- Influence Weekly
- Posts
- Influence Weekly #430 - Gordon Ramsay Credits Influencers As More Powerful Than Traditional Critics In London Restaurant Launch Strategy
Influence Weekly #430 - Gordon Ramsay Credits Influencers As More Powerful Than Traditional Critics In London Restaurant Launch Strategy
HubSpot Acquires Creator-Led Media Brand ‘Starter Story’
Nii Ahene
February 27, 2026
Spotlight Stories
HubSpot Acquires Creator-Led Media Brand ‘Starter Story’
TikTok Shop Could Be A Top-3 Global Retailer By 2030, Report Shows
Gordon Ramsay Credits Influencers As More Powerful Than Traditional Critics In London Restaurant Launch Strategy
Meta To Host Virtual Marketing Summit On March 11 To Address AI-Driven Advertising Strategies
Great Reads
Guggenheim Brothers Media launched a $75 million fund to invest in creator economy infrastructure companies, partnering with Abu Dhabi-based Ethmar International Holding as an anchor investor. The Los Angeles-based investment firm, founded in 2024 by Criswell Fiordalis and Dillon Lawson-Johnston, targets investments of $1 million to $5 million across 20 to 25 companies.
The fund focuses on early- to growth-stage media and entertainment businesses rather than individual creators or talent acquisitions. Guggenheim Brothers Media seeks companies with less than $10 million in funding needs, filling what founders describe as a gap between venture capital and private equity markets.
The firm invests in tools, studios, IP platforms, and technology that support creator-led businesses while reducing dependency on individual personalities. Fiordalis and Lawson-Johnston bring operational experience from United Talent Agency, Lionsgate, MRC, Hello Sunshine, and WEBTOON. The fund will invest globally with initial focus on U.S.-based companies while maintaining strategic presence in the UAE and Gulf Cooperation Council region.
HubSpot Media acquired creator-led media brand Starter Story, founded in 2017 by software engineer Pat Walls. Starter Story operates a multi-channel media business focused on entrepreneurship and small business content, with 800,000 YouTube subscribers, 300,000 newsletter subscribers, and a database of 4,500 founder case studies generating over 100 million annual content views.
The acquisition adds to HubSpot's owned media strategy of using content to drive customers to its core software business rather than relying on paid acquisition. HubSpot Media now reaches 2.9 million combined YouTube subscribers across its portfolio, which includes The Hustle, My First Million, and Mindstream. The division reports more than 50 million monthly engagements.
Starter Story generated seven-figure revenue with 75% coming from its own products including subscriptions, courses, and a paid community of 10,000 members. Founder Pat Walls, his sister Sam, and producer Gus Tiffer joined HubSpot under the deal terms. Walls described the sale price as "life-changing" but specific financial terms were not disclosed.
TikTok Shop could become a top-three global retailer by 2030, according to a new report from commerce agency Flywheel. The report projected that ByteDance, TikTok Shop's Chinese parent company, could capture 14.6 percent of global marketplace share by 2030, generating approximately $1 trillion in sales.
Flywheel estimated Amazon would remain the number-one global retailer with projected sales of $1.1 trillion, followed by Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo at number two. Walmart, currently the world's largest retailer, was projected to drop to fifth place as the only retailer in the top five relying primarily on in-store rather than online sales.
TikTok Shop operates in 17 countries including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and most of Southeast Asia. The platform exceeded $15 billion in U.S. sales in 2025, according to eMarketer, making it the largest social commerce platform in the country. Beauty emerged as the dominant category on TikTok Shop, with brands including Medicube, Tarte Cosmetics, and WavyTalk among top performers.
Acast is a leading podcast hosting and monetization platform that connects creators with advertisers and distributes shows globally. The company works with thousands of podcasters to help them reach audiences and generate revenue through advertising.
Ceci Carloni chats with CEO Greg Glenday to hear his perspective on three critical issues: why podcasting's listener-driven meritocracy makes it fundamentally different from algorithm-based platforms, why most top two hundred fifty US brands still haven't invested despite direct response advertisers proving the channel works, and how Acast is solving discovery and measurement challenges through curation and transcription data.
Campaign Insights
Gordon Ramsay publicly endorsed influencers over traditional restaurant critics during the Netflix documentary "Being Gordon Ramsay," which chronicled the opening of five restaurant concepts at London's 22 Bishopsgate. The celebrity chef said influencers had displaced legacy food critics as the most important industry force.
Prior to opening the restaurants, which included Lucky Cat, Bread Street Kitchen, and Gordon Ramsay High, Ramsay hosted a hard-hat event for 100 influencers. He described this as a deliberate message to traditional press, stating critics "destroyed restaurants over 25 years."
The comments aligned with Ramsay's broader media strategy. In January, Fox Entertainment launched Fox Creator Studios, a digital-first division that partnered with Ramsay's Studio Ramsay Global, which was established with Fox in 2021. Ramsay currently maintains 115 million social media followers across platforms, positioning him as both a traditional media figure and digital creator.
Stream Hatchet released its "2025 Live Streaming Trends Report" covering 36.4 billion hours watched across platforms, revealing shifts in brand advertising strategies. YouTube Gaming sponsored stream viewership reached 10.8 million hours in 2025, a 71% year-over-year increase, while unique channels grew 54% to 2.8 million.
Mid-tier creators drove sponsored content, with TheBurntPeanut leading sponsored hours promoting "ARC Raiders" and "PUBG Battlegrounds," and Brazilian creator Apelapato generating 683,000 sponsored hours for "Garena Free Fire." Twitch recorded its lowest quarterly unique channel counts since 2020, with top creator viewership falling 14.5% year-over-year.
Creator events generated measurable brand visibility through chat mentions. Crocs received 26,000 chat mentions in one day following Mafiathon 3-branded shoe reveals during Kai Cenat's stream. Marvel rose to become the top media brand with 1.7 million unique chatters, driven by "Marvel Rivals" game conversations.
Spanish-speaking audiences showed fastest growth, with Ibai's La Velada del Año V drawing 9.2 million peak concurrent viewers, though brands have not matched spending to this demographic's engagement levels.
The Louvre and Snapchat launched "The Incredible Unknowns of the Louvre" on February 18, a free augmented reality experience featuring six artworks from the museum's collection. This marked their second partnership after a 2023 pilot on Egyptian antiquities.
Visitors scan QR codes on artwork labels to access AR overlays showing reconstructed colors, artistic techniques, and historical context for works including the Code of Hammurabi and Portrait of Anne of Cleves. Snapchat users worldwide can access a separate experience through the app's Lens carousel.
The collaboration extends Snapchat's European cultural strategy. The company launched "Dansez Versailles" at the Palace of Versailles in July 2025, integrating four AR lenses into baroque dance experiences. Snapchat reported 94 million monthly active users across the EU, with France representing 27 million users as its largest European market.
Snapchat has applied similar AR frameworks commercially, including its Winter Village featuring luxury brands Chopard, BOSS, and Lancôme across multiple markets through December 2025.
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) surveyed 84 client-side marketers in late 2025 and found that only half had full visibility into what their agencies actually paid creators on their behalf. The study revealed that 31% of respondents confirmed their agencies employed non-transparent compensation methods, while another 30% said they did not know, suggesting up to 61% of marketers may lack clear visibility into their influencer budget allocation.
Despite apparent satisfaction levels with 25% describing themselves as very satisfied and 48% as somewhat satisfied with current agency compensation agreements, 55% of respondents said they planned to change their compensation approach within 12 months. The primary driver was lack of transparency, with some agencies bundling talent and agency fees into single line items or declining to disclose fee structures entirely.
Currently, only 16% of respondents manage influencer marketing primarily in-house, but this figure appears to be growing as marketers seek better control and cost efficiencies.
The U.S. Embassy Creator's Mela 2026 drew more than 5,000 creators and influencers across three Nepalese cities in February, marking the largest content creation festival in Nepal's history. Registration numbers tripled compared to 2025, reflecting growth in Nepal's creator economy.
The fourth-year event was delivered in partnership with Storm Communications Nepal Pvt. Ltd., an event management company, and strategy and influencer agency Elephant & Castle. The festival operated under the theme "Vision to Venture" across Kathmandu, Chitwan and Nepalgunj.
The program featured over 25 sessions led by 46 speakers covering content development, monetization models, and brand partnerships. Notable speakers included actress Priyanka Karki, content creator Aayushman Desraj Joshi, and Shark Tank Nepal investors Cabinet Shrestha and Anand Bagaria.
Storm Communications deployed more than 60 team members for event execution while Elephant & Castle handled strategy. Supporting partners included telecom brand Ncell, Khukuri, Agni Group, Manarama and Xtreme.
Brands shifted creator marketing strategies by repurposing nano and micro creator content for paid advertising campaigns, according to CrowdRiff's 2026 Creator Trends Report. The study found 77% of marketers actively use creator content in paid ads, while 61% planned to increase creator content investments in 2026.
Cost pressures drove the trend as mega-influencers with over one million followers charge more than $10,000 per Instagram post. Enterprise brands spend an average of $1.7 million annually on influencer campaigns. In contrast, 77% of Instagram influencers have fewer than 10,000 followers, with 54% of marketers now primarily working with nano and micro creators.
Performance data supported the shift to smaller creators. Creator content generates 10 times more shares on TikTok than brand content and produces 61% more followers than on Instagram. Case studies showed Meet Chicago Northwest grew Instagram following 366% in 12 months using creator content. CrowdRiff projects $37.1 billion in U.S. creator economy ad spend for 2026.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey partnered with social media influencers to expand her political reach beyond traditional media. Healey provided exclusive access to creators including Kate Weiser of "Bucket List Boston" and travel influencer Sally Nguyen at the State House tree lighting ceremony in December 2024.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu hosted the city's first creator summit in 2024, gathering over 75 local influencers. Weiser, who has over 220,000 Instagram followers, became the only influencer appointed to Boston's Nightlife Initiative for a Thriving Economy committee. Attorney General Andrea Campbell appeared on podcasts hosted by content creators to discuss policy issues.
Healey's office spent $500 on catering for a November 2024 State House "creator event," according to campaign finance records. The governor's Instagram account follows dozens of lifestyle influencers and food bloggers. Political consultant Sammy Kanter charges $300 per hour for social media strategy sessions, highlighting the monetization of political influencing. The creator economy reached $480 billion globally by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs projections.
Diageo's Baileys shifted from one-off influencer collaborations to long-term creator partnerships through its "treat squad" program launched in July 2025. Head of Baileys Hazan Aydin Yesilova contracted three influencers for eight months, selected based on the brand's "makers, bakers and shakers" community definition covering drink mixing, baking recipes, and cocktail creation.
The brand conducted immersion sessions where creators learned about Baileys' history, values, and ingredients before developing content. Baileys integrated creator content into its media mix alongside traditional brand assets developed by creative agencies. Click-through rates from creator content reached twice the performance of other content types.
The treat squad approach addressed multi-screen consistency challenges while maintaining creator authenticity. Baileys plans to rotate its treat squad annually to avoid message repetition and audience overlap. For each campaign, the brand also works with additional creators to match specific campaign moods, supplementing the core contracted creators.
Check Out Our Media Kit
Interesting People
Young Guns Entertainment, an Atlanta-based creator management agency, generated approximately $13 million in creator earnings in 2025 while managing more than 1,000 creators across TikTok Live, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch. The Black-owned agency targets $150 million in gross creator revenue within three years.
CEO Keith Dorsey pivoted the company from traditional brand deals to platform-native monetization after discovering TikTok's live creator network model. Young Guns now manages 549 live creators and generates roughly $500,000 in monthly live revenue through gifting systems. The agency previously generated $6 million annually for creators on Snapchat before shifting focus to TikTok Live.
The company operates a 5,000-square-foot production facility called Collab Studios ATL in downtown Atlanta and runs Collab+, an over-the-top streaming platform for creator-produced shows. Young Guns evolved from managing the first Black content house in the United States during the Vine era to positioning itself as a hybrid agency-media company that partners directly with platforms on monetization programs rather than relying solely on sponsorship deals.
Olympic snowboarder Maddie Mastro generated 61.9 million cross-platform views during a 30-day period surrounding the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, achieving the largest relative Instagram engagement surge of any Team USA account, according to social video intelligence platform Tubular Labs. Mastro posted no sponsored content during the surge.
On TikTok, views climbed from 1.4 million to 48 million, while her upload volume increased from 9 videos to over 90. Instagram views rose from 242,000 to 11.7 million, with engagements growing from 10,100 to 354,000. Her Instagram monthly engagement surged nearly 8x from her previous peak.
The momentum began with two videos: an Instagram post on February 4 that accumulated 1.4 million views and a TikTok video featuring Nutella that reached 900,000 views. Analysts noted Mastro shifted toward personality-driven, humorous content alongside performance coverage. John Cassillo from video measurement platform The Measure said sustaining post-event audience growth remains rare among Olympic athletes, noting cyclical engagement patterns tied to competition schedules.
Philippine food content creator Abi Marquez, known as the "Lumpia Queen," built a creator business that works with more than 10 brands per month on average after a single video went viral in January 2022. The creator, who had 14 followers at the time, filmed a tuna pasta video that reached one million views in three days and generated $20,000 in receivables before she graduated college.
Marquez now operates across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube with a team handling production and brand partnerships. She reports that 90% of her content includes paid collaborations while maintaining audience engagement through authentic recipe content and community interaction.
The creator is expanding beyond sponsored posts into owned intellectual property including a cookbook, live events, and physical products. She appeared in a Philippine soap opera and will participate in the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival this year. Her business model centers on recipe development, multi-platform content distribution, and audience community building around Filipino fusion cuisine.
Carson Roney, a former college basketball player, chose content creation over professional overseas basketball after building a multi-platform business through TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. Roney began posting casually in 2019 during her junior year, then increased to four or five posts daily during COVID lockdowns when she saw traction increase.
The creator has secured partnerships with the NBA, NFL, Gatorade, and U.S. Bank, including filming a nine-hour NFL commercial that aired throughout the season. Her content spans basketball clips, fashion, beauty, travel, and lifestyle content across multiple verticals rather than focusing on a single niche.
Roney emphasized consistency as her primary growth strategy, posting multiple times daily in early stages. She now works with management for brand partnerships and focuses on authentic product endorsements after initially accepting deals more broadly when starting out. The creator is developing her own clothing brand and credits her athletic background with providing discipline and thick skin needed for public scrutiny in the creator economy.
MrBeast announced he was considering transitioning from pre-recorded YouTube videos to live streaming during a February 19 broadcast with Twitch streamer Marlon Garcia. The YouTube creator, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, cited algorithmic changes on YouTube as motivation for the potential shift.
During the collaboration stream that drew 400,000 viewers, Donaldson proposed live streaming a challenge where 100 people stand in a circle with the last person remaining winning $1 million. He has previously created similar circle-based content, including a video where a contestant lived inside a circle for 100 days to win $500,000, but never live streamed such challenges.
Donaldson has limited live streaming experience, primarily for charitable fundraising efforts like Team Seas. The 27-year-old creator built his audience through pre-recorded challenge videos featuring large cash prizes and elaborate setups.
IShowSpeed, the 21-year-old streamer born Darren Watkins Jr., partnered with PepsiCo Foods for the company's first creator-led product line called Flavor Swap. The campaign features unexpected mashups of chip flavors across different formats, with Speed selecting Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream flavor fused onto Doritos as his personal pick.
The Cincinnati native built his audience starting in 2016 as a preteen uploading gaming videos to YouTube. Speed now commands over 50 million YouTube subscribers with billions of cumulative views across platforms. During his "Speed Does Africa" tour spanning 20 countries, he pulled concurrent livestream audiences reaching 200,000 viewers.
Industry estimates place his net worth in the tens of millions, generated through brand deals, platform monetization, music releases, and global appearances. Speed also entered WWE wrestling, describing it as reliving childhood dreams. The streamer received a Ghanaian passport during his Africa tour, connecting to his mother's heritage.
Industry News
Meta announced it will host Marketing Summit Online 2026 on March 11, a virtual event running from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. CET across three continents. The summit will focus on AI-driven advertising strategies and feature Meta executives alongside brand and agency leaders.
Confirmed speakers include Meta CMO Alex Schultz, VP of Product Marketing Goksu Nebol-Perlman, PepsiCo CMO Cecilia Dias, and creator Paulo Aguiar. Sessions will cover Meta's 2026 marketing product roadmap, performance measurement strategies, business expansion, and creator-brand collaboration.
The event follows Meta's expansion of its AI-powered Creator Marketplace beyond its previous 19-country availability. Meta's internal data showed partnership ads delivered 19% lower cost-per-acquisition and 13% higher click-through rates compared to standard campaigns. Ads featuring creator testimonials drove 7.5% higher offsite conversion rates and 9.6% higher click-through rates versus standard business campaigns, according to the company.
The Australian Influencer Marketing Council (AiMCO) held its 2026 Summit on February 26 in Sydney, drawing over 500 attendees to a 700-seat theater. Patrick Whitnall, AiMCO's Managing Director since 2023, positioned the event to address what he called the industry's "Wild West" reputation and perceptions that creator marketing is "easy."
AiMCO launched in 2019 as a not-for-profit industry body focused on establishing governance standards for influencer marketing in Australia. The organization developed compliance codes, accreditation programs, and best-practice resources while maintaining engagement with regulators.
The Summit featured sessions on AI's impact on content creation, ROI frameworks, platform algorithms, and brand case studies. Speakers included Tourism Australia discussing disability representation through its "Shift 20 Initiative" and former VidCon executive Jim Louderback providing international market perspectives.
Twitch replaced its all-or-nothing suspension system with targeted enforcement that separates streaming and chatting penalties on February 24. The Amazon-owned platform previously blocked all access during any temporary suspension, preventing users from watching streams, chatting, or accessing account information.
Under the new framework, users who violate community guidelines while streaming receive streaming suspensions that block live broadcasting and disable their channel chat, but retain access to watch other streams and use their dashboard. Users who violate chat guidelines receive chat suspensions but can continue streaming their own content.
Higher severity violations trigger both suspension types simultaneously. The most serious violations continue resulting in indefinite suspensions with full platform removal. Escalating consequences remain for repeat offenders within 90-day to two-year windows.
Manychat, a marketing automation platform, launched the Manychat Community Experts Program in February 2026 to expand conversational marketing education. The program creates a global network of educators, agency owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers who help creators and businesses grow using Manychat's tools.
The initial cohort includes six experts from multiple countries with experience ranging from five to nine years on the platform. These experts include Gustavo Boregio from Uruguay focusing on AI-powered automation, Joren Wouters from Netherlands serving coaching and e-commerce clients, and Natasha Willis from the U.S. specializing in e-learning systems. The remaining three experts cover Instagram lead generation, WhatsApp API, and revenue automation across UK, Spain, Czech Republic, and Brazil.
Program members receive early access to new features, private feedback sessions, official expert badges, public listings, and opportunities for content featuring in Manychat materials and events.
Destream, a creator monetization platform, expanded into the Gulf Cooperation Council market in February 2026. The platform allows creators to generate payment links, accept multi-currency payments, and access payouts through its Mastercard debit card service. Destream supports monetization across Twitch, YouTube, and Instagram, offering services in more than 20 languages.
The GCC's creator ecosystem grew approximately 75% over two years, reaching around 263,000 influencers. The region's influencer marketing market surpassed $315.5 million in 2025, according to analyst estimates.
Tachat Igityan, Destream's CEO and founder, said demand for payment infrastructure rose as more digital entrepreneurs relocated to the region. The platform participated in Dubai's 1 Billion Followers Summit in January to introduce services to local creators. Destream's expansion includes a built-in eSIM feature for traveling creators who need connectivity for content production and audience engagement.
DUPAY, a payment protection platform for creators and small businesses, reported an 81% success rate in recovering unpaid invoices through its subscription-based service. Founded in May 2023 by attorney Grace Tabib, the company charges $19 per month for creators and $99 for agencies, avoiding traditional contingency fees used by collections agencies.
The platform serves creators across 16 countries and combines demand letter advocacy with contract review tools and AI-powered invoice tracking. DUPAY uses a three-letter escalation protocol and provides direct advocacy when clients dispute payments, with some cases taking up to a year to resolve.
The company expanded beyond recovery into prevention, offering contract generators, risk assessment tools, and invoice tracking systems. Approximately 85% of DUPAY's clients are women, and the platform positions itself as advocacy rather than collections services. Tabib plans to integrate DUPAY into creator-focused fintech platforms and accounting services as embedded infrastructure to scale the business while maintaining affordable pricing for individual creators.
Kay Barron, former Fashion Director at NET-A-PORTER, launched VVEND in November 2025, a London-based creative video commerce agency focused on live shopping for luxury brands. Barron spent over a decade at NET-A-PORTER before founding the company after experiencing live commerce success firsthand. In one 15-minute live session at NET-A-PORTER, she generated £1 million in attributed revenue.
VVEND helps fashion and lifestyle brands integrate live shopping and shoppable video into retail strategies, working with technology partner Bambuser for website integration. The agency provides strategy development, production oversight, and internal team training before stepping back from long-term partnerships.
Barron positions live commerce as addressing luxury retail's key challenges: high return rates that can reach 80% for dresses, declining foot traffic, and fragmented customer attention. VVEND emphasizes training in-house brand talent rather than external creators, believing store associates and stylists possess deeper product knowledge than influencers.
Substack hired digital media veteran Mark Swierszcz as its first dedicated Head of Partnerships for Canada, marking the subscription publishing platform's expansion into what has become its third-largest market globally. Swierszcz, based in Toronto, brings experience from MTV, MuchMusic, YouTube's Creator Strategy team, and Google Canada.
Canada now represents more than half a million paid subscriptions across thousands of publications on Substack's platform. The company, founded in 2017 by Chris Best, Jairaj Sethi, and Hamish McKenzie, provides tools for writers and creators to publish newsletters and podcasts while monetizing through direct paid subscriptions.
Swierszcz's role focuses on growing creator, brand, and ecosystem partnerships while helping Canadian writers and journalists build subscription-based businesses. Substack takes a percentage of subscription income, only earning revenue when creators do. The hire reflects Substack's broader international expansion strategy, with additional partnership leads planned across other regions to strengthen subscription-led media globally.
eBay acquired Depop, a London-based secondhand fashion marketplace, from Etsy for approximately $1.2 billion in cash. The transaction represents a $400 million loss for Etsy, which purchased Depop for $1.6 billion in 2021. Both companies' boards unanimously approved the deal, expected to close in Q2 2026 pending regulatory approval.
Depop recorded annual gross merchandise sales of approximately $1 billion in 2025 with nearly 60% year-over-year growth in the U.S. The platform had 7 million active buyers as of December 31, 2025, with nearly 90% under 34 years old, plus more than 3 million active sellers.
Fashion represents more than $10 billion in annual gross merchandise volume for eBay, with U.S. fashion GMV growing 10% year-over-year in 2025. eBay plans to extend services including financial services, shipping solutions, and its "Authenticity Guarantee" program to Depop users while maintaining the platform's independent brand and culture.
Oxford Road released a report revealing that podcast advertisers are withholding $1 billion in potential spending due to measurement limitations. The audio advertising agency surveyed brand decision makers from six of the top 10 podcast advertisers in the U.S., representing roughly 15% of total U.S. podcast ad spend.
Fifty percent of respondents cited limited performance data as the main constraint on podcast spending. Seventy-six percent said they would increase podcast investment if attribution for YouTube podcasts matched that available for audio. Nearly a quarter of advertisers indicated willingness to grow their spend by 50% or more with improved attribution.
Oxford Road merged with Veritone One in 2024 and processes more podcast advertising performance data than any other firm. The report found brands remain skeptical of AI host reads and are increasingly concerned about rising ad clutter. Video podcasts now represent more than half of shows posting full versions on YouTube. The podcast market is projected to reach $17.59 billion by 2030, with 584 million people listening to podcasts in 2025.
UNESCO released its fourth edition of "Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity" report covering 2021-2024, revealing digital services now represent 35 percent of creators' global income, up from 17 percent in 2018. The study tracked cultural policies across 130 countries and found global cultural goods trade reached $254.28 billion in 2023.
Artificial intelligence poses economic risks to creators, with 79 percent of cultural professionals surveyed describing AI as a threat. CISAC and PMP Strategy projected GenAI could eliminate 24 percent of music creators' revenues by 2028, equivalent to approximately €4 billion annually, while audio-visual creators face projected losses of 21 percent or €4.5 billion.
Despite documented risks, only one of 148 AI-related bills adopted across 128 countries between 2016-2023 addressed culture as its primary subject. The report identified this as a "regulatory vacuum" around generative AI affecting the cultural sector.
Registration Required
Creator marketing evolved from one-off campaigns to retail media infrastructure as companies built long-term partnerships and embedded creator content into their commerce systems. Dick's Sporting Goods shifted to longer storytelling partnerships rather than individual campaigns, according to Nicole Marcus, the company's influencer strategy manager.
Retail media networks integrated creators to access brand budgets after reaching limits with shopper and trade spending. EMARKETER analyst Sarah Marzano said retailers positioned themselves as intermediaries between social platforms and advertisers, using first-party transaction data to measure creator campaign effectiveness.
Best Buy expanded creator content beyond social media, commissioning custom connected TV assets from influencer partners during the 2025 holiday season. The retailer also activated creators around NFL partnerships to capture fan culture beyond traditional broadcast moments. More than 80% of retail purchases still occurred in physical stores, making creator influence measurement crucial for retailers building commerce media systems.
African influencer marketing attracted increased global spending as multinational brands shifted budgets across borders to reach engaged audiences. The trend affected gaming, beauty, travel, and personal finance sectors, where creators produced content for both domestic and international markets.
Social media user data from January 2025 showed Nigeria with 38.7 million users, South Africa with 26.7 million, Kenya with 15.1 million, and Ghana with 7.95 million users. These audience sizes justified cross-border marketing investments from global brands.
The gaming sector demonstrated the model, with studios and digital casino platforms partnering with African creators to explain game mechanics and build community engagement. Australian gaming operator Joe Fortune featured African-themed slot games while working with regional influencers for multicultural narratives.
Global social media advertising spend reached $247.3 billion in 2024, with projections of $266.92 billion for 2025. Additionally, 63.8 percent of brands planned influencer partnerships in 2025. Africa's mobile sector contributed $220 billion to the continent's GDP in 2024, supporting the digital advertising infrastructure that enables creator economy growth.
Publicis Groupe has appointed Rahul Titus as its global influencer lead, tasking him with unifying the holding company's influencer agencies into a single, consistent offering for clients worldwide. Titus spent roughly 12 years at WPP, where he built Ogilvy's influence practice into a 650-person operation spanning more than 30 markets and also served as global influence lead for WPP's Open X.
He departed Ogilvy in October 2025. The hire signals Publicis is treating influencer marketing as a core capability rather than a siloed service, consolidating fragmented offerings under one strategic leader. The move comes as holding companies compete to scale creator-driven advertising, with brands increasingly shifting budgets toward influencer-originated content and whitelisted paid media.