By Ian Shepherd

When James Watt talks about advertising, he sounds less like the founder of billion dollar beer brand BrewDog and more like a man ready to take on a trillion-dollar industry.

“Advertising hasn’t really evolved in a century,” he says. “It’s still this one-to-many model, brands spending huge amounts of money to get exposure and hoping something sticks. But we see between 4,000 and 10,000 ads a day now. The more we see, the less impact they have.”

Watt’s new venture, Social Tip, launched just 14 weeks ago, is his attempt to rewrite that playbook. Instead of paying influencers or pouring more money into digital ads, Social Tip turns everyday customers into brand advocates and pays them cash when they post about the products they genuinely love.

It’s a simple but radical idea. And one that might hint at where the future of advertising is headed.

From Beer To Brand Democracy

After 17 years growing BrewDog into one of the UK’s most recognizable consumer brands, Watt says he wanted to build something that redefines how marketing works.

“I love building businesses,” he says. “But I’m even more passionate about marketing and community. Peer-to-peer influence is where the future of that lives.”

The irony, he adds with a grin, is that his wife is an influencer. “So I’ve launched a company that, if successful, might just put her out of a job.”

Social Tip’s model is disarmingly simple. When a user buys from one of the platform’s 350 partner brands — including Unilever, HelloFresh, MyProtein, and Marks & Spencer — they can share a post about the product on TikTok or Instagram. Social Tip’s algorithm analyses reach, engagement and content quality, then pays users an average of £5.60 ($7.50) per post directly into their account.

Brands, meanwhile, gain a steady stream of authentic user-generated content (UGC) and measurable exposure. “We’re seeing CPMs of about $7,” Watt says. “Traditional influencer campaigns are five times this. So it’s massively more efficient and the money goes back to customers, not platforms.”

Authenticity Over Influence

At the core of Watt’s thesis is a belief that authenticity has become the rarest currency in marketing.

“If you’ve got 200 followers and a private Instagram account, that’s fine,” he says. “If you share something that fits naturally into your life, that’s where the magic happens.”

The platform’s user base has grown to 50,000 in just a few months. Some have hundreds of followers; others have hundreds of thousands. The common denominator is genuine enthusiasm.

His favourite example isn’t a multinational brand but a neighbourhood café. “There’s a small place in my village called Coffee Apothecary,” he says. “They put £200 into their Social Tip account, and suddenly the whole community was posting about them. It works for huge global brands and tiny independents alike.”

The vision, Watt says, is to make having a Social Tip presence as fundamental to a brand as having an Instagram page. “Ten years ago, Instagram was a competitive advantage,” he says. “Now it’s table stakes. I want Social Tip to be the same.”

James Watt, co-founder of BrewDog and founder of Social Tip

A Change In Consumer Trust

Social Tip’s timing is deliberate. Consumers are tuning out traditional ads, and marketers are struggling to keep pace with fragmented attention.

Kantar’s Media Reactions 2024 study found that people trust peer recommendations and word-of-mouth far more than social-media or streaming ads. Meanwhile, Nielsen’s 2024 Annual Marketing Report revealed that while 72 percent of marketers expect higher ad budgets this year, only 38 percent measure their digital and traditional channels together, a clear sign that legacy models aren’t keeping up with behaviour.

“Community is the new media,” Watt says. “People don’t trust ads. They don’t trust influencers. They trust people they know. Social Tip takes that timeless truth and makes it scalable.”

He’s careful, though, to position the company as a complement for traditional marketing. “We’re not the hero in any Social Tip story,” he says. “The hero is the customer and the brand. We’re just the connection.”

Early Results And Expansion Plans

Since its launch, Social Tip has paid out over £150,000 ($201,000) to users and partnered with hundreds of consumer brands. The company recently began testing in the U.S., starting with 10 businesses and 500 users, with plans to scale rapidly in 2025.

Watt admits that building a new model comes with challenges. “Any startup is hard, and disruption never comes easy,” he says. “But the early signs are phenomenal.. real engagement, real ROI, real excitement.”

He also sees the platform as part of a wider movement toward shared value in marketing. “We want to shorten the bond between brands and customers,” he says. “If you love a brand and you talk about it, that brand should share some of its value back with you. That’s the future.”

Expert Take: What This Means For Marketers

As someone who studies the evolution of the creator economy, what strikes me about Social Tip is how it reframes influence as infrastructure, not entertainment. We’ve spent years optimizing for followers and reach; now the real opportunity lies in community credibility and authentic micro-advocacy.

The next wave of marketing innovation will come from building systems that let brand love scale organically. In a fragmented world, trust is the true growth channel.

The Bottom Line

Advertising as we know it is evolving. In a world oversaturated with content and skepticism, the most powerful voices will be the ones with the most authenticity.

As Watt puts it, “If you can make customers feel like partners, not targets, that’s when marketing really works.”

And if Social Tip is right, the future of advertising might belong to regular people, posting about what they love.

This article is based on an interview with James Watt from my podcast, The Business of Creators.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Ian Shepherd

Find Ian Shepherd on LinkedIn and X. Visit Ian’s website.

Sourced from Forbes