While creator content majority of the times outperforms digital advertising, relying solely on engagement metrics could be a detriment to brands.
Only 1 in 15 (6%) of creator content delivers both strong platform engagement and strong brand-building potential, Kantar’s The Creator Game Plan, report has revealed.
That figure rises to 27% for content that delivers medium-to-high engagement and medium-high brand impact.
Content creators are becoming a pillar of adland with content marketing proven to be an effective form of brand building, audience engagement, and overall creative strategy – consistently outperforming traditional digital advertising in a number of different metrics.
In fact, creator content consistently outperforms digital advertising when compared to overall digital ad benchmarks, according to data from Kantar. On this basis, active involvement is 12 percentage points above the benchmark; as is relevance, enjoyment, long-term equity and short-term sales, which run at eight, six, five and one percentage points ahead, respectively.
Branding is the only category where creator content is behind digital advertising by seven percentage points, which Kantar’s report noted makes sense, “because the editorial style that make creator content so compelling can naturally soften conventional brand signals”.
The research analysed over 15,000 pieces of creator-led content promoting a product or brand across social platforms YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
However, no matter how positive this boost is, the report highlighted that relying solely on engagement data could point brands in the wrong direction as much as two-thirds of the time. Creator content may boost engagement, but when this is compared to its brand building and short-term sale potential, this only aligns in roughly a third of cases.
Even within high-performing creator content, only one in five pieces of content show strong potential to build the brand, and only one in eight drive short-term sales. This means that for every ten high engagement posts, eight fail to drive engagement in any meaningful way.
Just 6% of creator content drives both strong platform engagement and strong brand-building potential, the research found, although this rises to 27% for medium-to-high engagement.
Vera Sidlova, global creative director at Kantar, said: “Our research is a wake-up call that high engagement and genuine brand effectiveness more often than not do not align. CMOs say they’re under pressure to prove their return on investment. To do this, they need better signals and more rigorous metrics for testing to understand if their creator partnerships are the right fit.
“Creative freedom isn’t a courtesy – it’s the reason why 61% of marketers say they will increase their investment in creator content. But for all the authenticity and personality that creators offer, there’s no gain to be found in a campaign that lacks strategy, genuine audience insight and fails to add value to a brand’s long-term game plan.”
The research outlined three ways in which brands can capitalise on creator content: matching strategy to campaign goals, making sure content explicitly mentions the brand, and focusing on wider metrics outside of just engagement.
