In this op-ed, Chandra Sinnathamby, Adobe’s director, digital media B2B strategy & GTM, Asia-Pacific, explains why marketing trends over the busy Christmas shopping period were shaped by creators.
The recent festive season was a marketing minefield for brands, with many promoting deep discounts, festive deals, giveaways, gifting and more. But a new trend in marketing showed that brands chose to partner with creators to add a more relatable touch to their promotions. Performance marketers were reportedly exploring alternatives beyond ads across all channels and chose to collaborate with relevant content creators across formats.
Recent research from Adobe’s Future of Creativity Study about the creator economy and the festive season found that 71% of monetising creators partnered with brands. Non-professional creators who monetised their work said that holiday revenue represented over one-third (34 per cent) of their annual creative income. It was also worth noting that Facebook (70 per cent), Instagram (65 per cent), and YouTube (57 per cent) were the most popular platforms for monetisers to post content on. The study also revealed that more Gen Z monetisers (60 per cent) used TikTok than Millennials (47 per cent) or Gen X (42 per cent).
So how did creators jump on the bandwagon and make the most of the festive season?
Created varied content
The Adobe study revealed that over 63 per cent of creators created more content. The trend continued to grow, and creators aimed to match the needs of different brands by creating new content and exploring other formats, media, and genres. Active engagement with their audience through relevant and relatable content tailored to their preferences helped them with a competitive edge. Eventually, keeping the end consumer in mind was key to staying relevant.
Found new ways of monetisation
When we think of creator monetisation, we think of sponsored content, product placements, and direct ads. In these formats, creators usually get a fixed revenue per ad, a revenue share based on mutually agreed expectations and analyses of major metrics like impressions, CTV, or conversions. However, with the rise of creator-focused funds and subscription-based platforms like Substack, Patreon and Gumroad, creators were able to monetise their content through a smaller number of dedicated fans that subscribed to their content, as opposed to the historic hit-and-miss method with a large group of people, that may or may not view the entire content. Therefore, creators went from mass media techniques to more niche, tailored content, and subscribers are willing to pay for it. Platforms like Linktree, combined with the rise of NFTs, enabled creators to launch new revenue streams for their content.
Quality over quantity
This applies in more than one way. First, creators now value the quality of their audience over quantity. This means that unlike when they broadcast their brand promotions to a varied audience that may or may not comprise the brand’s intended target group, monetising creators now prefer a small number of consumers willing to subscribe to them and translate that into sales for the brands they’re promoting. More and more creators tried to form a bond with their audiences and are attempting to create a niche, engaged audience. Brand also learned from this and chose more micro and nano creators, shifting their focus from the most followed creators to those with a highly engaged audience.
The study also revealed that over 75 per cent of monetising creators partnering with brands in the holiday season considered the right brand’s values more important than its size and influence. The content being created was tailored to the creators’ niche audiences with the brands’ values and intended message instead of a more generic line of content creation that would work across a large group of (potentially passive) followers. Therefore, the quality of the content was a focal point for both creators and brands over the quantity of content that audiences could’ve been bombarded with.
Scope for the holiday season
The Adobe Future of Creativity study found that 48 per cent of Australian creators monetised their content, out of which 79 per cent of creators started monetising content in the past year. More than 165 million creators have joined the creator economy since 2020, making content for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Around half of the monetised creators experienced significant income growth in 2023.
Throughout the ongoing festive season, which will end with Easter on April, 8 in 10 (86 per cent) monetisers have earned income through selling directly to consumers, and almost two-thirds (63 per cent) achieved it through promotions. Despite uncertainty regarding social media platforms and the economic environment, 88 per cent of creators grew their audience, and nearly half (49 per cent) built brand awareness as a goal and counting.
As brands learned the value of the creator economy and explored ways to collaborate, the festive season was an excellent opportunity for creators to monetise their content in inspiring and creative ways.
