In a world that’s increasingly online, the creator economy is primed for the highlight. Digital video consumption has reached an all-time high, led by creator content, and advertisers are shifting more dollars toward smartphone-yielding creatives. Some are willing to bet that the days of creators being viewed as a complement to advertisers’ playbooks are gone. Instead, creators could develop into the foundation.
“Starting first with creators when it comes to promoting is unquestionably the wave of the future,” said Ali Fazal, vice chairman of marketing for creator management platform Grin.
This 12 months, 44% of marketers plan to up their creator investment, with a median spending increase of 25%, according to a creator economy report by IAB and TalkShoppe. The landscape was last valued at $250 billion and is expected to grow to a whopping $480 billion by 2027, Goldman Sachs forecasts. As creators develop into more cemented in advertiser budgets, the role they play could grow, graduating from the experimental bucket to a category of their very own. While the terms creator and influencer are sometimes used interchangeably, the key difference is purpose, with an influencer being a kind of a creator that uses their platform to promote products and influence buying decisions.
Influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy is amongst those experimenting with the concept of creator-led promoting. The agency last 12 months teamed with Lipton Iced Tea for a global creator-led campaign that spanned digital out-of-home, social media and experiential and was centered around an original song performed by TikToker Matt Storer with support from a slew of other creators. In total, the campaign achieved a video view-through rate of 23.9% while the brand saw a sales uptick of 15% in Australia during the campaign’s two-week run.
The example above signals the edge that creator-based promoting provides over traditional tactics in the digital age, according to Ed East, Billion Dollar Boy’s founder and global CEO.
“[Previously] you’ll have had creator activity, influencer marketing, bolted onto a plan. Now, creator activity needs to be at the heart of your plan,” said East.
As advertisers ramp up their creator investments, trends anticipated for 2024, like latest ways of measuring success and long-form video’s resurgence, could change strategies for some. Meanwhile, growing hype around generative artificial intelligence (AI) and social commerce could offer brands fresh opportunities to break through.
The science of being #influenced
Beyond consumers’ general appreciation of creator content are signs that such content is more meaningful than studio-made ads, like scripted video content that appears on TV, per the IAB’s report. Creator ads have a 1.4-times greater impact on constructing brand loyalty and a 1.3 times greater impact on inspiring brand advocacy, according to the findings.
It’s price noting that an appreciation for creator content comes as consumers are posting less content of their very own across social channels, according to Ellyn Briggs, a brands analyst for decision intelligence company Morning Consult. The insight could help lend more visibility to brand and creator collaborations, though what Briggs forecasts to be an “uber volatile landscape” for social media marketers this 12 months could usher in more consumer skepticism.
“Influencers especially are going to need to fill a content void,” Briggs said. “But with that brings an extra level of attention and potential scrutiny to influencer activity, which, as we’ve seen [in 2023], can increase the probabilities of backfiring.”
Creator campaigns gone fallacious are nothing latest, Briggs added, pointing to Shein’s all-expenses-paid influencer trip last 12 months, which faced backlash when those involved gushed about the company’s often-criticized labor practices. Though consumers today are increasingly likely to call out inauthentic content, they proceed to place deep trust in creators, tasking creatives to rethink how they reach their audiences.
“I believe we will officially say that in 2024, using follower count to determine an influencer’s potential success is dead.”
Ali Fazal
Vice president of marketing, Grin
“The way influencers sell goes to change because we’re seeing that buyers are voicing their frustrations with things like overconsumption and always being sold to,” said Megumi Robinson, vice chairman at digital PR firm Belle Communication.
A trend Robinson expects to grow in 2024 is that brands and creators will probably be more selective around who they partner with, and repeat partnerships will probably be more common. This 12 months can also be likely to see less pay-to-play tie-ups where creators tackle brand deals despite having no real connection to them, according to Fazal, who noted that buyers aren’t blind to such partnerships.
“It’s pretty obvious to me that Nicole Kidman doesn’t use Lancôme makeup,” Fazal said with amusing.
For more relevant content, Fazal also anticipates that marketers will increasingly hire creators to produce content specifically for brand-owned channels, versus sharing the content to the creator’s pages. Such is the case for Uber, which built out a TikTok creator strategy that leverages not more than six creators at any given time to make content for the brand.
“Creators being on their very own and dealing with no confines are able to be quite a bit more revolutionary, daring, daring, and because of this, the content is simpler,” Fazal said.
Follower count is ‘dead’
A focus in the creator space has often been the use of either micro or macro influencers, each lauded for various reasons: micro influencers typically carry stronger engagement rates despite smaller followings, while macro influencers have massive reach. However, Robinson anticipates the better of each worlds will probably be found in a rising mid-tier category, classified by the exec as those yielding 50,000-800,000 followers.
“What we’re seeing is a number of these micro creators, who might need a little bit bit smaller audiences but really strong engagement rates, they’re gaining more followers and growing, but they’re able to retain that level of engagement rate,” Robinson said.
As the landscape evolves, the use of follower count as a sole consideration is probably going to fizzle out of the conversation, Fazal predicts, noting that the metric alone isn’t as strong of successful indicator compared to features like engagement. Additionally, as brands strive to construct a more diverse creator strategy — one other forecast from the exec — follower count often favors those not from diverse backgrounds.
“I believe we will officially say that in 2024, using follower count to determine an influencer’s potential success is dead,” said Fazal.
Fazal also anticipates more variety in content formats, noting that while short-form videos aren’t expected to fall from popularity, longer-form content will see a resurgence as consumers indicate a want for granular insights and deeper connections. Such has develop into the norm on top-dog TikTok, where viewers often request an element two and three on shorter videos, a sentiment TikTok appeased with the addition of 10-minute videos. For marketers, the opportunity to tell an extended story could make a difference, especially during the key holiday marketing period.
“Over time there has develop into this perception that millennials and Gen Z in particular can’t focus, now we have to make things quick, and we’ve seen that this bet has failed time and time again,” Fazal said.
Still, short-form has been a growing focus for platforms, particularly TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, with the latter two consistently layering in latest features and monetization tools for his or her Reels and Shorts products in a bid against TikTok. Social media is expected to see increased spend from advertisers in 2024, forecasted to account for $227.2 billion of ad spending this 12 months. The boost comes as e-commerce marketing stays strong, with social platforms often fitting well into marketers’ customer acquisition and loyalty strategies.
Beyond what Fazal labels as the “big three” platforms for influencer content, others have similarly ramped up efforts to court each creators and advertisers. Snapchat recently began experimenting with a creator-led content series concept and added sponsored links to its My AI generative AI chatbot. Accordingly, East anticipates the platform could take a much bigger role in the creator landscape.
“[Snapchat] appears to be the talk of the town due to engagement and the monetization opportunity they’re now offering,” East said.
Social commerce, AI present opportunity
As marketers map out their creator plans this 12 months, a key focus has the potential for social commerce. The interest follows the recent debut of TikTok Shop in the U.S., which has to this point seen tepid results, though brands have expressed excitement. For some, it has proven to be a serious opportunity — beauty brand BK Beauty activated TikTok Shop and inside three months said it had greater than doubled revenue, according to Adweek.
“We’ve already seen a number of early signs that TikTok Shop is an enormous success,” Fazal said.
Total social commerce sales in the U.S. are expected to grow steadily from $67 billion in 2023 to over $144 billion by 2027, per Insider Intelligence. More broadly, for brands using influencers, Briggs recommends that they be aware of the sorts of content favored by social media users, like product hauls and day by day routine videos, which have been successful for driving purchases. Specifically, 53% of Gen Zers made a purchase order after watching a “review” video on social, while haul and prepare with me (GRWM) videos drove 40% and 37% to purchase, respectively, per Morning Consult data.
The seamless shopping experience touted by social commerce could possibly be what elevates the playing field, with 46% of buyers indicating that they have an interest in buying products from social media with a one-stop shop experience, according to 2023 Comscore data shared with Marketing Dive. Still, as experiments in the space grow, Fazal urges marketers to adjust their expectations for social away from being a path to quick purchase.
“Lots of times when people consider influencer marketing, they may compare it or benchmark it against other promoting channels like paid ads, that are meant to be first touch conversion. But I’d say to consider influencer marketing the same way you’ll consider a TV industrial or a billboard in that it requires multiple impressions to achieve success,” Fazal said.
Among other questions into consideration is how generative AI could serve the creator space. Particularly, the tech could provide efficiencies for creators by streamlining back-end tasks like planning and organizing, Fazal said. Influencer-focused corporations, including each Billion Dollar Boy and Grin, have also joined the hype with services that hone a concentrate on the tech.
“I do think in 2024 we’d see more of this influencer-plus-AI combination.”
Ellyn Briggs
Brands analyst, Morning Consult
There’s also the concept of virtual influencers, like Miquela, who has already teamed with brand Pacsun, that might potentially come more into the mainstream as AI helps the computer-generated figures look more lifelike.
“These virtual personalities, created using advanced AI technologies, can offer brands latest and revolutionary ways to engage with audiences, especially in the realms of fashion, technology, and entertainment,” said Alex Dahan, founder and CEO of world creator marketing company Open Influence.
Still, while virtual influencers offer some benefits over actual creators, like the ability to promote anything without qualms, the human element is essential to forming authentic connections. Likely not a shock, evaluation from Morning Consult has found that buyers trust recommendations by influencers excess of those from AI.
“That being said, I do think in 2024 we’d see more of this influencer-plus-AI combination,” Briggs added.
Similar to broader applications of AI, the query of where AI suits inside creator marketing is yet to be answered. While creators may benefit from using the tech for mundane tasks, allowing for overtime to be creative, those that grow overly reliant on it could raise red flags amongst an already observant consumer base, Robinson said.
“It will probably be very apparent, those that might just totally depend on AI, and that’s going to erode trust and authenticity, and will then make consumers much more skeptical,” the exec said.
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