Influencer marketing firms get a seat at the table
The Future. The past 18 months have seen a major increase in ad spend on influencer marketing, and brands are increasingly proposing long-term agency-of-record relationships with influencer marketing agencies. The shift suggests that influencer marketing has become essential to brands — and might even overtake traditional marketing.
Chin upAccording to Digiday, the explosive growth of influencer marketing explains brands’ new demand — and respect — for influencer marketing firms.
Last year, brands spent a whopping $16.4 billion on influencer marketing, a big step up from $13.8 billion in 2021.
Until recently, brands would hire general marketing agencies, and those agencies would hire influencer marketing agencies for individual projects. Now, though, brands are offering influencer marketing firms their own long-term contracts on an annual basis.
Why the shift? Brands may be looking to cut costs by paying influencer marketing firms directly rather than through other agencies. More ad spend usually means more scrutiny from a brand’s financial department.
Individual influencers are also seeking — and getting — more of these long-term contracts with brands.
Streak or cycle?Some expect this trend to continue for a long time, with influencer marketing firms gaining more power in the marketing world for as long as ad dollars flock to content platforms. Others see this as merely a stage in a constant cycle of change, citing how brand ambassadors’ long-term relationships gave way to short-term creator/influencer relationships before the current long-term contract era.
Who knows, one day we might see the return of sandwich-board salesmen, but for now, influencer marketers are in a good spot.
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