Creator marketers' countdown to Cannes

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Issue #109 | Your reading time this week is just under 5 mins.

Ads by top brands banned as greenwashing. Trade bodies promote influencer marketing code in JV. Positive environments drive impact for brands at every stage of the purchase funnel finds Pinterest research. MrBeast breaks own record. And creator marketers get ready for Cannes.

Greenwashing ban: ASA bans misleading ads from top brands

The UK’s ad regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), has ruled against ads from Shell, Repsol and Petronas on the grounds that they made misleading environmental claims.

These rulings provide all brands and their agencies with a stark reminder about making environmental claims. This topic isn’t going anywhere. Expect to see more rulings from the ASA against greenwashing. Expect, too, to see the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) launch more investigations in this area.

Brand safety

• Here’s a reminder of the Advertising Guidance on misleading environmental claims and social responsibility

• The CMA has produced the Green Claims Code checklist

• A couple of years ago I interviewed on my Influencer Marketing Lab podcast Cecilia Parker Aranha, Director of Consumer Protection at the CMA. We took a closer at sustainability, and how influencer marketers can avoid the charge of greenwashing by following the CMA's Green Claims Code.

Influence is King

Pinterest: Positivity drives action

Pinterest has published research on the power of positivity and how consciously creating a positive online environment benefits Pinners, creators, brands and advertisers alike.

Positive environments drive impact for brands at every stage of the purchase funnel according to the research. Survey respondents said when they're in a positive space:

• 56% of US adults agree they're more likely to remember brands they encounter online

• 59% feel positive about brands they encounter online

• 56% trust brands they see in a positive space

• 54% ultimately make a purchase from a brand

The survey, conducted with Morning Consult, found that 78% of weekly Pinners feel positive after interacting with Pinterest.

ISBA and IMTB promote influencer marketing code of conduct as joint venture

The Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) and the Influencer Marketing Trade Body (IMTB) have agreed to co-own the Influencer Marketing Code of Conduct.

The Code, first launched in September 2021 and updated in May 2022, was supported by both Parliament and the Government during the recent Influencer Culture Inquiry.

The Code aims to standardise good practices and guidance with brands, agencies and creators. It covers areas including disclosure, transparency, pay parity, and effective representation.

Influencer marketing continues to be a key growth priority for the advertising industry. Just a few weeks ago the size-of-market forecast for influencer marketing was revised upwards to top $21 billion this year. This is a significant uptick on the $17.4 billion valuation Statista forecast last August and its $15 billion forecast for 2023 in March last year.

Maintaining that growth rate depends on building evermore professionalism within the sector. Professionalism starts with accountability. Signing up to this code demonstrates that commitment to accountability.

There’s more information in the announcements made by ISBA and by IMTB. The Media Leader has published a good write-up, too. Here’s the updated Influencer Marketing Code of Conduct.

DECLARATION: I am the director general of the IMTB.

IMTB partners with AI platform, RippleXn, to promote brand safety

Staying with the IMTB, the professional membership organisation dedicated to building a robust, sustainable future for the influencer marketing industry, has partnered with RippleXn the first-mover in Social Video platform media listening.

The partnership was forged in preparation ahead of likely Online Safety Bill legislation and the need for greater oversight safety when marketing to younger audiences.

RippleXn augments current data analysis tools by processing social video content at scale. Time-consuming tasks like reviewing contractual or #Ad declarations are done in the background, enabling teams to focus on bigger, more effective campaigns.

Countdown to Cannes

The rehoboams of rosé are being chilled as we speak in preparation for next week’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The UK advertising industry is to showcase over 50 companies participating in two UK Advertising Exports Group and Department of Business and Trade (DBT) trade missions. Together they will host 30 talks looking at the future of the creative economy.

Influencer marketing firms will be bringing the creator economy to La Croisette like no previous year. Influential has taken over Twitter’s beach pitch. Whalar has renewed its partnership with Adweek and is setting up Whalar House at 123-129 Av. Maréchal Juin. Captiv8 is flying in 75 CMOs, senior marketers, and creators to the festival. Influencer will, once again, have its villa. Billion Dollar Boy is sponsoring petanque and sundowners and THE FIFTH will be hosting panel sessions at The Wall Street Journal House.

Meridith Rojas, chief brand officer at Captiv8, told Marketing Brew that “there are all these pretty strong signs to say that the influencer marketing piece is becoming much more main-character energy.”

90% of consumers don’t trust influencers says UGC firm pushing UGC over creator content

EnTribe, a user-generated content (UGC) platform, has published a survey showcasing how UGC within brand marketing is more effective than influencer marketing.

That’s their prerogative and good luck to them.

Their press release says the survey was administered by a third party. Its name is not mentioned, nor are its credentials specified.

1,000+ US consumers were polled for the survey. I couldn’t find anywhere online what the survey methodology was, nor the age profile, nor any weight given to any particular age group. Nor could I find how the questions were phrased.

But, as I say that’s their prerogative and good luck to them.

What is slightly disappointing is when trade media run the story from the press release without asking the survey sponsor any questions about the methodology or including an influencer marketing point-of-view for balance.

Scaling creator clones

A few weeks ago (in Creator Briefing #105) we discussed how one Snapchat influencer had launched an AI-powered 'virtual girlfriend'. Now New Zealand-based AI firm, Soulmachines, can help you create and deploy life-like custom digital people in minutes with Digital DNA Studio’s creator tools.

These self-animating GPT-enabled synthetic creators can communicate in real time and at scale. This is tremendously exciting with near-limitless positive applications. It does, however, open the door to bad actors.

Mr Beast breaks own record thanks to language dubbing

Mr Beast’s manager, Reed Duchscher, took to LinkedIn this week to post that the YouTuber and entrepreneur had beaten his own record for video views in a single day.

“A year and a half ago Jimmy recreated his version of the popular Squid Game series. The video went on to get 42M views in 24 hours, which was a YouTube record at the time. On Saturday, the newest video titled $1 vs $1B Yacht just beat that record with 47M views in 24 hours.”

Duchscher suggested a few reasons for the video’s success.

• MrBeast has widened his addressable audience by dubbing his videos into a dozen languages.

• The video is relatable to a wide audience.

• Two celebrities, Tom Brady and Pete Davidson, appear in the video

🤑 Adobe puts its money where its mouth is with AI: The company is so confident its Firefly generative AI won’t breach copyright that it’ll cover your legal bills

📱📲 Clone Zone Here’s what Instagram’s Twitter clone will look like

📈 Don’t call it a comeback TikTok aims to more than quadruple the size of its global e-commerce business to $20 billion in merchandise sales in 2023

🧑‍💻 Business Insider strike – US journalists at Business Insider are on strike (at least those in the union). For the creator economy beat this includes: Amanda Perelli, Dan Whateley, Sydney Bradley, and Shriya Bhattacharya.