People Inc.—the company behind Southern Living Magazine, Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure Co.—recently announced it will launch consumer products itself. The problem is that Amazon, Meta and Google have made it cheaper and faster than ever for individual creators to launch competing products.

People Inc. still has something creators do not: first-party audience data and decades of editorial trust built with loyal readers. The question is whether betting on partnering with CPG incumbents is the right way to use it—or whether licensing to the thousands of small brands with a precise understanding of the target customers is the smarter play