Creatorfest London: Creators and brands confront the challenges of a crowded Market

Tackling market saturation and shifting audiences

The era of one-shot brand/creator deals spurred by the Covid boom is over and the shifting sands of the market are forcing creators to look elsewhere to shore up career longevity. Alongside the overused buzzword “authenticity” was “creativity”, as creators were implored to focus less on pleasing the algorithm and more on their unique selling points. 

Podcast creative agency Just Add Joy founders Dani Murphy and Kate Mander made the case for the return to considered, long form content in a session that argued that culture and content had become homogenised and indistinguishable as creators and brands raced to feed the algorithm.

“The algorithm doesn’t reward experimentation. The brands are driving it by chasing immediate wins with performance marketing. Data feels safe,” commented Murphy. “Tech isn’t the problem, it’s the human rush to repeat it.”

Throughout the day, creators and brands were implored to think more qualitatively about content creation and partnerships, to play the long game and focus more on  community building than on quick wins.  

Rather than aggressively pushing products, brands need to collaborate with the right creators to foster community, especially in markets like the UK, fashion brand Lulu Guinness Managing Director Mark Dalziel told a session on influencer marketing for retailers. Companies must look beyond metrics like ROAS, which misses the broader, long-term value of an engaged community.

“ROAS is a really one-dimensional way of looking at things,” commented Dalzeil. 

To cut through the noise online, brands need to dig deeper to find and partner with unique creators able to reach new audiences in meaningful ways, added NEXT Creative Copy Manager Diana Bell-Heather.

“More people wanting to become content creators will result in niche categories emerging. Brands need to be aware of them and for the creators, [they need] to really find that unique selling point,” said Bell-Heather.

Diversity, inclusion and mental health: the positives and negatives of influence and social media

Although not offered the reach of one of the three main stages that dominated the event, Creatorfest nonetheless made a conscious effort to address DEI issues facing the creator economy. A series of intimate sessions heard from LGBTQ+ and disabled creators on mental health and accessibility challenges, meaningful representation of minorities, and how to wield #influenceforgood.

For brands and agencies looking to understand how to incorporate and address the issues in meaningful ways, the session offered valuable insights. Creators too, were offered techniques for avoiding burnout and safeguarding their mental health in the face of audience pressures.

In a hopeful note, discussions often centred on questions of how to convince brands and management to drop short-termism and address DEI issues with sincerity.

“Get people with lived experience [of the issues] into the room with brands,” Head of Strategy at disability-led influencer marketing agency Purple Goat Agency Dom Hyams said. “Challenge preconceptions and misconceptions. It’s not fool-proof but it can help along the way. Talk to [management] about the growth opportunity of this community. Dig into the data, they are probably under-indexing the disabled community.”

LGBTQ+ author, content creator and consultant Ellen Jones said companies were continually claiming to support diversity while actually falling short internally, discriminating against minority employees and systematically making tokenistic efforts around events like Pride Month.

“Coming to an event like this, I hear agencies, I hear brands, I hear organisations of all shapes and sizes talking about their commitment to inclusion, their commitment to diversity, their commitment to disrupting an industry and being change makers. And then they do absolutely fucking nothing,” lamented Jones.

“The level of cowardice that I see from brands, I think it's partly driven by economic uncertainty and I get that. But also, you are so much more well-resourced than the LGBT community, who we know are underemployed, underpaid, underrepresented.”

LGBT inclusive digital marketing agency Out Loud CEO Farhad Divecha said marketers could start addressing diversity issues by understanding the audiences and focusing on the small details.  

“Understand whom you're talking to and talk to them. There will be situations where you can't necessarily target and know who your audience is. Fine. That's forgiven. But on an LGBT website, to an LGBTQ+ person, you don't show ads that are very obviously lazy,” said Divecha.

“When you're working with creators, simple things like understanding their pronouns. Understanding what it is that they're actually looking for. Why should they partner with you? Yes, it is about money, but all of us have principles beyond money and that does matter. It really does not take a lot of effort. It just takes a little bit of conscious thought and attention to detail.”  

Looking ahead: what does market saturation mean for the future of social media influence in the UK?

The generational divide in content creation was on full display, as TikTok sensation GK Barry (@gkbarry 3.6M followers TikTok) and pioneering YouTube make-up tutorial creator behind Pixiwoo Sam Chapman (@samchampman 1.26M followers Instagram) discussed their experiences and shared their views of what’s next for social media.

Barry and Chapman both implored brands working with creators to dispense with scripts and give them creative control.

“A lot of brands are really stuck in 2014, they think that if you promote a brand, everyone is going to buy it and that’s just not how social media works anymore,” commented Chapman, noting that she refuses brand deals that include click-through links.

“If I truly like your product, I will tell my audience about it. But people want to find out on their own, no one believes influencers. They’ll do their own research, they’re not following a click-through link. They go and find reviews and look for what other people have said.”

Looking ahead, GK Barry predicted that creators would “get lazy”, with AI overtaking the space and brands using AI to create mass content.

Chapman meanwhile, suggested that the saturation of social media would drive “a big return to legacy media.

“I'm feeling a real shift towards more experiential things people want to go to. They want to have magazines, hold them, touch them. I think people are maybe a little bit desensitised to social media and I do think there's going to be a drop off, but then it will just find its feet again”.

In a market brimming with opportunities and challenges, Creatorfest London highlighted the urgency for creators and brands to rethink their approaches, prioritise authenticity, and build meaningful communities. As the industry matures, the path forward lies not in quick wins but in fostering real connections, inclusivity, and sustainable strategies that resonate in a rapidly evolving landscape.