How the creator economy is professionalising, with Feryal Clark MP and creator Jade Beason

0:00Thank you.

0:29Feryal Clark: spent. Discover how you can invest with confidence, not guesswork, with Link AI by Kantar. Visit try.kantar.com slash campaigns slash marketing dash week.

0:48Feryal Clark: Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Marketing Week podcast. I'm Charlotte Rogers, Deputy Editor and Intelligence Editor and today I'm joined by my colleague, Senior reporter Amrit Verdi to discuss the evolution and professionalisation of influencer marketing. Amrit has interviewed two key players in the UK influencer industry and will be sharing those conversations in a second. But first, I just want to set the scene in terms of the scale of the opportunity represented by the creator economy. According to IAB data, UK creator revenue is set to exceed£1 billion for the first time in 2026, rising 26 % to£1.2 billion.

1:22Feryal Clark: At the same time, the industry is professionalising at a rapid rate. In May, IAB UK launched the UK's first industry-backed curator qualification. Two months later, ISBA and the Influencer Marketing Trade Body announced a formal partnership to combine their focus on the creator economy. This built on the IMTB working to introduce the Digital Creators All-Party Parliamentary Group, the APPG, last year. Then in September, ISBA unveiled the first creator economy framework to help marketers scale that influence our activity. Amit, there's been so many recent developments in the creator space, it's almost hard to keep up.

1:55Feryal Clark: Do you think the industry is starting to treat creators as a serious commercial force? Yeah, sort of, as you say there, there's been so many developments and I feel like the£1 billion figure is also such a key milestone in the industry and it's something we reported on when it came around a few months ago and it seems like, particularly this summer, there's been such a step forward within the creator economy and I guess creators being seen as you say as a commercial force and there's been so many developments as you stated and I feel like it really shows the signs are there for the UK to sort of be on the same wavelength as other places in Europe and the US where they already have things like creator qualifications and courses So it's interesting to see how that will run in the UK and how creators and brands here are sort of receptive to it.

2:48Feryal Clark: Because, yeah, there's been a lot of developments this summer. And I feel like it's a really interesting point to be keeping an eye on the industry and see what all of these developments sort of mean for the brands and creators. Absolutely. I mean, speaking of, so you spoke to Jade Beeson, who is a marketer, entrepreneur, digital creator. she's a member of the Creative Industries Council. Jade is a founding member as well of UK Creative Voices, an independent alliance launched in September 2026 with backing from YouTube to champion digital first talent. I'd love to find out what Jade had to say about the professionalisation of influencer marketing.

3:21Feryal Clark: Yeah we had such a wide-ranging conversation, I feel like it was particularly interesting given her perspective as a creator, a marketer and a founder of a social agency it seems like she could really speak from all aspects of where brands and creators would sort of come into the industry and she's seen brands work on both creator side and general social side and how they've sort of fitted influencer into their strategies it was particularly interesting to see why she's deciding to champion the industry through creator voices and through other sort of alliances as you mentioned that really bring creators together to I guess talk about the things which might have gone under the radar a little bit and yeah it's really interesting to see what she thinks needs to happen in the industry for future progress as well and she also touched on I guess what we've covered in marketing week previously through our columnist Simon Harwood creators sort of leaning more into equity deals and what that could mean for brands and creators going forward so yeah really interesting and really exciting for our audience to be able to listen to the interview with her.

4:38Feryal Clark: Hi Jade I'm thrilled to be speaking to you today about the continued professionalisation of influencer marketing and your views of how the industry has progressed it seems to have been quite a busy year specifically for the industry and I'm sure from your perspective as both a social agency founder and a content creator it would be a really interesting discussion to dive into what you've seen and what your key views are on how the industry has professionalized so thank you for joining us today thank you so much for having me

5:07Jade Beason: and you're so right so much has happened but at the end of every year for the past five years i've reflected and thought oh my god what a big year for the industry so much is check and then the same thing happens the next year it's just moving so quickly which is very exciting yeah I

5:23Feryal Clark: can imagine from your perspective as well as a creator it's so exciting to be right at the heart of it and seeing all these evolutions happen when you've sort of been in the industry content creating for as long as you have so yeah I guess I was sort of wondering as a creator and a marketer from your time in ad agencies as you said before I sort of wondered I guess how do you feel like within the past year the influence marketing industry has professionalized there seems to have been so many advancements I guess one for example being the IAB UK creator qualification and then a lot of stats coming out about how much money influence marketing is contributing to the economy it seems to be yeah such a wild time for the industry yeah gosh I mean there's so many

6:06Jade Beason: different ways I can take that question because on the one hand part of the reason why it's professionalise is because we are being more widely recognised as like a credible marketing channel right so when I first started influencer marketing was kind of seen as this thing that you did at the end of the campaign if you had budget left over or at the end of the year which is why it's still very busy at the end of every single year because it's like this end of year dash we need to spend some budget let's give it to some influencers whereas now it feels like more and more it's seen as a core channel and it's actually something that's taken into account way back in the ideation and initial kind of planning phase and because of that the briefs the deals the nature of the partnerships that influencers are getting they're becoming more and more sophisticated that's pushing agencies and management to become more sophisticated but also influencers to become more sophisticated you know these creators are working on these huge deals maybe they're creating their own projects their own services their own products and with that comes a huge growth in our own knowledge so influencers are hiring teams they're becoming media companies in their own right and that really forces a lot of professionalization across the board so I think that's all kind of feeding each other and that's what's getting us to a position where the industry itself is matured I like to say you know a few years ago it was kind of in its infancy I feel like we're now maybe in phase two where it's becoming more recognized but by no means are we the whole way there yeah a huge part of this process and this transformation is also us being recognised and supported by the government and that's definitely improving bit by bit but more definitely needs to be done so we're on a really good path and I think those are kind of the main I guess factors that have really triggered a lot of professionalisation in the last few years.

7:48Feryal Clark: Following on from that thinking about the last year or couple of years what do you feel like have been the I guess standout advancements benefiting both brands and creators within influencer marketing have there been any moments where you sort of feel like you you have felt like from your perspective it's been quite a big step forward yeah it's hard to answer that with like

8:09Jade Beason: definitive moments that I think have impacted all creators because the thing is about creators and influencers is that we're all from different niches so therefore we're all operating with different brands and different kind of product categories etc so there'll be some moments that were big for others and not big for the rest of them um I think for me a big moment was YouTube's creator consultation last year so that was the big research piece they did where they interviewed I think it was 10 ,000 creators that to me felt like a big moment because it was a bit of a trigger point um after that was when the um APPG started to be formed to literally just represent creators shortly after that I was invited to join the creative industries council which sits under the department for culture media and sport and it's a bunch of people who represent the different creative industries.

8:55Jade Beason: I'm the only creator. I think I'm the first creator. So I feel like a lot of things triggered off the back of that, but there'll be a lot of creators who didn't necessarily see or hear that. I think there are other things that could have impacted other creators, such as creators being recognised for awards, you know, especially in the US, you know, you have creator led shows being nominated for Emmys. That is a huge moment for us, which really shows our worth. So it kind of depends on the industry, but those are some of the standout moments that I've definitely noticed.

9:25Feryal Clark: And you mentioned the creator consultation there and I sort of wondered were there any I guess surprising findings from that consultation for you I guess where you sort of realised the experience of other creators in other sectors it seems like as you say different creators in different sectors have so many I guess differing experiences.

9:43Jade Beason: I think first of all it's always somewhat comforting to read that other people are experiencing some of the things to you so that you start to realise this isn't a you problem this is a greater problem and it's a lot easier to solve it when you know you're not alone in it. I think the figures that surprised me the most was when that came out last year. It was the fact that creators contributed£2 billion to the UK economy and now that figure has risen to£2.8 billion, which is a huge number. Now I knew that we were contributing a lot to the economy, but I think having a tangible number like that really helped me, not just in the work that I do on a day-to-day basis, but also in just speaking to people and really really landing the significance of this economy and how much money and income is being generated but also how much of that is coming from overseas a lot of my audience are us-based for example a lot of the brands I work with are us-based and that's money that me a UK company is earning and then spending on employing people in this country like this is money that I'm then reinvesting into our economy it truly is like one of I think the most exciting sectors in the creative space right now, both financially and for so many other reasons.

10:50Jade Beason: So having that number, sometimes you just need something tangible. And I can't tell you how many times I've used that in a conversation and the response has been, oh, because people are like, oh my God, I had no, I thought it was just this little thing that influencers were doing and people had no idea how much it was actually helping our economy.

11:07Feryal Clark: And I know that in September, 2026, Creator Voices also launched as well so I was sort of wondering if you could explain what that is and what you hope to achieve through I guess the creation of Creative Voices.

11:22Jade Beason: Yeah so that's really exciting it's basically a collection of key creators in the UK who have a bit of a history of either representing other creators or speaking about issues that heavily impact creators in the UK so there's a handful of us um who have got on together and basically formed almost like a bit of an alliance I'd like to compare it to like a superhero movie we've formed some form of alliance to try and represent creative interests across the UK so we realized that whilst we're seeing so much progression through the APPG through the Creative Industries Council there really is some real momentum we do think we can fast track that if we kind of join forces and try to represent all the different sectors and creators who we are representing rather than kind of going off and doing it separately and that is being bolstered and supported by YouTube through their resources through their access through various other things that they can kind of give us so we are very much in the infancy of creator voices and it's one of those watch this space situations but yeah we're basically going to be spending our time representing creators across the UK and just making sure we have the support the infrastructure and everything we need to really thrive so it's really exciting

12:31Feryal Clark: and you sort of mentioned it there but I was wondering what you think the importance is of creators I guess banding together I know you also mentioned you're a member of the creative industry council do you just feel like it's always better when there's creators such as yourself who have such influenceable platforms to just band together and make the most of them yeah I do think so do

12:52Jade Beason: you know why and this this is the same reason why it's so important to have teams in companies it's not just you because we represent different experiences and as much as I spend day in day out speaking to hundreds of thousands of creators through my social media content I read all my comments like I feel like I've got a pretty good understanding of my audience and how they're feeling and what they need someone else in creator voices has a slightly different audience who might have slightly different needs and slightly different wants and it's really important that we don't end up representing just one segment of the creator economy here we need to represent all of us in order for us to really see some growth right so that is in my opinion one of the most important reasons but also you do have the fact that when it comes to creators or influencers whenever they band together more happens off the back of it creators have so many different

13:40Feryal Clark: experiences like when i've spoken to um influencers financial services industry creators it's yeah always interesting to hear how they're working i guess within set regulations from the financial conduct authority and how that might differ to someone within the legal sector who's dealing with them regulations so there's always a different individual experience for creators it seems like and I guess through your social media agency are you seeing evolutions in the way brands are approaching influencer marketing or I guess social media marketing more generally I guess thinking

14:13Jade Beason: about the brand side yes for sure I think one way is related to the point that I mentioned previously see and that it's no longer an afterthought it's now like a core part of the strategy another way is that some brands in my opinion some of the most successful brands are working with influencers earlier on in the journey so they're actually bringing them in from the ideation versus the brand or the agency coming up with the idea and then saying hey let's get a bunch of creators to do this one thing instead it's like if we're going to work with creators or influencers let's bring them in and see if we can figure out the best way for them to communicate the message in their tone a voice.

14:45Jade Beason: In addition to that, some brands are looking to work with creators in different ways. I have noticed, and this is a real trend that I'm seeing for like 2027 and beyond, is that the top end creators, so not just like your macro or your mega influencers and creators, I'm also talking about people who are just at the top end of their space and their niche, not always necessarily big, but those most credible creators, they are starting to diversify their income in ways that we could never have imagined back in the day, through their own product services through equity deals through so many different avenues and what that means is that they're becoming slightly less reliant on brand partnerships which means that they're still working with brands but they're being highly selective they only want to work with one brand per vertical so they just have this long-term relationship with them they want to be getting these three-year more brand ambassador style deals rather than these one-off partnerships they want it to be multi-channel so not just one channel but they also want it to be because there are other channels different formats they want to be in real life they want to do events I have partnership with brands right now where a big part of my deliverables is actually in person which I absolutely love that is massively changing you know a few years ago it would literally be like I would like one reel and then you'd be like okay and here you go and that was it now it's like I'd like one reel I'd like a long-form YouTube video I want you to appear our event oh and that reel that we that you're creating for us we want to write it as our own ad we also want it to be a paid partnership ad can you send us the raw footage because we're going to use it in something else the deals are just becoming so much more complex but also exciting and valuable for everyone involved so it's a really exciting time to be both a brand who works with an influencer but also the agency and the influence themselves there's just so much

16:24Feryal Clark: going on yeah definitely and as you sort of mentioned there I guess brands wanting to use more and more content from influencers within their deals do you feel like that's also because I guess audiences might be able to see through if someone posts like a one-off post about a brand and has never ever mentioned them before and never mentions them again.

16:43Jade Beason: Yeah, it's interesting because there's definitely a place for the one-off deals, 100%. And from a brand's perspective, especially a smaller brand, they've got to test creators somehow. And I would never recommend, you know, find some creators, go all in, get them on an annual deal. I would recommend find some creators who you think would work, do a partnership with all of them and then look at the numbers. Specifically looking at the numbers based on what you're actually trying to achieve, not just looking at them and thinking, well, that person got more reach, but actually looking at it and being like, okay we're trying to get website visits so actually who drove the most traffic or we were trying to get positive sentiments of what actually was the quality of the comments and then once you've done that then I think is immediately when you want to start getting at least three month deals so I don't think you should be running the one-offs for very long you want to move over to the three month deals as soon as possible and then once those work you get the annual deals I have several brand partners who I have annual deals with now and I absolutely love it because there's a saying I don't know who ever said this but it's this idea that like a one-off sponsorship is just an ad placement but multiple is an endorsement right that's when it lands a lot better with your audience that's also when you can get a lot more creative with the way that the creator is talking about it it's also when from speaking from personal experience the brands I've worked with for multiple years I know their messaging like the back of my hand it becomes a lot easier for me to promote them in a way that's my own tone of voice but aligns with their messaging when I know it off by heart that first one is usually when you get the static ad reads because people are a bit unfamiliar with how to use it they don't quite know how to put it on their own tone of voice yet it is like working with them for a while that really unlocks that so yeah there's still a place for the one-offs um but I'm a big fan of the long-term partnerships for sure that It should always be the aim.

18:31Feryal Clark: Do you feel like you are seeing, I guess, more influencers lean into, I guess, creating their own brands, their own products? I know we see a lot of like the bigger, bigger stars, whether it's like KSI with Prime or sort of Alex with Real Actives. Are you seeing that that's also happening with creators perhaps at like a smaller level as well, making things that are really, I guess, being seen by their loyal audiences?

18:55Jade Beason: Yes, I am. Another trend that I think will continue next year. I am I think we're going to see more of it it's always a different conversation when you are looking at your medium-sized creators because when you're looking at the upper echelon everyone has a guaranteed in quotation marks audience but obviously when you're looking at people who have millions and millions of people in their audience it's a different conversation even when it comes to who they're partnering with to create the products and like what those deals look like they're different deals they're different conversations when you're mid-tier it's more about okay have you saved enough because you are actually going to need to fund a good amount of it if you want to retain a good amount of the business and then can you find a suitable partner now the reason why I think we're going to see more of this for your medium-sized tier influencers and creators is because I'm seeing more and more kind of venture firms or just different companies that are being set up specifically to invest in creative businesses and when that happens it's all about demand isn't it when that happens there's going to be more opportunity for creators who are slightly smaller to find a good partner to produce something whereas previously it was like the KSI's of the world partnering with huge firms who previously had never invested in a creator and actually producing a great case study for these other firms who are now going to explore doing it with creators who are a lot smaller so they have really set the path for a lot of the smaller creators to follow which is really exciting.

20:15Feryal Clark: Of course and that'll be something that's really interesting to follow in 2027 where I'm sure it will continue to grow as you say and I sort of wondered as social media in itself is evolving with I guess AI algorithm changes it seems like a tricky landscape to navigate do you feel like it's meaning that influencers and creators and brands investing in them need to have I guess a different approach to social platforms and think I guess more about a mix of long form short form or I guess sort of counteracting AI and being flagged as AI do you feel like it's just a trickier landscape to navigate now as a creator?

20:51Jade Beason: I'm not sure if I think it's trickier I just think it has been tricky for a while I think the days of you know if you post a lot you'll get somewhere that's like over and it has been over for a while but I do think the industry has been evolving quite rapidly for the last three-ish years and even pre the AI boom it was like the features because if you remember every social platform used to be very distinctive to each other and now most of them have the same features as each other like that didn't just happen overnight that was a result of a lot of new features being rolled out and then taken away and then tested and then not and we're now in a place where whilst the platforms feel a lot more stable it's now kind of ai that's rocking the boat for us quite a lot so i think it's always it's been tricky for a while and now more than ever it's become super important for people to stay on top of what's happening and making sure they're aware of all the new features and what's changing and i think you make an interesting point about the AI piece and I think the the change there that I'm seeing or at least that I am pushing is just the importance of having content that's as human as possible and some people take that almost in the wrong way and they start leaving in kind of errors in their content to kind of falsify this this feeling of of humanness when in reality we're all human so if we lean into that it actually it's quite an easy problem for us to solve um even you know my content that I create is educational you could argue you could google a lot of the things I'm answering and they could give you the answer so the thing that differentiates me is that I'll give you the answer but I'll also wrap it up in a real life story and I'll test it for you and I'll show you the results and I'll give you a tangent and I'll present it in a way that feels like it's your friend talking to you and it will feel very human because it is just me speaking as I normally would speak it's not scripted so it's finding out what that is for every creator every brand and leaning into it And honestly, that results in a lot more raw and authentic content, which is, yeah, pretty good for everyone.

22:48Feryal Clark: Of course. And it's always great to see, I guess, as you mentioned, the human element behind content as well, because I feel like people always say sometimes you can scroll through LinkedIn or whatever platform and you can sort of you sort of have an AI sort of vision on being like, is this something that's written with chat GPT or something?

23:06Jade Beason: Yeah. Do you know what's so funny about that? I was having this conversation with a colleague like literally last week and this might just be me but the more I use AI the easier it is for me to see AI driven content it's having you know when it was first when people first started using AI because I do use it for my workflows but I never use it to create the output that's like my rule but when AI first became widely used it was in my opinion most scary because I was looking at what it was creating and I'd never seen some a quality of work like that being produced so quickly and that's what was scary but then when you dig into it and you actually look at what's being produced in comparison to what you would produce I realized at the moment I'm not seeing much competition because to me it's glaringly obvious the differences between the two and I think that naturally happens the more we use it the more everyone uses it the easier people should find seeing the difference and I'm not necessarily talking about visual AI content because I know that's moving on in neaps and pounds but I'm talking about written content and scripted content I can hear an AI script straight away yeah no that will be another

24:12Feryal Clark: interesting development to I guess follow into next year and see how how AI progresses and how I guess brands and creators are learning from that and either leaning in or sort of refining content to not not fall into that and I guess another point I wanted to sort of discuss was do you think nowadays brands are doing more to I guess ensure the fair treatment of creators we've spoken before on marketing week about I guess creators who are experiencing late payments or suffering burnout do you feel like brands are I guess becoming more aware of that as influence marketing becomes an increasingly increasingly used channel by them I think the brands that have been using

24:54Jade Beason: influence marketing for a while and they're now in their mature phase completely are I think they're the ones who are like okay let's not do 90 day payment terms let's not brief an influencer on a friday and asks them for the first draft from the monday that is what they're doing because they're they're in the mature phase however with the growth of the market what that also means is that there is a lot of brands who are entering the influencer space who are using influencers for the first time and they are very much starting from where when i started 10 years ago so they are very much still with the long payment terms the late payment expecting influencers and creators to work weekends that is still unfortunately very much happening and i i think we're a few phases is off because we're still overall the industry isn't in the mature phase yet I think we're still a few a few years away at least before every brand realizes that they can't do that um and I'm speaking from personal experience I've had instances with both of those examples literally multiple times in the last month personally so yeah still very much happening yeah and that's

25:56Feryal Clark: such a shame as well given that as you say sort of influencer marketing has come on so much in the past 10 years say but it's yeah it's a shame that that's still a prevalent issue even even by I guess some bigger brands too and I guess with everything in mind that we sort of discussed what where do you think brands need to be thinking about I guess investing within influencer marketing how do you think brands can sort of take their influencer marketing to the next level to I guess make the content the best it can be but also ensure fair treatment of the creators that they're working

26:28Jade Beason: with yeah so i think there's kind of two parts to that i think in terms of ensuring the content is the best that it could be something that i really urge brands to do is to think really critically about what it is you're trying to achieve with these creators and influencers that you're working with making sure you're measuring them against that goal or that kpi because this is a really common mistake i see is that you know what you want from the creator but you're measuring them based on reach it's like the flat metric that everyone sees when it comes to working with influencers and they tend to ignore everything else even if the objective wasn't reach the other thing that i really recommend and this is what the most advanced brands are doing is they're working out how to work with creators at different stages of the funnel we all know that if you were if you're creating a other marketing campaign you'd be looking at all the different channels and you'd be like okay well we're going to do that out of home um run because that's really great for awareness like you know that right whereas that tends to be flattened when you're working with influencers or if you do identify what stage of the funnel you're working with them at you seem to think you could only work with them at that stage and that's not true so I've worked with brands before where we've had a strategy where I've produced a certain type of content for top of the funnel so it's more my long form videos in a really trending topic and it's a small integration and then we've created dedicated videos for middle of the funnel or I've done sponsored lives and then on the bottom we've created a separate asset to run as a paid ad with pure conversion hard sell messaging and what another brand would do is just kind of skip to the bottom and be like can you do a full video where you're sending our products or service and that's not going to perform the way you want it to so really think about creative ways that you can use creators at different stages of funnel and really use those paid ads i'm seeing more and more brands do it which is great organic reach is amazing don't get me wrong but make no mistake the sometimes the biggest value you're getting from partnering with the influencer is the assigned credibility you get so run a paid ad behind it boost that content because it's going to ensure that more people see that that influencer is basically supporting you endorsing you and that's actually where a lot of the value gets beyond that influencer's pure organic reach but of course guys you've got to pay for it that's another big thing and i think that comes into the second part which you mentioned like okay well how are they how can we treat them better treat them like you would an agency if you were signing a contract with an agency you wouldn't try and sneak any little cheeky clauses or terms in like treat them like you would an agency and respect them in that way

28:55Feryal Clark: and I'm sure there'll be no problems yeah as you say it seems like a lot of brands sort of need to take that advice on board and would be really useful if they do and I guess my final question would be we've spoken about obviously the professionalization and advancements in the industry that have happened in the past year couple of years but where do you hope to see I guess professionalization happening in the future going forward now that we know the industry has surpassed being worth a billion pounds and yeah how much more do you feel like influencer marketing as an industry can be recognised?

29:26Jade Beason: I definitely think there's more we can do there's more places we can go I think generally recognising influencers and creators as business owners which is what they are that's probably the first step it's slowly happening but when that happens across the board it actually unlocks a lot more support whether it be kind of access to different grants or financial support just generally the support that a small business owner would normally get that is really important that creators get that too i think the other part of it which is a lot harder to measure is um people just actually respecting the craft of influence or content creator marketing i bet you money i've said that and someone listening has rolled their eyes but that's the problem like that's the problem is that we still hear this and think of it as this small hobby thing that people do that doesn't actually contribute towards our industry and we have to change that perception if we want to get anywhere when it comes to like really fulfilling the industry's potential 2.8 billion is a huge amount it could be way bigger like look at the US they're quite far ahead of us when it comes to this it could be so much bigger and that provides so many more opportunities for everyone involved not just the influencers or the creators so I really feel like those are the two things that I want to see the most when it comes to the professionalization of the space because I really do think once that happens everything else just

30:41Feryal Clark: naturally falls in line of course and it would be really interesting to see how things progress next year and the years following that because it just seemed like as you say it's all in its beginning stages of everything sort of being recognised in the way it should be so yeah really interesting discussion that we've had about the industry and thank you so much for taking the time today. Thank you so much for having me.

31:06Feryal Clark: Loved hearing from Jade and actually I was thinking about how the professionalisation of creative marketing is being reflected in recruitment so brand side LinkedIn data shows that from 2019 to 2025 the total number of roles focusing on creator and influencer marketing globally across all levels increased by 208 the number of roles with head of or like director of creator or influencer marketing and have increased by 168 specifically within the uk the total number of roles across all levels focused on creator and influencer marketing have ramped up by 66 and you've written about the emergence of new roles like influencer lead is it just another sign of how marketing departments are evolving to prioritize creator marketing yeah I definitely think so especially with the stats that you highlighted just there from the LinkedIn data it's yeah really interesting to see how it's being reflected within recruitment and another way like another sort of data point to show the way that brands are prioritizing influencer as a proper function within a business and yeah it was interesting whenever I speak to influencer marketers or social media marketers who sort of say that within a lot of brands now it's going away from having I guess one head of social who runs every single aspect of social and more into for example influencer specific leads I guess particularly as brands are seeing the positive effects that influencer marketing can have I feel like it really reflects like a prioritization of resource and investment and yeah if they're seeing the influencers really working for them as a function they're really putting the money into invest in it and we've spoken to b2b and b2c brands about this which is really interesting and yeah an example of some have been wise and cloud nine and naomi horan at cloud nine also said that she thinks influencer could be the biggest departments in some brands in the future which i feel like is just really shows the importance of influencers a function within specific businesses which it works for and yeah a really interesting sort of trend that I'm sure we'll continue to look at too.

33:09Feryal Clark: That is fascinating and actually kind of switching a bit but looking at our own data it shows a real desire to work with influencers so more than half of respondents to Marketing Week 2026 Language of Effect in the survey claim creators are an effective brand building channel and a fifth of respondents to our State of Branding B2B survey say they are considering working with creators. Those who already are are opting for employee influencers and micro-influencers over like big names or celebrities. Amit, you've written a lot about influencers being seen as a brand building channel. What did you discover speaking to marketers on this topic?

33:41Feryal Clark: Yeah, these were some really interesting conversations that I got the chance to have and across brands within different categories as well. So for example, I spoke to Asahi and I feel like as an regulated, I guess, in a regulated industry as an alcohol brand, it was interesting that they still see influencers as one of the main brand building channels, even though obviously there's all the age restrictions around content on social and everything. And they, yeah, see it as one of the main brand building channels and have taken an approach to have influencer squads of sort of influencers that they know work really well and they can go back to, they said, particularly within, I guess, such a fragmented media landscape, influencers now have a role in every campaign and are sort of an always on approach for them, which is I feel like a really interesting move and back to I guess finance a completely different category pension be said that creators are also a staple of their strategy taking up 50 % of their strategy every single year and always in different ways particularly as they say that people don't really want to follow brands specifically sometimes they'll sometimes follow creators and access brands through them if they really relate to the creator and trust them it's sort of a way for brands to do brand building through creators and yeah get more people to trust their brand via their trust in the creator which I feel like is a really interesting sort of move and yeah I mean more examples are Rightmove who are seeing really good long-term results from influencers and they're surpassing expectations in their MMM and Rightmove are seeing the impact from creators sitting in the same basket as TV and out of home, which I feel like is a really interesting comparison to make.

35:30Feryal Clark: That's what Right Move CMO Matt Bushby said. And yeah, I feel like that's a really powerful sort of message that influencers can work as well as some of the more, I guess, traditional methods that brands might go to for every single campaign. For more specific stats, we also spoke to Radisson Hotel Group who said that they sort of have a nano creator model and a nano creator program and that drives 22.2 times higher conversion than macro influencers and has a 34.1 impression rate so I feel like the stats are just yeah insane and yeah these are all sort of b2c brands that we've spoken to but also on the site there's examples of b2b brands hubspot to name one of them there There's just so many brands and so many different areas that are really seeing the importance creators can bring for brand building.

36:22Feryal Clark: Wow, I mean, it's so many different brands and the effectiveness there that you're talking about is incredible. And on this topic, you spoke to Labour MP Ferial Clark, who is co-chair of the Cross Party Digital Creators All Party Parliamentary Group. What did she tell you about the APPG's work and how she sees the creator economy evolving? yeah it was really interesting to speak to Ferial especially as I guess sort of a different perspective to a brand or a creator see her experiences of influencer marketing from I guess that outside perspective of not being fully within it but seeing it from the government perspective and sort of getting the chance to over the past year that the APPG has been running talk to curators talk to brands and see what she's been learning and yeah it's interesting I feel like one of the most interesting points she made was that since the launch of the APPG at the end of 2025 there's been a lot more internal conversations within government she feels like about how creators can sort of be championed as businesses and there have been developments which are sort for example helping creators within the tax side more so and set themselves up as proper businesses and be able to sort of process finance it's a bit easier in that way and a new inquiry as part of the APPG was also launched in October 2026 this year so it's really interesting to see that that APPG is just going from strength to strength and there's still so much that she wants to achieve with it which she goes into in this interview oh yeah i can't wait to hear it we don't often have an mp on the podcast so exactly yeah

38:09Feryal Clark: hi fairy i'm thrilled to be speaking to you today about the great work you'll be doing in the creator space to ensure the continued professionalization of influencer marketing thank you for joining the podcast thank you for having me amory i'm delighted to be um joining Marketing Week and to talk about the work we've been doing. So really, really grateful to be on the show. Thank you. Yeah, it should be such an interesting conversation and yeah, so much to delve into. And to start off with, I was wondering sort of how and why the process for initially creating the APPG for Digital Creators came about and why did you personally want to get involved in the project and the topic?

38:46Feryal Clark: I was the Minister for AI and Digital government and cyber security and everything else from 2024 when we came into government for about a year and during that time you know we held lots of like roundtables engagement with different sectors as we were developing and policy and legislation and a lot of the legislation that govern a lot of the policy that's been developed has a huge impact on digital creators and I felt that you know their their presence wasn't there around the table when we were discussing these issues anyway and then you know um a year and a bit on when I stopped being the minister I was approached by colleagues who were working with digital creators mainly people from YouTube see if I would be interested in working with digital creators and I thought it was a perfect perfect opportunity because I'd actually seen and experienced the lack of presence and lack of representation of this very sector.

39:49Feryal Clark: A lot of the legislation that we were talking about had a huge impact on digital creators. So we were talking about, you know, creators, we were talking about copyrights, we were talking about digital creation and AI. And the people who use AI to create contact, people who are digital creators were never around the table so I thought it was a you know a great opportunity um to work with the sector to give them a better voice to give them a voice really yeah of course it seems like it's such a growing industry that's growing at such a past face that it's great to sort of I guess have that recognition within government and is that I guess the main I guess like thing you've seen over the past year government is recognizing creators so much more yeah absolutely and they you know we we did our first um reports uh first inquiry uh recently which we developed a report and a set of recommendations um which we which we've passed on to governments and for ministers to to look at and that was around young people's access to educational content to make sure that was protected um so they were that was one of the first areas um we looked that was the first inquiry we we looked into but there have been some wins along the way as well the government recently confirmed that creator-led businesses would formally be recognized within the um sick the si si framework so it helps them when they are uh i guess applying for funding when they are when they for their businesses to be recognized in a way because until recently they didn't have a specific code specific recognition for them that was a really important win for us but there's so much there's still there's so much that is missing and there is and and that's why we while we're doing the um second day that's we've launched the inquiry today to look at you know what digital creator sector needs when they're trying to maybe start a business or they're trying to scale up a business.

42:00Feryal Clark: And it's just trying to identify some of the barriers and the opportunities as well. It has a huge contribution to the wider British economy. So why shouldn't we look at how we support them even more? And why shouldn't we look at what are the issues that they're facing at the moment, as we do with any other sector? You look at any of the other sectors and you'll see the Department for Trade is constantly looking at how we support like skills how we support and with access to finance and so on so there are lots of issues and barriers that we try to lift for all these other sectors and i just think that this massively a really important sector that's growing so fast is not getting the same level of support and so hence we've launched a report to gather the evidence and so we can make a set of recommendations to government who hopefully can consider it whilst they're developing their policies.

42:59Feryal Clark: Of course. And as you sort of say that the industry has grown so much and just from all the figures that come out that it's contributing so much money to the economy like in the billions is crazy. And I guess having them stats to back up the success of the industry, are those sort of stats helping you along the way to I guess government to really listen to the importance of the recommendations you're setting out yeah no no absolutely and we've got you know we've got um stats from like reputable organizations you've done assessments of the the contribution of the digital creators a digital sector a digital creative sector to the economy it is as you said it's in it's in the region of like 2.6 billion pounds so and it's already contributing huge number of jobs you know talking to some of the digital creators amrit you know some of the businesses that have been set up um it was mainly as with our last last inquiry it was educational education long-form content creators and they you know they have um you know lighting experts they have they've hired they've got editors and you know so they they are they are they are employing a huge number of people now as bigger businesses employing people they are creating jobs and supporting the economy so and hopefully once we get government to take the sector a lot more seriously and think about them when they're developing policy that the government itself will start doing its own review research into the contribution the sector is making so we can we can provide you know all of the stats to government but it's really important that they also recognise the significance of the sector.

44:45Feryal Clark: And I guess over the past year or so since the APPG was launched and you've got I guess that face-to-face time with so many different creators I can imagine and learning so much about the industry I guess have there been any like I guess revelations about the industry which you were sort of surprised by I know in our marketing week in the past we sort of just we have covered things such as late payments or burnout mental health within the creator industry are those sort of things which creators are talking to you about as well there are i mean there are lots of lots of really positive things i've uh i've discovered um talking to some of the businesses and there are some we have some fantastic digital creators whether you know from entertainment to educational to you know to um sports and every every sector every area i would say so it's that that's been really really positive and but it was also really it was really sad to to see that you've got some businesses who've done really well who've set up and have grown and are just stuck because they don't have access to the the you know they did they're funding the finance that that they need to just grow that you know to scale up that a little bit more um and then it's also you know as i said some of the some of the creators i've spoken to they hire lots of people but they need to be able to they need like more you know skilled workers and it's just where do they go you know there isn't the whether the uh should i say the access to funding to train their employees so to access skills funding um to access skilled people where do they go but it's just general it's from access and funding being taken seriously by uh by you know our financial sector as well when they go to get loans out it's it's a whole host of things so i would say it's you know it's access to finance it's the inability to inability to tap into skills and and funding to scale up um and it's just yeah and it's just the stuff that is normally available to any other business sector in the uk so as i said you know when we when i was a minister talking about AI and the you know AI regulation I very often got to speak to the businesses from the sector so I could hear their concerns so they could you know they could have influence and you know I had better understanding of their concerns whilst I was developing the policy and that doesn't happen with the you know the digital creators we've got government developing policy that will have a huge impact on this sector but these guys aren't around the table to say how it's going to affect them like for example i was you know we were taking evidence from educational content creators and these are fantastic teachers who've set up amazing you know content long-form educational content online and they have you know and they have hundreds a hundred thousand in some cases millions of followers um and they had you know leading up to gcscs they had like their there's a massive surge in number of young people who are accessing their content so it's incredibly valuable content and for our young people and when when government is um developing for example the uh the next you know the ban on social media and so on I don't think they actually thought about the potential impact on these creators and our young people's ability to access that material.

48:36Feryal Clark: So some of these issues, it's like, you know, how do digital creators get to influence the policy in the regulatory environment? How do we make sure that their needs and their concerns are taken on board when policy is being developed? of course and I guess with all that in mind do you think it's a case of the UK catching up to other countries which might already have like a process like that in place or do you feel like you really want the UK to really lead the way and how a government works with digital creators I think we are like world leaders in terms of the the ecosystem of digital creators I've been so lucky as said over the past year uh to meet like different creators from like do working on complete different things different areas different genres different topics so we have an incredibly incredibly rich uh ecosystem of of businesses and they are reaching audiences beyond the uk you know they're reaching global audiences which is fantastic um so on one hand we're doing really really well but on the other hand I don't think our digital creators are supported um as well as for example baby you know they're the creators in the US who probably have um access to you know much quicker access to cash to to finance when they need it and you know the skills they when they need it so there's a little bit of learning to be done I guess from our friends over in the US I would say.

50:10Feryal Clark: Yeah yeah definitely and I imagine that when you speak to creators they are only just grateful that this APPG exists and they can get that voice around the table. Are you finding when you talk to creators that they're really finding it beneficial to sort of contribute to the APPG and share their voices and yeah what the real experiences of being a creator is like? It is really important for them because you know whilst they are you know they're busy just trying to create content and run their business and and i think they are just just really pleased that there are there are people who are actually thinking about how we remove you know to think about the barriers they're facing and they and you know there are no there's no shortage of those barriers they're raising but so i think it's been really important relationship i would say for me and my other mp colleagues to build with the creators i think we are getting to understand the sector better as well in terms of as said what their needs and how we because they they has as we as we said earlier amrit they are contributing huge amounts to the british economy and it's and and and that lack of recognition and the support isn't isn't isn't great i will say for the you know because with government we've been talking about my government the you know the labour government has been talking about growth and the importance of growth for the economy and the support they are giving to all sorts of sectors to support that growth it's really important for us to then look at this area and this sector who are contributing huge amounts to our economy and to look at how we support their growth as well and that only happens if we can have a better understanding and if they we can pass that understanding to government so that we can remove those barriers and i think you know the digital creators they don't want to be taught they don't want to be thinking about you know like what with the policy i think that we just we just need to understand the sector better so we'll use this process to to highlight and identify the the barriers and the opportunities as said that we want to unlock for the sector so yeah it's been it's been really good short short version of it it's been a really it's been really good meeting them and talking to them and building that relationship i would say i was wondering what the reception you've seen towards the APPG has been in government over the past year and whether other people your colleagues are sort of being receptive to the experience of creators and making that better now and now that you've got the new inquiry launched 21st of October 2026 I guess how do you want to further supercharge the industry and sort of use that to really make the experiences of creators better going forward?

52:57Feryal Clark: It's been great to be honest with you It was really, really great to include loads more colleagues. So when we had the evidence sessions for the APPG, we invited lots of MPs from across the house. So, you know, people, MPs turned up and, you know, heard from the creators themselves. And it really did help shape their understanding of the sector. So that's been really helpful. And the report itself, the recommendations that we produced, that's been really helpful, I would say. for the ministers. It's a fantastic sector. It's such a rich sector. But also, it's a sector that's not going anywhere.

53:39Feryal Clark: It is the future. We consume, whether it's our news, our culture, our hobbies, a lot of that content is digital content we consume. So it is only going to grow. So I'm hoping that the APPG will continue to work with the sector as it grows, as their needs and their issues change, that we will be able to continue to represent them to government. But hopefully by that time, you know, they will have a seat at the table and will be influencing policy in that way. I'm here along with my colleagues to champion the sector to make sure that we continue to highlight the significance of it remove barriers so that the country can continue to benefit for the contribution that they're making not just to the economy but as I said all the other things whether it's education, entertainment and we have an amazing, amazing digital creative sector So let's support them and let's help them grow.

54:48Feryal Clark: Definitely. I'm so excited to see where the APPG continues to go. And yeah, just excited to see creators get the recognition that they deserve in government even more. And yeah, it's been amazing work that you and your colleagues have been doing. What I would say is that, you know, so I've a lot, it's not necessarily all, but quite a lot of the businesses that I've met are young people. and I am incredible it makes me so proud because we talk about young people in quite a lot of negative terms and people aren't seeing these incredibly entrepreneurial smart business men and women who are you know who set up incredibly valuable profitable businesses and I just want parliament and the country to see them and to appreciate them more definitely and I'm sure that that will continue to be the case as the amazing work from the inquiry rolls out and the amazing work from the appg and thank you so much for joining us today to talk through everything thank you for having me emeryt really appreciate it

55:59Feryal Clark: again another fascinating conversation and based on those two chats what are your key takeaways from your conversations with jade and ferrier yeah i feel like overall as we've sort of discussed it's been such a busy year and such a busy sort of few months and a busy summer particularly for the creator economy and a lot of progress has been made with the sort of launch of creator voices formalization of some industry partnerships and the launch of the creator qualification and the sort of figures coming out to show the value of the creator economy but as sort of Jade and Ferrell both say there's still a long way to go to sort of I guess champion creators as businesses so I feel like we're at a really interesting point where there's so much I guess room for growth for influencer marketing and it'll be interesting to see how brands sort of respond to the growth of the industry and creators being championed more as businesses and how that sort of affects their investment and strategies in the space and yeah in a year's time it'll be interesting to see what we're talking about and what's happened um yeah because it seems like a lot has happened this year absolutely i can't wait to be part of that podcast and just for everyone's benefit um amrit has started a whole series um when many phases of influencers explored on the website so please you check it out because there's just so much that's been writing about which is really fascinating thank you so much amory and also thanks to jade and ferriel thank you so much for listening to the latest edition of the marketing podcast and please do subscribe on spotify apple and acast we'll be back soon with our next episode goodbye