Into The Creatorverse: McCann's Social Media Predictions For The Year

The rise of the creator economy has been swift and revolutionary for media consumption habits, and that is not only confined to those in the Gen Z demographic.

The sector, currently worth $191.55 billion, is forecast to rise to over $500 billion by the end of the decade. And brands and marketers are heavily investing too as they aim to reach the coveted youth market of today.

Creators are individuals whose content is original and engaging – often reaching mass audiences, which for brands, is an open door into potential new avenues of expansion. Advertisers want to source and partner with relevant creators, with it proving a highly effective method of communicating brand messages and driving sales; 78 per cent of TikTok users reveal they had bought a product after seeing it feature in creator content and 84 per cent of brands believe using influencers in its marketing is an effective tool, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. 

Social media is ever-changing. It only takes a glance at recent news as proof of its somewhat unpredictable nature from Meta removing fact-checkers to TikTok’s ban in the US (despite only lasting a mere 14 hours).

With that in mind, McCann Content Studios London has launched its ‘Creatorverse Predictions 2025’ report, investigating trends and predictions for the future of creator and social media marketing for the year ahead. The report covers a range of predictions including how to best utlise creators in a world where everyone is fighting against the same noise, the importance fandom-marketing will play, the powers of long-term relationships between brand and creator, and how entertainment can be redefined. 

Explaining the outcomes of the report and predictions for 2025 is Crystal Malachias, McCann's global head of influencer and head of McCann Content Studios London. 

Creative Salon: What is so essential about brands producing reactive content and ‘delivering value at the speed of culture’?

Crystal Malachias: I think that the trend for this year is actually being less about trend-jacking. What brands are realising is that it isn’t right for everyone and if you're going to trend-jack, you ideally need to be doing it within hours of that trend going live. So we would say if you are attempting to jump on a trend after more than 48 hours, forget it. 

Generally, I think we're going to go to a place now where we recognise: ‘are you a brand that it's acceptable for you to be jumping on trends?’. If you are, we need to do work on building your social personality and who you are, and understanding that so that we are aligning you very clearly to those right trends – that enables you to get that kind of 24 to 48 hour approach. 

The other piece is a lot of brands don't have it set up on their side. We've got brands like Aldi, which is a long-standing relationship. There's deep trust there and they're able to do the reactivity really well because they've had all those kind of years in play of building that trust. 

I do think this year is more aligning on brands going, ‘is trend jacking right for me?’. If so, you have to have a very clear strategic blueprint as to which trends and you know what the approach would be based on social personality.

Creative Salon: What are some of the things brands would need to consider when wanting to jump onto a trend, for themselves, their audience? 

Malachias: Firstly they need to look at their social personality and what we call their social voice. So we've developed a proprietary tool that measures a brand's social voice – McCann is known for building enduring brand platforms and brand is very important, but a brand platform like a ‘Priceless’ or ‘Because you’re worth it’ doesn't necessarily then mirror itself in exactly the same way on social. In a lot of instances, it's chaotic because they're trying to be something to everyone and we call it swimming in a sea of sameness. 

Also understanding that the affinities, the passions and the interests of the communities that either follow the brand or follow the categories or competitors. We really do a lot of deep-diving into the subcultures, cultures and communities and fandoms around as we live in a wonderful world today where interests are so far-reaching and the beauty of social and the creator world is that there are so many amazing communities for everything and anything. We enable our brands to really understand what those interlocking passions and interests are, for them to start owning and having a significant part within those communities. 

When you really understand the platform, you know that you shouldn’t be doing the same content on Instagram as on TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat. And sadly, that is still happening far too often.

Creative Salon: The report predicts we’ll see a bridging of the ‘gap between creator economy and traditional entertainment’ so more influencers will be seen as hosts on the likes of Netflix shows. Do you think that could cause controversy down the line with the idea of why haven’t you picked an up-and-coming, talented young professional over an influencer?

Malachias: I think that the word ‘influencer’ is kind of moving away and we're using the word creator more and more because I feel that influencers have had a bad rap through the years of things like Covid which is why I think we're kind of moving into that creator world to uplift them a little bit. 

Again, I think that creators are talented professionals as well and should be seen on a similar level. You know, if you're picking that person because they've built their own business and been successful at building their own brand, that's exactly what you would want in entertainment because it's the same as a celebrity. But actually, what the influencer does is break down that fourth wall. You have much more of a personal relationship with a creator than you do with a celebrity and that's been why they've driven so much growth. 

I can see very clearly why the entertainment industry is leaning into these people as they understand entertainment today. They understand how to connect with audiences better than perhaps a lot of celebrities or even production companies because they're having this constant feedback loop where people are telling them how they feel and allowing them to build on that and to build those communities. And really, entertainment is about building communities as well.

Creative Salon: With the increase of creators being used in ads and the predicted growing demand over time, where do you think the budget for this will come from? 

Malachias: So I think the budgets for creators are coming from every pot. For media, it's the activation side of it. For creative agencies, it's the strategic and the creative council that we are really being paid for. Creators are being used more in TV ads and so on but you need to have a good creative strategy behind that. They're not just being replacing celebrities. The story needs to be built out and often you’re using the creator’s audience, probably on their own channels, to do that. If you think about that, creators fit into every part and those budgets are coming from different places.

Creative Salon: Fandom-driven marketing will become a cornerstone of influencer strategies according to the report. How can brands get past surface-level relationships with a creator that can lead to being influential on fandom communities?

Malachias: It's about long-term partnerships and it's about investing in them – not just their paid assets, but within their own communities, if they have their own brand – really working with them as an entrepreneur in themselves. 

The beauty of when you are working on a retainer with a client is being able to advise on these longer-term partnerships where you can then dig into their fandom, into their communities, and start building out a year-long messaging and campaign storylines that help dig deep and go on that journey. It’s about long-term partnerships and building out more of that ambassador role.

Creative Salon: What are some of the challenges brands might face when utilising the creator-verse – whether they’re already doing so and want to develop further or are thinking about diving headfirst into it?

Malachias: I think they need to be wary of it being commoditised and making sure that there is a connection with their brand. There's so much content out there that it would be easy to create something that doesn't have a strong association with their brand as it should do. 

They need to be very careful about how their budgets are placed and find ways of understanding where those budgets are being spent and how they're being measured and how outcomes such as ROI are measured. They need to find ways of bringing it together so they don't have disparate groups doing creative marketing in different parts of their business. 

Bringing their social and influencer marketing together is the key for the next few years, absolutely key. It needs to be brought together as one because you almost can't have one without the other, right?

Creative Salon: Looking at what’s been going on with social media recently – TikTok’s short lived ban in America for example – do you think brands will be more cautious about future investment into relying on creators and the social platforms they might use?

Malachias: No – the audiences are on these platforms. They are buying products from these platforms. They are building multi-million, billion dollar brands off these platforms. There is no way at this point any brand is saying ‘we shouldn't be putting our investment here or supporting creators’. We've moved past that. The proof has been given time and time again, now it's about the maturing state of the industry and actually putting real strategy behind these campaigns. And again, thinking more long-term bringing the spend across a business together to understand the full picture, rather than in these isolated pots.

Creative Salon: Will audiences tire with the idea of seeing creators everywhere as opposed to scripted entertainment they’d expect to see?

Malachias: I think that older generations perhaps might,  but I think the creator world has given birth to this new way of consumerism on every part and the generations coming up know no different. They rely on these creators to tell them what's coming now and next, what they should be buying. That has changed this world forever. 

When you look at TikTok and hear stats of two and a half hours average time spent on it a day – longer than a feature-length movie in most cases, you can just see that that's not changing. As I say it's a new way of consumerism that is built into the younger generation.

Creative Salon: Finally, do you have any thoughts on what the creator-verse might look like by the end of the decade?

Malachias: I think you'll continue to see creators building their own brands without a doubt. Mr Beast and KSI have really shown that and shown that they can compete with the giants of industries – you'll definitely see them becoming more entrepreneurs, big brand owners, and ambassadors for brands. However, one of the most worrying parts of our industry right now is when this all started, when bloggers started a decade ago, they were in jobs, they had careers and this was the side hustle. And so when they started to build their careers in this space, they quit their jobs. They still had a skill set [to fall back on.] My biggest concern in the industry is kids coming out of school or uni, no skills, no jobs and becoming creators. And as quickly as you can be the hottest thing and get brand deals, you can also disappear. 

So I think what you're going to see is, and this is what we're already doing, is a lot more academies, training courses and things where we'll get creators to come in and really understand what it's like to work in a creative agency or a PR agency and really help them get those skill sets. The biggest CCOs in the world in 20 years will probably have been creators at some point which I think is great.