Lucy Smart

Strategy and Partnerships Director
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Change Agents

Opinion

What’s top of my mind

Something which has been top of my mind for a long time now is the lack of industry standards within the creator and influencer industry. I know I’m not the only one who has this worry.

With the launch of the Digital Creators Association (DCA), there is change on the horizon. As the industry grows and more platforms create huge influencers, there are more people with little knowledge throwing the money around, which in response is devaluing many influencers.

Influencers are a key part of a 360 marketing campaign. The same as every other cog within this, they should be paid fairly.

Brands’ big opportunity

In the past few years, I’ve started to see more brands give up the creative reins in favour of creator-led content.

Creators live and breathe their audience. They know what they like and what they won’t respond well to - so giving creators a strict brief to follow doesn’t work. That kind of brief simply flops and, more often than not, leads to the brands asking why.

By contrast, Max Balegde x Garnier is a great example of where a creator was presented with a simple brief of KPIs and let the magic happen, which has since been boosted across Spark ads.

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What defines a quality media environment

When people trust each other, relationships thrive and you get to create something magic.

This is true amongst talent management, too. People have to want to achieve something for someone else because they truly care.

Transforming the agency

The Fifth Talent was born to give the next generation of "influence" a voice and I want to ensure we continue to work with purposeful talent.

When looking at any talent, I always think: "And, what?" Talent nowadays need to have more substance to their presence and this is something we’re constantly seeking out.

Although I don’t believe our agency will look drastically different in five years' time, I’m looking forward to seeing how our roster grows and becomes stronger, with the projects getting bigger.