NEW YORK – Influencer marketing is here to stay. At least, that’s what brands have signaled through pledges to invest more in creator-driven content and the appointment of specialized agencies of record (AORs). But as influencer marketing takes on a more significant role in brand strategies, expectations from marketing decision-makers are rising, with a larger emphasis on performance and standardization.
Meanwhile, creator agencies have seen an uptick in mergers and acquisitions from large networks, a sign that ad-holding groups are looking to strengthen their foothold in the space. Executives at an Advertising Week New York panel on Tuesday discussed how creator marketing has evolved in recent years, where the landscape is headed and the high expectations brands should hold for their creator AORs.
“The expectations that we have as marketers and brands today have absolutely moved on from where we were a year or so ago, so our creator agencies need to be highly strategic, super insights driven — they also need to have account excellence in a way that they didn’t have before,” said Casey DePalma McCartney, chief brand communications officer at Unilever U.S.
The panel, titled “More than a Trend: The Rise of the Creator AOR,” was moderated by Gabe Gordon, co-founder and CEO of Reach Agency, and also included George Hammer, global head of luxury marketing for Marriott International, and Damon Berger, head of consumer digital engagement at Gap.
An evolving landscape
U.S. brands are expected to spend $13.7 billion on influencer marketing by 2027, up from $10.5 billion this year, according to forecasts from eMarketer. That level of growth has inspired an industry shift among marketing services providers, with over 60,000 agencies now making influencer marketing part of their offerings, Gordon said. Creator marketing as a specialized service may be comparatively young, but brands should still hold the same standards for those agencies as they do for more traditional creative partners, McCartney said.
“Work with us to ensure that we’re optimizing that entire process from end-to-end,” McCartney said. “There’s a ton of legacy creative agencies that we work with, the Ogilvy’s of the world and the like, and that was the expectation from them for years, but that’s exactly what we expect from the creator agencies now too.”
In March, Unilever declared it would shift half of its ad spend to social media and multiply its work with influencers 20 fold. In 2024, the company increased its marketing investments by roughly $1 billion, its highest level in over a decade and a signal of what that spending hike could look like for social media and the creator economy. The investment plans emphasize how far creator marketing has come, even over the span of five years.
“We were doing a lot of work in the space across all our brands at Unilever, even five years ago, but it was so tactical,” McCartney said. “It was like, we need content, we need to work with these folks, we need to be doing this — we’re not exactly sure what that’s getting us, but we need to be doing it anyway. If you think about it now, we’ve moved to a much more strategic place.”
Keys to a successful partnership
Creator agencies can help brands tackle tasks like influencer management, contracts and strategy. However, for brands looking to link with an agency, it’s critical to keep in mind whether or not they can add value beyond what could be done internally, Berger said. Gap works with creator software platform CreatorIQ and has teamed with influencer marketing agencies including Buttermilk on campaigns.
“If we’re trying to go [for] broad reach on a specific campaign or our day to day, [it’s] much harder to reach that scale level internally, and I think that’s the big piece that we use our external agencies for is to get out there and have that level of scale,” Berger said.
Berger also emphasized the importance of taking a more nuanced approach to creator strategy versus a blanket approach. For example, affiliates are different from micro influencers, and mid-tier influencers are different from macro influencers, with each having their unique audiences and approaches. Brands should tailor their approach based on each creator’s role.
“Each one of those levels can have its own strategy and its own AOR around it,” Berger said. “It’s really a very fragmented world that we’re living in right now in terms of: How do you, as brands, navigate that whole aspect of who’s doing what?”
For Marriott’s Hammer, it’s critical to link with a creator agency that is willing to be on the ground with the brand as a true collaborator and fill the gap in responsibilities.
“In this world of company efficiency, there’s not going to be a lot of hiring of staff at companies in the future. So you need to figure out, as an agency, how to become indispensable and almost be part of the team,” Hammer said.
Brands also have a responsibility to the creator agencies they team with. Marketers who own the measurement side of the equation and come prepared with a framework around strategy are more likely to have an empowering relationship with their creator AOR, Berger said.
“Owning that measurement, owning what the outcomes are, allows for a better partnership within the creator AOR space because it gives you a tighter framework to operate what they’re actually going after as opposed to just kind of boiling the ocean and thinking everything is at play,” Berger said.
Where the industry is headed
The creator space isn’t without pain points, Berger explained. Many creator agencies are still required to correspond with other groups, like talent management companies. However, social media platforms have begun to remove some of that friction, a trend the executive expects will lead to some sort of evolution in the years to come.
“We’re starting to see the platforms start to own some of those relationships again,” Berger said. “There’s now, I think, a different world and environment that’s starting to appear where the platforms know how valuable the space is, and how frictional it is to all of us.”
For example, YouTube recently announced a new feature called open call that helps brands discover and team with creators on a large scale. Meta earlier this month announced new artificial intelligence-powered tools to help with creator discovery.
These innovations and ongoing bets from brands emphasize that creator marketing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In turn, brands should view the tactic as essential if they wish to form deeper relationships with consumers, Berger said, with those not yet on board at risk of falling behind.
“From my perspective, if anything has changed over the last five years it’s that [creator marketing] is completely indispensable, and for the companies out there that are still thinking about it as a nice to have, that’s where I feel like maybe the relevance isn’t quite where those companies want it to be for their brands,” Berger said.
