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ORLANDO, Fla.–()–When it comes to effectiveness, Influencer Marketing and Content Marketing drive the most value for brands and agencies compared to all other forms of marketing and advertising investment. These and other findings were announced today in the 2017 “State of the Creator Economy” report, commissioned by IZEA and conducted in partnership with research firms The Right Brain Consumer Consulting, Halverson Group, Lightspeed GMI, and Research Now. To watch a video of the presentation from IZEAFest 2017, visit: http://izea.me/2017SoCEVideo.

The study, now in its seventh year and known previously as “The State of Sponsored Social,” is the industry-leading independent view of both the influencer and content marketing categories from the vantage points of creators, consumers, and marketers.

Key findings from this year’s study include:

• Top in Effectiveness. Content and Influencer Marketing achieved chart-topping Effectiveness Ratings among client and agency marketers studied with year-on-year perceptual gains.
• Increased Spending. A third of Marketers surveyed are now dedicating over $500,000 per year for influencer marketing – up 25% from the previous study. Over half of Marketers surveyed have stand-alone budgets for content marketing, with 29% investing over $500,000 per year.
• Snackable Investments. Marketers’ preferred Influencer and Content Marketing approaches that lean toward “snackable” and visual (infographics/animated imagery/short videos), with notable year-on-year gains in the use of these social media approaches and platforms.
• Regulatory Violations. Pressure from clients to not properly disclose compensation within Influencer Marketing is an industry issue. Nearly 3 in 10 creators indicated that they have received a direct request from a client to not disclose that they were compensated – a violation of FTC and ASC policies.
• Market potential of Content Marketing. Across the 20 popular subjects measured that dominate today’s news feeds, the average U.S. consumer reads 207 articles and visits 398 websites per month — representing over 20 opportunities for content marketing engagement per day.

“Once again, IZEA is to be commended for its leadership investment in an objective nationwide investigation that reveals how Influencer and Content Marketing approaches stack up against traditional advertising techniques,” said Jana O’Brien, Principal at The Right Brain Consumer Consulting. “This year’s study went deeper and broader in sample, scope, and subject matter to more fully explore these disciplines, providing a rich industry resource for insight and understanding.”

This year’s State of the Creator Economy also revealed that the effectiveness of influencer and content marketing was rated by consumers to be equal to or stronger than traditional advertising across the media mix. Of the forty-one marketing message types rated by consumers in the study, only online quality/product ratings, online reviews/articles, and TV commercials were rated as highly as influencer marketing in the findings. Consumers also indicated that content creator credibility, expertise, and respect – plus firsthand consumer product experience – are top message-effectiveness drivers in Influencer Marketing.

“The three-year trends show steady perceptual gains for Influencer Marketing, while at the same time, traditional advertising approaches show a continued flat line or downward effectiveness trend line,” said Ted Murphy, Chairman CEO of IZEA. “We believe this demonstrates an incredible opportunity for brands and creators alike to connect with consumers by developing engaging, sharable content in the years ahead. Content is what is driving results for Marketers.”

A full version of 2017 “State of the Creator Economy” study is available for free download on the Resources section of the IZEA corporate website: http://www.izea.com/resources/.

About IZEA

IZEA operates IZEAx, the premier technology platform that connects marketers with influential content creators. IZEAx automates influencer marketing and custom content development, allowing brands and agencies to scale their marketing programs. IZEA creators range from leading bloggers and social media personalities, to A-list celebrities and professional journalists. Creators are compensated for developing and distributing text, videos, photos and status updates through social media. Marketers receive influential content and engaging, shareable stories that drive awareness. For more information about IZEA, visit www.izea.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based largely on IZEA’s expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond IZEA’s control. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements as a result of, among other factors, competitive conditions in the content and social sponsorship segment in which IZEA operates, failure to popularize one or more of the marketplace platforms of IZEA and changing economic conditions that are less favorable than expected. In light of these risks and uncertainties, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information contained in this respect will in fact occur.

In the nitro-fueled, hyper-paced modern world, digital marketers have to be able to upshift quickly, change lanes without hesitation, and recognize the traffic patterns ahead to avoid delays and setbacks. Because the name of the game in 2017 and beyond is masterful maneuvering, as evidenced by the multiple obstacles, road hazards, and fast-lane opportunities that characterized the digital marketing route many traveled this past year.

Digital marketing today means more than simply advertising and promotion experienced materially through pixels, says Adam Weinroth, CMO of OneSpot, who believes that digital marketing has moved past its adolescence into young adulthood. “The definition has rapidly expanded beyond websites and email to social, immersive experiences, and mobile,” he says, noting that 65% of all digital media time is now spent on mobile, according to comScore’s “U.S Cross-Platform Future in Focus 2016” report. “Now, digital marketing can be anything from an online banner ad to a sponsored Instagram post to long-form content marketing to augmented reality. Digital also is now overtaking linear TV expenditure and rapidly becoming a given, if not central, pillar [of] any marketing strategy.”

In fact, total digital ad spending next year is expected to exceed $77 billion (more than 38% of total ad spending) versus $72 billion for TV ad spending (35.8%), per eMarketer’s quarterly ad spending forecast.

Nowadays, digital marketing is focused more on personal, one-on-one interactions, “a departure from the days of a one-size-fits-all approach,” says Ajay Khanna, VP of product marketing for Reltio. Social media has come to dominate a large portion of digital marketing efforts too.

“Social has become so much more than a discovery tool for consumers,” says Sandra Rand, director of marketing for OrionCKB. “The social channels’ improved algorithms and ad units have been developed to directly underscore advertisers’ need to drive results—this is true bottom-of-the-funnel impact and not just branding and awareness.”

For Christine Rochelle, director of digital marketing and operations for the marketing communications agency Lotus823, “conversion” is the current keyword of significance in this space. “Digital marketers have put such a strong focus on content marketing, visibility, and engagement,” says Rochelle. “Now, the focus has moved to conversions, because digital marketing is no longer the elephant in the room. It is a skill that nearly all marketers must have under their belts in some fashion, from SEO to social media to content.”

The Year in Review

Developments that commanded attention from digital marketers over the past year included a rapid rise and use of chatbots and virtual personal assistants such as Siri, IBM Watson, Bot Engine for Messenger, Cortana, and the recently announced Allo and Google Assistant; the launch of Google’s new Shop the Look AdWords mobile feature; the spread of ad blocking technology; the proliferation of auto-play silent videos; and a greater infusion of Buy buttons and shopping carts within digital ads and content.

Other major developments that shaped 2016 included better integration of brand and lead generation, improved cross-device measurement, and enhanced targeting/addressability. “The ability within and outside of platforms to target lookalikes and connect cookies to identify users is driving significant opportunities for digital marketers,” says Jim Hamilton, managing director at Jellyfish.

Video advertising to achieve direct response goals—not just on Facebook, but across social channels and in search—was a big deal in 2016. “Video has become a staple in most of our clients’ ad strategies. We saw this coming late last year and started pushing for more of it [in] first quarter 2016, and it paid off in spades,” Rand says. In 2016, Facebook reasserted itself as the top digital marketing platform. “It’s the most effective digital advertising tool for nearly every brand and has the most advanced analytics outside of Google Analytics,” Rochelle says.

The increased use of voice search via Google, Cortana, Siri, and Alexa in 2016 also presented problems and possibilities for digital marketers. “Professionals have to adapt and understand this new search capability as it becomes a more prominent fixture within the digital marketing environment,” says Simon Schnieders, founder of Blue Array, who notes that 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, according to Google. “But one key consideration that hasn’t been voiced by publishers is how they can monetize voice search via these devices when the click is essentially removed.”

For Weinroth, three major digital marketing hurdles proved to be particularly problematic during the last 12 months: measuring and proving ROI for digital marketing programs, coping with the real-time pace of digital innovation and deciding which new channels and capabilities to experiment with or invest in more heavily, and keeping his team and organization educated and aligned with the fast-paced cadence of innovation required to be successful.

A Look Ahead

In the coming months, digital marketers will rely more heavily on data to improve ROI and to try to understand what makes customers tick. “Expect more collaborative curation of data across sales, marketing, and support teams, with hyper-personalization driving customer interactions across business functions and reliable customer data being paramount for such engagement,” Khanna says.

A major challenge heading into 2017 is the pace at which consumers expect to interact with companies. “For a brand with a corporate organizational setup, it is very difficult to adjust strategies in real time,” says Rochelle, citing Red Lobster’s slow response to its brand mention in Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance earlier this year as an example. “The solutions that have been emerging are small but mighty: Twitter allows brands to set customer service times on profiles—Facebook can have an instant direct message response to customer service inquiries, and Google Analytics has been expanding solutions to help businesses understand real-time engagement.”

Many believe artificial intelligence (AI) and personalization are two key marketing technology areas that will improve next year. “With AI and machine learning, automation technologies can be made more dynamic, adaptive, and flexible. And when you consider that 35% of Amazon purchases result from its personalized product recommendations and that 75% of titles watched on Netflix come from personalization algorithms, it’s clear that this area of innovation offers significant potential for improved marketing,” Weinroth says.

Schnieders is convinced that major progress in voice search is coming in 2017 and beyond. “But I have genuine concerns with Google and Amazon racing to a future without clear consideration as to how this can also scale for web content producers that often feed answers to these voice search queries,” he says.

In the coming months, Hamilton anticipates a number of enhancements and innovations that will make things easier for digital marketers. “These include integrated attribution modeling built into digital platforms, offline and online integration of B2B and retail, and better cross-channel storytelling,” he says.

Lastly, some anticipate that fans and brands will cut back on the number of digital channels they’re engaging with in 2017. “I’m already developing digital marketing strategies where we focus more on niche fan bases rather than developing a viral story,” says Rochelle. 

Amazon is both a remarkable success story and something of a question mark with its expansion into numerous new areas of business like original content and digital assistants. The brand’s continued diversification of offerings now begs the question of whether it’s appropriate to continue calling it an « e-commerce giant » or to adopt another moniker entirely, like « digital goliath. » 

This question is a particularly important one for marketers because, as Amazon’s triumphs mount, the company may be gearing up for a bigger advertising play. Brands, many of whom previously saw Amazon as a competitor or an important e-commerce distribution channel, might want to join in on that game. If Amazon were able to successfully sell ads across its expanding platform, it might shape up to be a worthy competitor for Google, which derives the vast majority of its revenue from advertising.

Alexa could be the linchpin in Amazon’s plans here, as the technology provides the company with unique first-party data about users — information that is valuable for brands looking to target consumers. Alexa, a significant success that is already expanding into cars with additional touch points likely on the way, also lays the foundation for Amazon to play an important role in voice-driven consumer engagements, an area that is likely to grow as the Internet of Things continues to gain traction. 

“Amazon is already associated with providing everything for everyone, so elasticity is uniquely in their DNA,” Dan Pappalardo, founder and CEO of Troika, told Marketing Dive. “The smile in the Amazon logo symbolizes this idea as it is also an arrow that points from ‘a to z.’ Amazon’s promise of everything for everyone is only enhanced as it adds new products and services to its ecosystem.

« There probably is a limit to how far Amazon can take it, » he added. « But, from a brand point of view, Amazon is well positioned to push those limits.”

In 2014, Troika helped launch Amazon’s first attempt at original content, a kids’ digital video platform, and has continued to work with the digital video group on strategic and creative brand initiatives.

Brand alignment

Amazon started off as an online bookseller and eventually evolved to become an e-commerce giant where consumers can order just about anything online and get it delivered in as fast as a couple of hours. Amazon Web Services is one of the largest global cloud computing providers.

The company is also a major player in artificial intelligence as part of the Partnership on AI along with Google, IBM, Microsoft, Facebook and DeepMind; it’s turned that AI expertise into Alexa, a personal digital assistant powering its Echo and Dot devices, along with third-party hardware. Amazon is even a producer of original video content, some of it award-winning, for Amazon Prime Video. And that just covers the high points of different business areas where the company has a firm foothold and not its many investments in emerging technology, like drones.

Some companies might see their brand equity erode as they expand into non-core areas of business. This hasn’t been the case so far for Amazon, which has deftly kept e-commerce at the center of its efforts by pairing free two-day shipping for orders with access to free Prime video content and giving consumers multiple ways to place orders via Alexa. 

The brand never veers too far away from e-commerce, recognizing the central role shopping plays for U.S. consumers. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is planning to sell its own line of women’s intimate apparel, a move that would put it in competition with Victoria’s Secret. 

Tyler Riddell, director of marketing at eSUB, sees Amazon as a transformational business that is the “hub of post-digital interaction and resources” and is molding customer behavior rather than adapting to market changes.

“Amazon has really been pushing its boundaries with what they can do, » Riddell said. « Did you know that they just patented actual floating warehouses in zeppelins for drone delivery services? C’mon, that is absolutely insane! But that’s the kind of technology we dreamed of as kids for the future.”

One brand to rule them all

One constant across Amazon’s various business interests is the core brand. Its cloud service is Amazon Web Services, its hardware devices are Amazon Kindle and Amazon Echo, its original video can be found on the Amazon Prime Video streaming service.

The Amazon name ultimately remains the glue between each of these different parts, a common enough branding strategy. What is more unusual is how quickly Amazon has been able to launch and build new businesses like original content — Amazon Studios was launched in 2010 — and Echo, which was introduced in late 2014.  

“It’s a modern Masterbrand,” explained Pappalardo. “Amazon applies a traditional endorsement strategy, leveraging the equity of the Amazon name across new lines of business. What’s remarkable, though, is the speed of growth and adoption for Amazon illustrates how quickly consumers accept brand endorsement from today’s tech-based companies, even when they might be stretching far beyond the brand’s core business.”

Businesses such as iTunes, Waymo and Amazon’s original series “Transparent » all exemplify the accelerated model for new business growth in the digital era.

“The Masterbrand was afforded incredible elasticity in each of these cases: a computer maker embraced as an online record store, a search engine as a car marker and an online retailer as a TV network, » said Pappalardo. »It’s as if we believe that tech brands are magical and perfectly capable of transforming at will.” 

A clash of the titans?

In some ways, Amazon is similar to Google’s parent company Alphabet. In fact, Google created Alphabet to give its core brand distance from some of the more esoteric “moon shot” technology it was investing in and to keep Google focused on search, advertising and consumer technology like Gmail and Google Maps.

Amazon has taken a different route, keeping its core brand front and center, but its business areas are beginning to overlap with Google more. Right now the two are both major RD investors in artificial intelligence and each have hardware in the home digital assistant space — Echo, Dot and other Alexa-powered devices for Amazon and Google Home for Google.

Riddell thinks a race for which big brand is most technologically advanced is looming.

With this in mind, Amazon could become more of a tech company than an e-commerce company because its innovative technological advances are putting it on a playing field alongside Google and Apple, per the executive. 

Amazon’s Prime membership model could be the key to the company’s future because it brings consumers into Amazon’s “massive commercial ecosystem” and keeps them there with the trade-off of membership benefits in exchange for captive consumption, according to Pappalardo. 

“Let me tell you something, there is going to be mass competition in the tech world,” Riddell said. “These big companies such as Google, Amazon, and Apple are constantly trying to come up with innovative and trendy technologies. As far as marketing goes, marketers need to adapt for a more post-digital, collaborative consumption. In other words, an IoT-friendly marketing world.”

Saturday Night Live got political again this week with several sketches lampooning members of the Trump administration, featuring Melissa McCarthy and Alec Baldwin reprising their roles as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Donald Trump, respectively.

After her much-talked-about debut as Spicer last Saturday, McCarthy delivered a performance that arguably beat the original. And Alec Baldwin returned for hosting duties — his record 17th time, more than anyone else in the 42-year history of the sketch comedy staple.

In the show’s cold open, which you can watch in the video above, the SNL producers answered the prayers of McCarthy fans. Setting the scene at a White House press briefing, « Spicey » was back at the presidential podium.

« I’m calm now and I will remain calm, » Spicer says. « This is a new Spicey! » McCarthy’s Spicer pulls out a gigantic piece of gum, unwraps it, rolls it up and uses both hands to stuff it into his mouth, laboriously chewing.

When asked by a reporter about President Trump’s plans now that an appeals court has put his travel ban on hold, Spicer dismisses the question, soon afterward saying, « Don’t eff with me, Glenn! » to the New York Times‘ Glenn Thrush (Bobby Moynihan).

In a dig at what some Trump critics call an underlying racism behind some policies, Spicer pulls out dolls to demonstrate how « extreme vetting » of refugees and travelers would work.

Showing a Barbie, symbolic of a « nice American girl, » Spicer says, « We know she’s OK because she’s blonde. » Then out comes Moana, a black doll. « Uh oh, » says McCarthy’s Spicer, « slow your roll, honey. » The TSA doll pats Moana down. « And then we’re going to read her emails and if we don’t like the answers — which we won’t — boom, Guantanamo Bay! »

Spicer lists the terrorist attacks that the media « never even write about, » including « the Bowling Green massacre — OK not the Kellyanne one, the real one! … The slaughter at Fraggle Rock! »

McCarthy’s Spicer objects to a reporter questioning his statistics after he comments on the murder rate in Chicago, saying, « Eighty percent of the people in Chicago have been murdered. » Spicer pulls out a leaf blower to blast at a reporter. Before making a getaway on a motorized podium, he remarks, « That was me just blowing away their dishonesty. »

Baldwin’s return to hosting

The New York audience greeted host Alec Baldwin with resounding fanfare as he returned to center stage for his monologue. In his opening comments, the 58-year-old actor took cast member Pete Davidson on a trip down memory lane as the show flashed back to April 21, 1990, for his very first time as host. « I can’t believe that’s you, I mean you were so handsome, » Davidson says. « You should have been in movies. »

« I’ve been in movies, » countered Baldwin, adding that he has a new one coming out.

« That’s animation so they can’t see you, very smart, » Davidson says.

Baldwin even reflected on the classic NPR parody, « The Delicious Dish, » where he introduced his character Pete’s « Schweddy balls » to the NPR ladies.

In the next sketch to take a dig at the Trump administration, Kate McKinnon, who seems to be playing everyone these days, portrayed Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway in a dark Fatal Attraction-like presentation. In a sketch, McKinnon’s Conway is a psychotic stalker, showing up in the home of CNN anchor Jake Tapper (Beck Bennett), clad in lingerie and threatening him with a knife in order to be back on TV again.

CNN reportedly declined to have Conway as a guest over concerns of her « credibility. »

Putin, Sessions mocked as well

The regular « Weekend Update » news segment, hosted by Colin Jost and Michael Che, started with a barrage of jokes about the Trump administration’s controversies of the week.

In one barb, Colin Jost says that the country has sworn in « our new Confederate general — sorry, attorney general, » in Jeff Sessions.

In a 1986 letter that gained new attention thanks to Sen. Elizabeth Warren last week, Coretta Scott King said Sessions used « the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens. » During « Weekend Update, » Kate McKinnon was back — yes, again — as Elizabeth Warren.

Around 12:30 a.m., Baldwin finally reprised his Donald Trump character on a sketch of The People’s Court. It was Trump against three federal judges who ruled against him over the travel ban. « I want the ban reinstated, also I want $725! » he says.

When time comes to call a character witness, Donald Trump Jr. begins to stand, only for a shirtless Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennett) to burst through the door. « He’s an amazing person, he knows me better than anymore, » Putin says of Trump.

The final Trump reference was a video featuring Leslie Jones, an African-American woman, trying her skills impersonating Donald Trump, only for show head Lorne Michaels to tell her it’s a no-go.

Thanks in part to the show’s skewering of Trump, NBC says SNL is getting an average of 7.4 million viewers for each episode, and reaching the show’s biggest audience in 22 years.

Travel Noire, a tour operator and publication targeting black travelers, released a short film last week that takes their digital marketing to a new level.

The five-minute video titled 1944 features a fictional letter — inspired by what a Tuskegee Airman could have said to his young child — read aloud over footage from various TN Experiences trips. The letter remarks on the difficulty of becoming one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military aviators in the U.S., during the segregated Jim Crow era.

1944 draws a correlation between the Tuskegee Airmen, who broke the color barrier in their field during WWII and traveled internationally during their military service, and the contemporary Black Travel Movement, in which black millennials disprove the stereotype that black people don’t travel, or perhaps only travel infrequently to Miami or Las Vegas.

The video’s narrator says, “I saw things I never knew existed and I heard beautiful languages that inspired me… traveling the world is what kept me going.” The video concludes by saying, “You are your ancestors’ wildest dreams. Honor that legacy by going farther than those before you… you belong anywhere. You belong everywhere.”

This film came out in a timely fashion, both during Black History Month and an unprecedented national conversation about who’s free to travel internationally in the wake of President Trump’s travel ban, which targeted seven Muslim-majority countries. About the film’s broader purpose, Travel Noire CEO Zim Ugochukwu said, “We should never forget who we’ve always wanted to be. And that we stand on the shoulders of giants.”

Marketing Risks

Travel marketing isn’t just getting more sophisticated — in the Trump era, it’s getting political, and that may be the new normal. Airbnb ran a Super Bowl ad last week calling for multicultural acceptance. Airbnb’s CEO came out publicly against Trump’s travel ban, in addition to the CEOs of Expedia, TripAdvisor, and many others. Notable black-run travel companies including Black Abroad and Innclusive also issued statements of concern about the ban. In the non-political arena, last year NBTC Holland Marketing released a 17-minute film that relied on storytelling to inspire potential visitors.

Many leaders in the Black Travel Movement excel at producing sexy, powerful photos for Instagram, which strengthens their brands and attracts new followers. Now, in the age of Black Lives Matter, which is already five years old, the next level of digital marketing may include political activism and historical awareness on top of compelling storytelling.

Watch Travel Noire’s 1944 here.