After months of fanfare has continued to grow for this type of media with each viral execution, right on time, we now have an alternative thread of discourse which stands to shine a negative light on FOOH. Is FOOH misleading audiences? Is it harmful to the OOH industry? Is it quickly getting very old and tired, anyway? The answer to each of those questions requires a nuanced one.

We turned to our Innovation team to help answer each of these questions. On the topic of potential harm to audiences via deception, our Innovation Director, Jordan, says that this is a common concern with the advent of new media formats:

“We have historically always had a tendency to invest blind trust in new centralised sources of truth, especially those driven by new, sophisticated technologies, which get closer and closer to seeming like real-life. You might think that tension contains itself solely to the internet age, but this definitely isn’t the case.

85 years ago, when a relatively new media format in radio reached mass adoption in the US, a radio drama broadcast of The War of the Worlds contained a news bulletin detailing aspects of a Martian invasion. Lo and behold, droves of war-anxious audiences believed it to be true, as they had just newly become heavily reliant on radio for their news. 

Things like this are all par for the course with new media formats, until the right regulation is introduced and the format becomes familiar. But in the instance of FOOH, in my view, there is little to no room for harming audiences through deception, apart from those who are sensitive to feeling a bit foolish for believing!”

In fact, instead of harming audiences, FOOH seems to be getting mass buy-in because of its artificiality, showing that any perceptions of this format getting old or tired are solely contained in our marketing bubble. Taken from a sample of FOOH content during the months April to August 2023 (Tagger), brands that have jumped in have achieved 1,701% – 16,441% more engagement on their FOOH videos than on the average engagement from their previous 30 posts, with the best examples of success coming from fashion and beauty. 

Maybelline’s Sky High mascara example is perhaps the most viral, depicting the attachment of giant eyelashes to the top of a tube train, which are brushed by a giant Maybelline mascara as it drives by. This video alone achieved 451% more engagement than their previous 30 posts combined, with droves of positive sentiment centered around the fact they actually loved the deceptive nature of the ad.

Despite the fact marketers continually evangelise for authenticity at any cost, Jonnie, our Music Partnerships manager, believes that audiences are more than willing to suspend their desire for authenticity in order to be entertained on social media

“First of all, it’s important to point out that entertainment and authenticity are never mutually exclusive. Live music, family vlogs, and documentaries can be just as entertaining as a fictional Netflix series.

But content that is absent of authenticity allows our imaginations as marketers to run wild and ensure that there is diversity and innovation in the media we are consuming. Consumers do not want the same old, same old every time they open the app, and I would stress that we as an industry do not want this either!

Ultimately, we are in a dogfight for attention everyday, and for that reason, there has never been a greater need to be inventive. My view is that invention exists more in a frame of mind that pushes authenticity further down the menu and prioritises entertainment, like FOOH does. And why shouldn’t we use a medium that helps us achieve incredible organic results at a time when we’re all being asked for our budgets to work harder?!”

Temu is not alone with this ‘stay busy’ ethos. Whether it’s Ali Baba, Ali Express, JD.com, VIP.com, or SHEIN, Chinese e-commerce apps are consistently achieving success in the West, in spite of the formulaically eyesore app experience they strive for. It seems like the sole aim with each of these apps is to cram as much content into a single scroll as possible.

And culturally, there are a whole raft of reasons that explain why that might be precisely the case. Logographic languages like Chinese are visually more dense than English, with no spaces between words, and higher character complexity. This allows readers of Chinese to process more information, in more compact spaces, in a shorter period of time. Ultimately, it’s more efficient to cramp content.

The complexity of single Chinese characters also means that designers find no use for Westernised typographic rules. Large, practical and uniformed styles are favoured to make text as legible as possible, leading to the overwhelming of a Western eye that is used to clearly stylised headings, sub-headings and body copy.

The proliferation of mobile web in China predated smart phones, meaning flip phones were used to browse the web, with less processing power and less digital real estate to display content. Websites were resultantly designed with as much content in one page as possible to limit loading, a principle which still exists today.

And surely one look at Hong Kong, one of the world’s major cities of commerce, has some pointed influence. Rambunctious streetscapes of neon ads, busy crowds and sweeping traffic, vibrant streets of markets, bustling beneath towering modern skyscrapers. Commerce in Hong Kong is visual stimulation 101, and it’s also a real life manifestation of what the shopping experience is like on Chinese apps.

So, being busy makes good sense for Chinese customers, but why do these design principles make their way to the West?

Ultimately, this design works in line with the business objectives of Chinese e-commerce apps in the West, in spite of how this might affect its appearance. An app’s design and interface sits very closely with the brand, and Temu for instance, is inherently anti-brand. It’s a marketplace for white label, non-branded products to thrive. Goods are sold directly to customers from factories in China for the cheapest possible price. 

Being a loss-making enterprise in tech is no new and novel practice exclusive to Chinese e-commerce apps, but what happens when these apps feel they have achieved the minimum viable DAUs to change gears and start striving for profitability?

Heavily subsidising sellers and consumers can’t continue if Temu wants to be profitable, and as soon as the huge discounts are not found on Temu, purchases on those nice-to-have products will dry up. Pumping a bottomless pit of cash into sales-focused paid ads is not sustainable, as customers need something more when price isn’t the only driving factor.

That something more is called brand and customer experience, both of which are currencies that Temu do not value. Temu has already been subject to more than 30 complaints to the Better Business Bureau with a score of less than 1.5 stars, with concerns lodged about losing packages, sending incorrect orders and product quality issues.

By acting as a middle man between Chinese factories and Western customers, and having a proposition centred on sending non-branded products for as low cost as possible, it feels like this will be par for the course for Temu or any other e-commerce app that follows the same operational template.

While TikTok denies what is claimed in the report, evidence has been mounting over the past three years that TikTok, piloted by the Eastern e-commerce powerhouse Bytedance, is coming for Amazon’s lunch. After forming a partnership with Shopify and WooCommerce; introducing affiliates; conducting a sustained period of experimentation with Live Commerce; launching shopping ads, opening TikTok-owned fulfilment centres; rolling out product search ads and a Shopping feed, then finally releasing their in-app Shop for all brands and creators; TikTok have been gaining serious ground. Bezos can only watch through the gaps in his fingers.

This latest development, if true and unleashed at the right time, would cause serious disruption in the e-commerce space. And what would a big tech battle be without a vein of irony? 

The Financial Times recently reported that TikTok is rolling out an in-app product promotion called Trendy Beat. This shopping feature will showcase TikTok-owned products that have been manufactured based on in-app data. If the product is popular, TikTok will copy it, probably for cheaper, then sell it directly to customers. These are the exact fundamentals of Amazon’s growth strategy, and you can bet dollars for donuts that TikTok will in the not-so-distant future be accused of copying viral products, then prioritising their own white label products in favour of the original brand’s product. Just like Amazon has been accused of.

This is the specific tension which should terrify brands. 

After brands have invested years into a platform that has helped them gain strong organic and paid returns, all whilst positioning them authentically towards Gen Z culture in a meaningful way, and beckoning in an era of shopping and social that is more tightly woven than ever before, we will now see that same platform use the data from yours and millions of other brand’s investment to cut themselves off a much bigger slice at your expense. This is whilst limiting your ability to drive clicks towards your favoured storefront. We should have seen this coming when the platform birthed dupe culture.

TikTok is now in a race against itself to drive mass adoption of their shop offering. Clearly they believe they have the cultural clout to own the shopping process outright from awareness to conversion. 

Of course, Amazon logistically is an absolute beast, with over 185 fulfilment centres globally, 9.7m registered sellers, and most importantly, the ability to ship with next day delivery to their 300m customers worldwide. But with TikTok owning their own fulfilment centres, could they be inching closer to offering a next day delivery service of their own? 

With TikTok expected to reach 1.8bn users by the end of the year, all of which average 95 minutes’ usage per week, as well as the fact the platform is hugely responsible for the creation of virality around products right now, they’ve become an irresistible prospect – or a frightening one – depending on whether you are a customer, or if you are Jeff Bezos.

With these developments, whilst Elon Musk talks up a good game about making X the everything app, it seems that TikTok is actively building it for both creators and consumers. By offering a similarly eclectic range of services, including music streaming, gaming, content creation tools, and e-commerce, TikTok is positioning itself as a one-stop platform for entertainment and shopping, locking horns with Amazon on more than on ground. Once they reach a product viability level with the right levels of adoption across each of their business divisions, a TikTok subscription to give you all of this value included with free next day delivery would really put the cat among the pigeons.

How can Amazon respond? 

They could make their Shopping platform more social, like Google is doing. Launching Shorts and nesting vertical creator-led content in searches is clearly driven by the adage “only the paranoid survive” in mind. I’m sure Amazon can try to look to Congress and anti-competition for a helping hand. But as they fight anti-competition battles of their own, I’m not sure how much favour they will curry, beyond faux patriotism and anti-China agendas. It seems the plucky challenger has a lot going for it, and clearly, a lack of other challengers with the same strategy. If you zoom out from the battle taking place in the centre of the coliseum between Amazon and TikTok, you can see Meta in the periphery, acquiring VR headset companies ahead of Apple to ensure their metaverse move is bulletproof, whilst copying Twitter wholesale and aiming to improve the things that X users are complaining about on their app via the launch of Threads. Meta have winded down their ecommerce plays in favour of these battles, and you wonder whether they may regret that in coming years.

The marketing of this film has been so successful because it has tapped into something we can all relate to: nostalgia. Collaborating with brands that most predominantly target millennials, Barbie set out to reinvigorate our inner child and allow us all to inject a little fun (and pink) back into our lives. 

Here, we’ve put together a run down of how Barbie’s nostalgia marketing strategy was so effective – and how you can embed it into your own brand strategy:

Fashion 

You’ll undoubtedly have heard of method acting – a technique whereby an actor fully commits themselves to the character they’re playing for the duration of a project both professionally and personally – but have you heard of method dressing? The cast of Barbie certainly lived and breathed their roles fashion-wise long after they stopped shooting.

Method dressing is where actors communicate iconic elements of a film through the medium of fashion during the press run. We have seen this from stars such as Halle Bailey when promoting The Little Mermaid in her aqua mermaid gowns; Zendaya when promoting The Greatest Showman; and Jenna Ortega who fully embraced her character Wednesday on the red carpet. Most recently, Margot Robbie has embodied Barbie at every premiere. 

There is a theory that you can’t have a cult classic movie without an ‘identifiable, iconic outfit that can be turned into a Halloween costume’, says TikTok creator Nicky Reardon here. It’s about creating an outfit or a look that transcends languages, is immediately identifiable, and is widely used in film promotion now when actors wear outfits that pay homage to the film or a niche reference in it on the red carpet.

In Barbie’s case, each of Margot Robbie’s pink carpet looks represented an iconic vintage Barbie doll that audiences might have owned when they were children. This strategy gave each premiere an element of suspense and surprise; from the 1960 Enchanted Evening Barbie for the London premiere of the film to the 1992 Totally Hair Barbie for a photocall at the Four Seasons Hotel in Mexico City. 

Products 

Strategic collaborations and tie-ins have become standard practice in movie marketing, and the Barbie movie proved no exception. Partnering with a wide range of big brands has further elevated the film’s reach and appeal, engaging the consumer from all touch points. With the release of this film, Barbie targeted an audience they would have targeted many years ago when they were children: millennials. 

They leveraged brand partnerships that offered relevance in communities that they had very little influence over, namely Airbnb with their Barbie Malibu mansion available for rent, Dragon glassware with their Barbie-style drinkware collection, and Bumble where a ‘bunch of Barbies and Kens joined the app to cheer you on as you swipe and match, as well as giving advice about sending compliments on Bumble’. 

Ruggable was another stand-out collaboration. Teaming up with a home interiors company cleverly allows the OG Barbie fans, who are now grown up and most likely in their own homes, to create their own Barbie Dreamhouse. By allowing the Barbie experience to be fully immersive, it allowed those who now have ‘adult money’ to live out their true Barbie life for real.

Within the app, your Threads feed will share posts from your Instagram followers and recommend content from new creators. Positive and productive conversations are at the forefront of the Threads strategy and there have been many tools created to enhance and encourage this. Namely, the limitations you can put on who can mention you or reply to you within Threads, and much like Instagram you can add hidden words to filter out replies to your Threads that contain specific words. Whoever you’ve blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads, too. 

With the app only being a few weeks old, it goes without saying that we should be expecting a number of new updates and features in the near future. Improved recommendations and a stronger search function, for example, will make it easier to follow topics and trends in real time. 

Meta has also confirmed that they will be making Threads compatible with the ActivityPub. This is ‘a set of decentralised standards for social networking’ which will make ‘Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress’. Other services including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future, too.

With Threads introducing features like the launch of topics, trends, search and a chronological following feed, it might raise questions about the future of Twitter. It’s important to recognise, however, that both platforms cater to distinct user needs and offer unique value propositions.

Twitter excels as a public platform for real-time news, global conversations, and wide-scale engagement. Its brevity-focused format encourages concise and impactful communication, making it an ideal space for breaking news, trending discussions and public discourse. Threads, on the other hand, emphasises private conversations, intimate connections, and curated content-sharing among close friends, providing a more personal and focused experience.

With Threads being so new, brands and influencers are able to test and experiment to find their tone of voice on the platform. It is also another great opportunity for brands to grow and build their community. 

RyanAir appears to be using the same content strategy from their Twitter and Instagram accounts on Threads. Every marketer is aware of RyanAir’s social strategy. They use memes and humour to jump on topical conversations, making them one of the most followed airline brands on Threads.

There has been a consistent increase in assessments and diagnosis, with some assessments for ADHD taking longer than five years. Although it’s only natural that with access to new information comes an increase in diagnosis for any condition, the cause for concern comes from the dramatically high volumes of new cases which could lead to misdiagnosis or over diagnosis due to a stretch of resources, with some trusts and private practises having to ‘shut waiting lists because of demand.’

Due to increased interest in the subject, the BBC’s Panorama aired a documentary investigating ADHD assessments in private clinics across the UK, ‘exposing’ three separate private clinics after wrongly diagnosing the reporter Rory Carson.

Just a week prior, Channel 4 released a documentary also looking at ADHD diagnosis,’ but this time through the lens of reality star and content creator Sam Thompson. The programme took us along on Sam’s journey that ultimately led to him being diagnosed with not only ADHD but also with autism and a tic. 

The BBC documentary sparked controversy on social media, in the papers and even from official ADHD non-profit organisations expressing their disappointment. Comments included how the documentary was ‘misleading and damaging’ in its investigation and has led to further stigma of the disability. Some took to social media expressing the gaslighting and invalidation they have recently experienced since the show aired. 

Having been diagnosed with ADHD myself in the spring of 2022, it’s a subject I am interested in researching. I am also keen to understand the new phenomena that is ADHD content plaguing social media and the real life effects this has.

ADHD on Social Media

Since my diagnosis, I have never been happier. 

Before, I simply thought I was stupid. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, I just couldn’t do what everyone else seemed to do so easily, whether that be in educational or social settings. 

This made me feel the need to constantly try and prove myself, which manifested in taking on too many projects and eventually burnout – which is very common in people with ADHD.

When I downloaded TikTok back in 2021, I was served some ADHD sketches. They were mostly quite generic and made me think ‘haha, I do that’ (that’s a reference for all my Vine lovers out there), but also made me think: doesn’t everybody regularly forget their keys? 

The more I interacted with the content, the more specific and nuanced the videos became.

I began to consider I had ADHD through TikTok, and so I researched it extensively. It was important to me because if it wasn’t ADHD then what was it? I didn’t want a diagnosis for something I didn’t have, as that’s no more helpful than not having one at all.

Eventually, I’d had enough of basic and likely inaccurate free online tests and booked an appointment with my GP. The entire process took a month and I came out with the comfort that I was in fact not stupid, just different. 

I owe that to social media. 

Earlier this month, an AI-engineered song surfaced across digital streaming platforms and social platforms, and took the music world by storm. The track titled ‘Heart On My Sleeve’ was AI-generated by a yet-to-be identified ‘Ghostwriter’. 

The composition featured the AI-generated voices of Drake and the Weeknd. 

The track was met with much dismay by Universal Music Group (UMG) who told Billboard magazine that the viral postings “demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists”, as this is a clear copyright infringement. On the flipside, it has been welcomed by fans of the artists and curious music fans alike with comments to the song that include: “This would literally go No.1 on the charts if Drake released it”, and: “What a time to be alive”. 

Drake and The Weeknd aren’t the only ones. Other music artists are also being faked. Recently, a fake Oasis album which again utilised AI was instead praised by Liam Gallagher. 

The album titled The Lost Tapes Volume One under the playful name of AIsis also went viral and featured music and lyrics written by Hastings band Breezer with Liam’s voice generated by AI. Responding to a fan on Twitter, Gallagher was asked if he’d heard the AIsis album yet and responded: “Mad as fuck…I sound mega”.

Before being forcefully taken down from streaming platforms by UMG, the Drake and The Weeknd track wracked up over 600,000 Spotify streams, 15m TikTok views and 275,000 YouTube views.  

Watching this unfold over the last week has given me deja vu as it brought back memories of the catastrophic events between music rights holders and Napster. Up until 2001, Napster was a peer to peer file sharing platform that allowed users to upload and share millions of files, in particular music tracks, globally yet illegally. 

Piracy choked the music industry of billions of dollars of profit each year. The Napster controversy came as a result of a few events. The digital revolution – in particular the ease of sharing music via mp3 married with the global connectivity capabilities of the internet. But I would also argue music piracy came as a reaction to the price tags put on physical music formats. 

At that time the CD was king. I remember paying £15.99 for Idlewild the Remote Part in HMV. It’s a great album but something I could never justify today. Now I’m one of the 9 million Brits with a Spotify subscription for a fraction of that cost per month for unlimited music wherever I am. 

What Napster proved then was just how unprepared the music business was for technological advances. Piracy on sites like Napster happened en masse. Music was freely available in huge clusters globally to a point where it became difficult to stop until legal action was taken at source and directly against the pirate sites for copyright infringement. From this, Digital Service Providers (DSP) platforms arose out of the dust like iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music with the major music labels on board to help counteract the file sharing and make up for lost revenue.

Firstly, TikTok recently conducted tests in Australia by restricting some users’ access to the plethora of popular hits usually provided by the major labels via UGC licences. This could indicate they are exploring going at it without major label music catalogues. The catalyst for this is the ongoing complications reported between music rights holders (labels, publishers, songwriters and artists) and TikTok over licensing terms. According to research firm Data.ai, the results for this test have been mixed, with some results that ‘suggest the company is still dependent on its access to popular songs’. It is difficult to account for this wave alone, especially with the current scrutiny the Chinese-owned app is under from global governments which may sway usage.

Secondly, TikTok has attracted established artists such as Snoop Dogg who recently became the first large artist to distribute music via SoundOn, namely the Snoop Dogg-owned Death Row catalogue which features hits by hip hop megastars 2Pac, Nate Dogg, Kurupt and Snoop Dogg himself. This ultimately shows that Snoop Dog recognises TikTok is paramount in today’s music ecosystem in successfully reintroducing music from the past to a new and hungry young audience and creates longevity. Snoop Dog even launched this collaboration during the Super Bowl. A proper PR touchdown.  

Over at Spotify – the platform that claims responsibility for clamping down on music piracy and leading the music consumption race – they announced at their annual Stream On event that they’re introducing short form video content on the home feed, as well as an AI-powered DJ tool which will service streamers.

Sales Overnight; Brand Overtime

The key challenge with brand and experience first marketing strategies are time, cost and stakeholder buy-in. But brand marketers are fighting back with a massive amount of activations at the SXSW festival. Brands have introduced sales overnight, brand overtime (SOBO) strategies that interject discreet branding efforts into a series of results-driven marketing programs. It struck us all week that Influencer marketing is uniquely positioned to solve this challenge, given its ability to collapse the marketing funnel quickly and authentically build brands alongside social commerce tactics.

It Takes Everyone 

We saw and participated in more convos, panels, and activations this year with female, Black, Latin, AAPI and other diverse and underrepresented leaders than ever before. Not only were panels and activations more diverse, but there were also many panels that specifically addressed issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion across industries.

Consumer driven disruption

Marketing Week columnist and brand consultant, Helen Edwards, said “brands don’t start a revolution, consumers do”. 

In her keynote, Helen spoke about how consumer demand has the power to foster new industries, and an example of this is the rise of veganism. 

The term ‘veganism’ dates back to 1944 when activist Donald Watson started a movement based on a dairy-free lifestyle. The term ‘vegan’ was coined because it’s the beginning and the end of the word ‘vegetarian’ and was marginal for the next 60 years due to resistance from the mainstream. 

Helen says: “Veganism only really took off in around 2017 and now nearly everybody is a vegan at least some of the time. When a category takes off, we think about how to react and not be left behind and it can feel like a scramble. We can do better than that, before the demand-led disruption takes off”. 

So how can marketers get a better understanding of demands so that we can be there when they “take off”? 

An important discovery is that you can read behaviours and there are actions you can take to propel them on their journey to the mainstream. 

Intensity and Resistance

Intensity, Helen says, is “vital for a marginal behaviour to have any chance of going mainstream”. 

She continued, saying: “You need those intense zealots to get it going, because if you want to adopt one of these behaviours in the early stages it’s hard, less socially acceptable and more expensive”. 

We need people willing to start a movement because without them, there’s no traction. 

There will, undoubtedly, be resistance and opposition from the mainstream but these forces are crucial to understand because when that resistance starts to falter, that’s when you can jump in and make change. 

Resistance, Helen told a packed audience at the Leadership Summit, is nuanced: “You get different types and you need to be able to understand the nature of it”. 

That’s when you can go from the marginal to the mainstream. 

Reframing the narrative

It’s all about reframing the narrative when it comes to topics, issues and brands that are marginal or under the radar. 

We as marketers have the agency to shift the public’s perception and change the way in which people see something. 

In her keynote, Helen continued saying cognitive reframing allowed us to understand and get on board with veganism. 

Being vegan went from being seen as a life choice for “tree huggers”, for example, to being a legitimate way of life after being reframed as “plant based”. 

So, how can we apply reframing to marginalised behaviours and soften resistance? 

Prompt to text generative AI tools are now able to produce anything from concise brand straplines and website copy right through to business plans and entire novels. 

These may dent Google search domination – TikTok already has. 

When search results look less like a menu you have to assess and choose from, and more like a conversation or a recommendation video from a friend, it’s apparent why people may favour this over traditional search. 

The ability for users to ask follow up questions to initial searches is intuitive and leaves Google results pages looking rather antiquated. Google does have a standalone AI unit called DeepMind, which “taught” a computer to beat a human champion of the notoriously complex Chinese board game Go!. So, while Google is by no means out of the race, they are facing some serious competition.

Coders, who often rely quite heavily on Google to tell them how to improve their code (no judgement), have found that AI tools will absolutely outclass existing results. This in itself means that every business that relies on code can be more efficient and produce more, arguably better products, faster.

Of course, there are huge challenges too.

Data Protection

Firstly, there’s data protection, licensing and remuneration for creators whose source material is the basis for AI generated text and images. Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI (the company responsible for DALL-E and ChatGPT), has stepped away citing data protection issues.

Ethics

Secondly, there’s the ethics. A child could, in theory, do their homework in minutes with little investment or understanding – and this carries through to the world of work. To what extent could AI replace a human workforce? 

Accuracy

Thirdly, accuracy. While AI is drawing from almost any available source and should average out in some way, programming quirks and where data is extracted from gives rise to serious trust issues. 

As fast as factually incorrect content can be produced with AI, it can be published, distributed and consumed. 

There is opaque validation within the code and little validation outside of it. With ChatGPT, instead of “computer says no”, you get a rough approximation of an answer. OpenAI does state upfront: “ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers”.

Despite these concerns, speed is an enormous advantage and the low barrier to entry presents egalitarian opportunities to collaborate with AI – in theory.

Gemma Bird is a very well known money saving guru. Growing up with a saving addiction, she decided to turn this into her personal brand where she educates people on the power of scrimping and saving. She can be found sharing bargains, deals and discounts to her audience in an attempt to show that being thrifty doesn’t have to be boring. Her relatability and down-to-earth personality has grown her a loyal and dedicated following.

Clare Seal aka My Frugal Year is a Fin-fluencer (financial influencer) from London. She began her account in 2019 as a means to tackle her £27,000 debt that she had accumulated, and now shares tips and tricks on budgeting and improving relationships with money. Clare founded @thefwforum as a place for honest and supportive conversations about money and more recently, is known for her coverage on topics such as mortgage and financial property.

In addition to the increase in financial advice being shared by content creators, here at THE FIFTH we have seen a noticeable increase in crafting and DIY content. #CraftTok, for example, has now been viewed over 1.3 billion times on TikTok, with more and more people going online to get DIY and crafting inspiration in a bid to spruce up their homes and give their decor a refresh on a budget. 

Nailing it: A Spotify Original vodcast about navigating the everyday challenges and toasting the triumphs of life in your twenties with your hosts Priscilla Anyabu, Wunmi Bello and Adesayo Talabi aka Simply Sayo.

The Receipts Podcast: A Spotify exclusive podcast where Your girl, Tolly T, Just Call me Audrey and your Mamacita Milena Sanchez come together to give their fun and honest truths about anything and everything.

Cocktails and Takeaways: Hosted by Madame Joyce, C&T is a podcast all about oversharing, unpopular opinions, failed relationships, light-hearted banter, celebrity gossip, world news and everything in between with a dash of alcohol to keep in good spirits. 

Call her daddy: Alex Cooper hosts the most listened-to podcast by women. Cooper cuts through the small talk with every guest and topic. Asking the questions you want answers to, you can never guess what is going to happen or be said.

Disabled people in the UK (and around the world – however I am talking about my experience here) are more likely to be in poverty and have issues with accessing housing, work or funding, healthcare, education, self care, carers. The list is endless. In fact, it costs on average £500 more a month to be Disabled.

I speak from experience. I am a 25-year-old Disabled person, I am a wheelchair user and I have various health issues which impact me every day. Let me tell you it is expensive. One of the worst things for me about living in a world only made for non disabled people is I can’t get into most of the shops in my local area because they are simply not accessible. This isn’t rare either, I’d go so far as to say most places are not accessible for me. So, until Disabled people have equal rights, we are going to need Disability Pride. 

But if you are non disabled or a brand, why is it important to talk about Disability Pride Month? Well, for starters, it’s important because a LOT of people are Disabled – the estimate is around 14.6 million in the UK alone. That is one of the biggest minority groups. It is also a group that anyone could become a part of at any time. Yes that’s right, anyone could become Disabled at any second of their lives, and many will! 

As our age increases, unfortunately for many our health may decline. So when we don’t talk and learn about these things, it means we are leaving out a large group of people and shows we are not educated on the topic. A topic that could directly impact us at any moment. That isn’t to ‘scare’ anyone into caring about Disability rights. It’s just a simple fact, but as a society we often hide disability away. It’s something to be scared of, ashamed of, a ‘negative’ but that isn’t the case. It is simply neutral. Disabled people have always existed and will always exist. So rather than shaming us for our existence, we should love and embrace the community and show that Disabled people exist too.

Many brands don’t talk about Disability. We don’t see many Disabled models, actors or presenters and we are often pushed out of the spotlight. But Disabled people are wonderful and, speaking from experience, we are pretty cool too. Disabled people want to support companies, events, shows and more but so often we are not given accessibility or feel we are not represented by brands. This is only highlighted further when companies don’t mention us at all during Disability Pride. The silence feels empty, as if Disabled people are not valued consumers.

For years I’ve fought the case that Creatives are a sacred species (admittedly I am perhaps a bit biased) and something AI could never replace. The creation of DALL-E 2 however, has potentially derailed my theory, bringing it crashing down to earth in a burst of flames, sharpies, and precious tantrums – creative stereotypes the OpenAI team have overlooked for some reason.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the end is nigh for us Creatives. I’m sure when services like Photoshop were first launched, similar questions were likely to have been asked. Similarly throughout history whenever new creative innovation came about, uncertainty arose on the necessity of the older, less shiny version, but ultimately it just creates the opportunity for collaboration between the two.

For example, DALLE-2 can be used by us as a creative tool; hours of endless searching on Google Images for that one incredibly niche, impossible to find, reference for a pitch deck has now been reduced to a quick search and a few key words. In the same vein, this could also be a quicker, sleeker, partner to specialist skills such as scamping and storyboarding – both of which are seen as necessary requirements for all Creatives to have in their arsenal.

Ultimately the OpenAI team have created more questions than they’ve answered, which I suppose is the goal when launching industry defining projects. The big question though, is what is next for AI in creative? Personally, I’ll start getting worried when the waitlists to use services like DALL-E 2 are shorter than my lifetime. 

Creative Strategy Lead Alice Thompson

Alice Thompson explains why creative strategy is important in influencer marketing: “We know that influencers bring creative flair to content and know what their audiences love. But often brands think of them as a media channel rather than as content creators and use them for pure product placement. It’s important to find a really relevant and interesting place for the brands to naturally slot into the feeds of the influencers that we work with, which is where creative strategy comes in. 

“We apply the insight gathering, audience understanding and strategic thinking that goes into creative content, then we work with influencers on the end product. The result is a great partnership that tells a deeper, more noticeable and longer lasting story”. 

Graphic Designer Patricia Ascorreta

Patricia Ascoretta says that “Having in house design and production allows us to work together with creators to elevate the content with special effects, animation, editing and design. This gives us a much wider range of content creators we can work with as we don’t have to rely on their post-production skills or access to them. It also means we can push our creative ideas further and get talent to deliver innovative content for brands that is normally reserved for ads with huge budgets or specific influencers”.

Campaign Director Oliver Bond

Oliver Bond says: “Most agencies would have Account Managers and Campaign Managers as separate roles, and so being able to almost combine the two ensures we are not only servicing the talent and their respective representatives but also the client, and means there is a full 360 service. This is a great skill set to have as your approach to different conversations has to differ depending on a whole host of factors, ranging from budgets to timelines and performance. 

“The Fifth empowers people to be a master-of-all-trades, encouraging you to add as many strings to your bow as possible in order to benefit your personal development. Obviously supporting resource is always important, but to be given the responsibility and accountability to manage campaigns 360 definitely gives us scope for professional and personal growth. 

“This is crucial at The Fifth as each campaign is so different. One minute we can be working with talent purely on Instagram to showcase a new product range, and the next we can be hosting live streams with some of the biggest YouTubers in the country to raise money for charity. The variety of campaigns means we need to have the skills to manage full circle, something some agencies might have separate roles for”.

Creative Stefan Dezou

Stefan Dezou explains: “As a Creative at The Fifth, our job is to reimagine the possibility of a social post, pushing the client brief through innovative and exciting ideas. We don’t just think about the content, we also think about the impact that it can have and the lasting impressions we can make on behalf of the brand.

“Creativity in influencer marketing is about understanding and utilising the amazing capabilities of the creators. This allows you to create truly authentic campaigns”.

Business Strategist Rob Stevenson

Rob Stevenson says: “As Business Strategist, my role involves both an art and science approach.

“I am tasked with keeping my eyes up and ahead to spot cultural trends and commercial opportunities amongst a sea of information. A little like sitting in the crow’s nest of a ship!

My role might be unusual for an influencer agency because it enables us to build and develop services, giving our clients an edge on social media and beyond! Our creative campaigns feature talent who push boundaries and have cultural resonance – I love seeing brands allow themselves to be a part of that. It always pays dividends”. 

What other roles do you see becoming a priority in influencer marketing?

Munya Chawawa

Munya Chawawa is a comedian, satirist and content creator known for his sketches and many different characters. Behind the scenes, Munya has been honing his craft for years but has recently found his fame flourish. 

Munya was a writer on Charlie Brooker’s Netflix mockumentary Death to 2020, and his fictional drill rapper ‘Unknown P’ signed a deal with Atlantic Records. Now, he’s making regular appearances on primetime television shows. 

Most recently, Munya announced that he is to be a part of the BBC One Celebrity MasterChef 2021 line-up. Sharing the news with his followers on Twitter, Munya said: “Can’t believe a jerk rice parody 2 years ago has led to this! Barty Crease has a Netflix deal, Unknown P has signed to Atlantic and now Jonny Oliver is on @MasterChefUK (kind of) – the trilogy is complete.”​

Joe Sugg

Joe Sugg first became known to fans as Zoe Sugg’s little brother but soon carved out a career in his own right way back in 2012 when he began posting videos on YouTube as ThatcherJoe.

Since then, he became the first ‘social media star’ to appear on family favourite Strictly Come Dancing and even got to the final with his dancing partner and now girlfriend Dianne Buswell. He’s now gone on to portray Ogie Anhorn in the West End production of Waitress and has made his television acting debut in the fourth season of the BBC One drama, The Syndicate.

Why are traditional formats wanting to work with social talent?

Social-first creators have built such large and engaged followings online that it was only a matter of time before traditional outlets started taking notice. Though some of them might still get negative press (the influencer-Dubai travel scandal, anyone?), traditional media is recognising the impact, and influence, that creators have – and their potential for multiple industries. 

After all, a lot of creators are multifaceted and can not only create engaging content but shoot, edit and produce it themselves. Social creators can also often have bigger and most importantly younger audiences than most traditional celebrities and TV personalities. 

By introducing social-first creators to traditional formats like television, the deal is mutually beneficial: not only will the digital creator gain an even greater fanbase, bigger career and earn money, the primetime TV shows will be able to tap into their lucrative younger audiences. An influencers’ audience is often highly engaged and incredibly loyal and more often than not, they will go to where that creator does, thus flocking in their droves to whichever mainstream programme they are appearing on. 

What does this mean for the future of traditional outlets?

The internet has completely transformed the way in which younger audiences consume content and as they are no longer familiar with traditional TV shows and formats, it is up to social-first creators who built their audiences online to bring their attention offline. 

Traditional and established broadcasting and publishing outlets are increasing their audience sizes, viewing ratings and their online engagement through social-first creators and so it doesn’t seem as though this method of incorporating creators into their formats will be coming to an end anytime soon. Why would they want to stop trying to bring in and attract crucial 16-34 year old audiences that they are severely lacking? 

As long as it is mutually beneficial to both parties, then the trend of seeing online talent moving more into the traditional media space will continue – and they might just be the ones to bring younger audiences back.