The Fifth talks community at cannes

wHAT’S NEXT FOR THE CREATOR ECONOMY?

By Esra Gurkan

Wednesday, 29th of June 2022

Last week, THE FIFTH held a lunch for leaders from across the industry to discuss what’s next for the creator economy.

Our guests joined us waterside in Antibes for an afternoon escape away from the mayhem of La Croisette and the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. 

One hotly debated topic during the lunch is what to call the people, animals and even robots we work with. One thing we all agreed on is that we’re clearly all too hung up on titles. ‘Creator’, ‘Influencer’, ‘Talent’, ‘Social Content Producer’ all have a place and each represent a category within the ecosystem.

Another subject heavily discussed was of course the #Metaverse. No one was in dispute over the fact that creators will be key to building it.

“Cannes confirmed what we have long known” explained THE FIFTH’s CEO Oliver Lewis, continuing, “creators will shape the future of creativity, disrupting traditional advertising as their cultural role strengthens across both real world and virtual”.

Reflecting further on Cannes-conversations Oliver said: “Community is often the word missing from conversations in influencer marketing meetings. Qualitative metrics will begin to overtake followers, impressions and engagement rates as the value of the craft is realised and paid media and brand channel asset generation become the primary vehicle for audience acquisition. In the near future, we will see transactional campaigns replaced with partnerships as creators establish themselves as brands in their own right, boosting creativity.

“The Metaverse is the word on everyone’s lips; it must be built by creators, not techies and big business, or the community will never arrive. The vision for the Metaverse should be one of inclusion, human connectivity and blended reality. Brands will increasingly lean on creators when building their experiences in the Metaverse, creating worlds that represent and reflect their communities.”

We’d like to say a big thank you to Meta’s Becky Owens, Brandtech Group’s Oliver Walls, Influencer Marketing Trade Body lead Scott Guthrie, The Barber Shop’s Dino Myers-Lamptey, New Digital Age’s Justin Pearse, Storyful’s Lisa McDonald and T Brand Studio’s Arif Durrani for your contributions. We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation at MAD//FEST LONDON next week!