How influencer marketing can beat UK ad spend drop

Issue #123 | Your reading time this week is 5 mins. 45 secs.

Welcome back to the Creator Briefing.

This edition is a case of ‘late, but in earnest’. It’s been a busy week. I spoke with ad regulators in Europe and have been prepping for tomorrow’s Influencer Marketing Show where IMTB is its association partner - and I’m speaking alongside IMTB’s two new Co-Chairs. More on that below.

Here’s what else caught my eye this week.

• IPA’s Bellwether Report Q3 2023 is in. Can influencer marketing beat UK ad-spend drop?

• YouTube report says creators define what is normal in society

• Influencer partners with TikTok on a report

• IMTB appoints Oliver Lewis and Emma Harman as its inaugural Co-Chairs

• The Influencer Marketing Show is back in London

• IMTB speaks with EASA members about responsible influencer marketing

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Can influencer marketing beat UK ad-spend drop?

UK ad spend is forecasted to fall in real terms until 2025 according to IPA Bellwether Report Q3 2023 released this week. The year will see a net balance of +5.3% down from +6.4% in Q2 (against UK inflation rate of 6.7%).

Budget size depends on how business treats advertising spend internally - a cost or an investment in future success?

The report indicates that marketers who are currently spending more on ads are following both defensive and offensive strategies “with some hoping to reinforce their brand's position in the market ahead of a downturn in the UK economy.”

Where does influencer marketing fit into this?

Where does influencer marketing fit into this? Globally, at least, influencer marketing revenues continue to climb and gnaw away at total advertising spend.

Though, in 2023 influencer marketing accounts for just 3.25% of total advertising spend, four years ago it comprised only 1.8% and in four years time it’s forecast to reach 4%.

Influencer marketing spend in the US is set to grow around 3.5 times faster in 2023 than social ad spend - according to Insider Intelligence (see Creator Briefing #117).

How to outpace a recession

How can influencer marketing outpace the UK’s predicted shallow recession? Brands should ensure they’re empathetic with audiences. The creators they partner with should create content relatable to audiences’ circumstances and should avoid appearing out-of-touch (i.e. refrain from posting overly materialistic, aspirational content).

Almost a quarter (24%) of consumers aged 25-34 years old and nearly a fifth (19%) aged 16-24 say they have unfollowed accounts that they felt presented a lifestyle that wasn’t relatable to them, citing the cost-of-living crisis rendering overly aspirational content feeling out of touch with their reality, according to research by Accenture Song.

Global regulators scramble to keep social media platforms in check

Regulators around the world are gunning for social media platforms in a bid to protect citizens.

The European Commission has formally asked Meta and TikTok to explain what they’re doing to combat illegal content and disinformation related to the Israel-Hamas conflict appearing on their platforms. The request for information comes under the recently enacted Digital Services Act (DSA).

Earlier this month Elon Musk took on the EU in a Twitter spat over disinformation on his platform. As a result Musk is now threatening to withdraw from Europe.

It’s not only disinformation that has regulators worked up. 30+ US states have sued Meta, alleging its platforms deliberately deployed manipulative and addictive features in order to hook young users in their hunt for profit, while misleading the public about their actual harms (FT).

TikTok has been fined €345m for breaching EU children’s data rules. The complaint centred on how TT handled children's data - particularly around age verification and privacy settings.

Creators define what is normal in society

YouTube research titled ‘Why We Watch' run in partnership with research agencies, MTM and The Behavioural Architects throws up some interesting findings such as “The audience is no longer a passive recipient, but an empowered and engaged curator, building their own personal media universes”. Here are some more:

• 66% of viewers agree that creators define what is normal or common in society

• 58% of YouTube users want to support the creators they relate to by watching ads alongside their content

• 61% of short-form video viewers said they choose short-form videos to discover a new product or brand, while 57% choose long-form videos to go deep into a particular topic/type of content

• Viewers rank YouTube first for being a place that has helped them learn things about the world they wouldn’t have without it, versus competitors across broadcast TV, social media, and streaming

  • YouTube 41%

  • Broadcast TV 30%

  • TikTok 27%

  • Facebook 24%

  • Instagram 23%

IMTB appoints Oliver Lewis and Emma Harman as its inaugural Co-Chairs

The Influencer Marketing Trade Body has appointed its first co-chairs to lead the Board and drive effective governance as the trade body continues to grow at speed.

Emma Harman, Global Chief Client Officer at Whalar and Oliver Lewis, CEO and Founder at THE FIFTH were voted in by the Board to become IMTB’s inaugural chairs in a joint capacity.

This strategic decision underscores IMTB's commitment to advancing industry standards, emphasising transparency, ethical practices, and educational initiatives within the influencer marketing community.

IMTB launched two years ago this week. In those 24 months, it has scaled from six founding members to include 21 progressive influencer marketing firms.

Influencer Marketing Shows returns to London tomorrow

The Influencer Marketing Show Europe (IMS) returns to London tomorrow (26 October).

The show has selected the Influencer Marketing Trade Body (IMTB) as its association partner for its major October event.

The one-day event runs across three conference tracks and features topics running from creator commerce and creative campaign management to full-funnel influencer marketing and the new creator partnerships transforming the space.

IMTB speaks with European advertising regulators about responsible influencer marketing

The IMTB shared insights on responsible influencer marketing with members of the European Advertising Standards Alliance (“EASA”) this week.

At the request of EASA, IMTB participated in the alliance’s first ever designated influencer marketing sessions at its biannual meeting.

I spoke at the conference held in Athens representing the IMTB and emphasised the tenet that responsible influencer marketing means that, at a minimum, sponsored creator content should not contain online harms. However, as an industry, we should be aiming higher - ensuring creator content is representative of its audience, fairly paid and best in class.

The influencer panel also included Dr Catalina Goanta Associate Professor, Utrecht University of Law, Mohamed MANSOURI Deputy Director, ARPP (the French advertising regulator), Céline Mouquet Global Influence Director Accor, Penelope Anastasopolou Greek influencer, radio producer and actor, and Otto van der Harst, Director SRC (the Dutch advertising regulator).

Kid’s Instagram post breaks world record

An Instagram post by American seventh-grader Reed Harrington has officially broken the world record for the most likes on a comment in his post.

The young teen posted a video to IG last month saying that when he hit 200k followers, he would do whatever the top comment on that video says. The 13-year-old’s follower-count jumped to 314k on the back of receiving a comment which topped 2.8m likes.

What did the top comment say? “Fly to small town in thailand, get accepted by their people, learn the language, train in muy thai for a year and half, fight in a tournament, win the tournament, return to the USA and join the UFC, stay in shape and go undefeated in your weight class, retire and do an interview saying this comment was the reason you fought so hard....”

Reed has now set up a Go Fund Me page -- presumably to fund the air ticket to Thailand. Good luck.

Influencer partners with TikTok on new report

Influencer has partnered with TikTok to produce a report titled: From Awareness To Action: The Power of True Human Influence On Tiktok.

The report promises “actionable insights that will inform your campaigns going forward, based on an understanding of how creators have converged with TikTok to create a space where raw, authentic, relatable content reigns supreme, and the impact that this has on driving True Human Influence at every stage of the funnel”.