Brand Discovery: Rothy’s AI Feed Analysis

The new influencer storefront is starting to look less like a ring light and more like an inbox. Business Insider reports that Substack has become an increasingly important social media tool for brands looking to find creators to work with and reach potential customers. Translation: the newsletter is no longer just a cozy escape pod from the feed. It is turning into a brand-discovery and creator-partnership channel, with tastemakers acting less like ad slots and more like editors of what matters.

What changed: brands are reading the room

Business Insider reported that Rothy's is doubling down on Substack, and a separate Business Insider summary describes the shoe brand as going all in with IRL events and sponsored personal essays. Anna Doré, Rothy's vice president of brand and communications, told Business Insider, "Substack is one of the most exciting channels out there right now." That is not a casual experiment from a brand poking at every new surface. It is a signal that newsletters are being treated as places where taste gets formed before it gets flattened into the feed.

Doré’s clearest line is also the thesis for this whole shift. "In this AI-driven algorithm world where we're all being served the same content on the feed, we more than ever are going to be looking to great tastemakers," she told Business Insider. The platform translation is simple: sameness is now a marketing problem. If every feed starts to feel like a remix of the same hooks, brands will hunt for creators whose readers show up for judgment, not just reach.

Why newsletters fit the new partnership stack

Business Insider describes Substack as a place where people can write while also sharing visual content like photos and videos, which gives creators more room than a caption and more texture than a product tag. That matters because the pitch is not only exposure. It is context, pacing, voice, and the ability to make a recommendation feel like part of a larger worldview instead of a drive-by ad read.

Poppi is watching the same lane. Business Insider reported that Sophia Sesto, Poppi's vice president of culture, has been eyeing Substack as a tool for strategically partnering with creators. The same report says Substack has replaced the blog for some creators and is where they share more personal anecdotes for loyal followers. In creator terms, that means the inventory is not just a post. It is the relationship between a writer’s taste and a reader’s trust, which is exactly the thing platforms love to abstract away until everyone is posting into the same soup.

The bigger media shift is anti-scale

This is not happening in a vacuum. The Verge’s Decoder described Puck as a media company that hires big stars and gives them newsletters within a subscription bundle, with those reporters receiving equity and a share of company revenue. The Verge framed that model as an attempt to combine the financial incentives of the influencer economy with old-school journalism. Different product, same cultural weather: individual taste is becoming a distribution strategy again.

The Verge also reported that Semafor’s Ben Smith has described the company as evolving into what he calls an anti-scale company, with about half its money coming from events. That line lands because it captures the larger post-feed mood. After the social platform era trained everyone to chase maximum reach, the next play is smaller rooms with higher intent. Substack’s influencer-marketing moment is part of that correction, not an isolated newsletter glow-up.

What creators and marketers should actually do next

For creators, the takeaway from Business Insider’s reporting is to package the thing brands are now circling: taste with receipts. If your newsletter includes essays, recommendations, visuals, video, events, or reader conversations, explain how each format changes the way a sponsor can show up. Do not sell it as a cheaper version of a feed placement. Sell it as a media property with an editorial environment, because that is what brands like Rothy's are signaling they want.

For marketers, this is where the homework gets less lazy. Business Insider quoted Doré saying, "People follow these Substack writers because they are in the know." That means the wrong partnership can feel especially off, because newsletter readers tend to notice when a recommendation does not belong. Start with fit, then decide whether the right format is a sponsored essay, an event, a visual integration, or a longer creator relationship.

My read: Substack is not a magic portal out of platform dependency, because yes, it is still a platform, and we are not adding another tally mark to the board of promises until creators actually get paid fairly. But the trend is useful. If the feed is drifting toward algorithmic sameness, newsletters give creators and brands a slower surface where taste can still travel with context. Watch whether more brands move from one-off sponsorships to ongoing creator partnerships, because that is when this becomes a budget line, not just a vibe check.