Influencer Marketing

Welcome to Ad Age’s influencer marketing newsletter, featuring news gathered by Ad Age reporter Gillian Follett. Every week, we explore how brands are working with influencers and how the creator economy is transforming the advertising landscape. You can sign up here to get updates delivered to your inbox.

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Gen Z took the mic at UTA Next Gen’s ZCon marketing conference 

Many marketing conferences prioritize a lineup of high-ranking brand and agency executives, leading to panels dominated by older marketers. JUV Consulting set out to flip the script last year by orchestrating the first marketing conference with a roster of exclusively Gen Z speakers—and last week, JUV (now UTA Next Gen after being acquired by United Talent Agency earlier this year) held its second annual ZCon event in Brooklyn, New York, uniting more than 500 marketers eager for guidance on connecting with Gen Z consumers.

Nearly 50 Gen Z marketers, influencers and celebrities took the stage during the conference, including actors such as Avantika Vandanapu and David Iacono; Allen Ortega, the global head of social & influence at CeraVe who helped shape the brand’s award-winning “Michael CeraVe” Super Bowl campaign; and a diverse range of content creators, from plus-sized influencer Samyra to creator and political strategist Deja Foxx. 

Each panel focused on values and cultural trends shaping Gen Z’s purchasing habits and brand affinity, from the age cohort’s emphasis on inclusive beauty products and clothing to how Gen Z is revolutionizing the future of work. One discussion centered around how young creator-entrepreneurs such as Nadya Okamoto and Tejas Hullur are embracing LinkedIn to expand their businesses and build connections with brand marketers, with Hullur referring to LinkedIn’s newly added short-form video post format as a “gold mine of opportunity” for creators. 

LinkedIn sponsored the event, along with eos, L’Oréal, Spotify, Microsoft, Invisalign and a slew of other brands and nonprofit organizations looking to make inroads with Gen Z. 

“Gen Z has always come to the table and said, ‘Just because things have been this way doesn’t mean they have to stay this way,’” Ziad Ahmed, head of NextGen at UTA, said during a panel. “ZCon isn’t going to change everything I want it to change, but it might mean that you get to hear from some progressive young people … who give me a reason to believe that better is for sure as hell coming, because it lives in reach of them—it lives in each of us in this room.”

What we’re reading

The rates creators charge brands for sponsored social content still vary widely, as shown by a survey of several micro-influencers with similarly sized online audiences.

MrBeast, Dhar Mann and Matt Rife are the highest-earning creators on Forbes’ third annual “Top Creators” list. 

Amazon and creator company Spotter announced a new collaboration to connect Spotter’s creator partners, including Dude Perfect and Deestroying, to new business opportunities through Amazon, such as deals with Prime Video or Amazon MGM Studios.

A firsthand report from New York’s Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest on Sunday, where Chalamet himself made a surprise appearance. 

In their latest earnings reports, Snapchat and YouTube both pointed to a rising number of paid subscribers as a source of recent revenue growth. 

Brand deal of the week

Alix Earle’s “Alice in Wonderland”-themed Halloween party in Los Angeles last weekend took TikTok by storm, from Earle’s fans applauding her elaborate Cheshire Cat costume to netizens scouring social posts from the event to identify the long list of influencers and celebrities in attendance, including actress and Béis Founder Shay Mitchell and influencer Anastasia Karanikolaou. Several brands sponsored the event, including Poppi, Truly and food delivery company Gopuff, the latter of which collaborated with Earle on a limited-edition chocolate bar with Cheshire Cat packaging.

See more of the latest creator trends here

Number of the week: 65%

Just under two-thirds (65%) of consumers now pay for products or services from creator-founded brands, according to a recent survey of over 4,000 consumers commissioned by influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy. Thirty-five percent of those consumers who buy from creator brands said they do so out of a desire to support small businesses, while 31% pointed to the “superior” quality of a creator’s brand or the brand’s online popularity as their justification for purchasing creator’s products or services. Unsurprisingly, Gen Z consumers are most likely to buy items from a creator brand, with 91% of 16-to-24-year-olds reporting they’ve done so.