Creator-led marketing is relatively new as marketing tactics progress, but quickly mature. Evolving from an era of influencer-fronted product promotions, brands are leveraging the reach and resonance of the creator economy to develop long-term, authentic partnerships and connect with new communities and audiences.
It's now more important than ever to find the right creator partnership, identify talent, predict trends, and stand out in a crowded social media feed. And behind the scenes, AI is helping to make it happen. AI has turned what was largely a “manual process” into more “dynamic and scalable,” says Cristina Lawrence, EVP of consumer and content experience at Razorfish.
Speaking to LBB's ABI Lightfoot, Cristina discusses how AI is changing the infrastructure of its creator economy, its impact on brands and creators, and the importance of maintaining the human element at every stage.
LBB> Before AI became very mainstream, how did agents and brands usually approach creator marketing and identify the type of creator they wanted to collaborate with?
Before AI became mainstream, creator and influencer marketing were primarily manual processes. Creators and influencers were selected by hand based on a variety of data points, including audience lookalics, surface-level demographics, past brand collaborations/partnerships, and extremely large reliance on “human scouts.” These are social people who lived and breathed the channel and would know who and who in terms of cultural relevance. The tools helped hygiene such as reach, engagement, and brand risk, but discovery and casting were still primarily curated by hand. And that human “gut check” is an important part of today's process.
LBB> And how has this changed or evolved as you can now integrate AI into processes?
Cristina>ai has once transformed creator marketing from a manual process into something much more dynamic and scalable. Razorfish leverages tools through both Publicis Groupe partners like AI to leverage AI to recommend creators by attributes such as audience, tone, interest/theme. These platforms help map brand cultural representations to creators who help predict potential engagement along key brand attributes and campaign goals. At that point, consumer-brand safety and brand association are built into the first place.
Meanwhile, native AI features on platforms such as Tiktok (using Symphony with Genai) and YouTube (with automatic dubbing) allow creators and brands to localize and iterate content faster than ever before. Imagine how the content creation process will accelerate as YouTube announced in June that it plans to plug VEO3 directly into YouTube shorts.
Overall, these tools make us faster and help us precisely, but we still need to bring in a human filter and make sure the fit is in the brand and fits the cultural moment.
How accurate is AI in determining the right voice or partner for your LBB> brand? What prompts are provided to it to get the right results?
Cristina>ai helps you find the right voice, but you haven't made the final call.
AI is currently playing a valuable role in creating that important first pass. It brings out creator candidates, including brand tones and other non-negotiable things, where you are about to reach, the right form of engagement, success, etc., brand tones and other non-negotiable things. But that's just the beginning. These recommendations require human validation, including gut checking, cultural sensitivity, creative instincts and taste, and contextual understanding.
Because at the end of the day, genai is often a mirror. The quality of what it gives reflects the clarity, nuance, intention, and, frankly, the refinement we bring to the process. When combined with powerful human judgment and experience, it becomes a powerful tool of accuracy and speed. But to be very clear, it does not replace “thinking.”
LBB>How do you guarantee that the AI system you use is not biased when selecting creators?
Cristina>Reducing bias is about “prompt design”, as well as the “audit output” method. We must be very intentional about giving AI a diverse and inclusive brief. It clearly reflects the brand's voice, values, and the full range of viewers' perspectives we want to express. Equally important is what happens next. You need to interrogate and ask, “Who's missing?”
This is because AI is as imperfect as we do. But unlike us, it is not something to “think.” Recognizes patterns. It reflects that training data, and sometimes it falls outside that data and creates things perfectly. It is with us as marketers to revise courses to know that it can unintentionally replicate bias, whether it is historical norms or platform-based patterns. AI is a powerful collaborator and accelerator, but it hasn't led the way. That's why it's important that humans stay at the centre and build at these checkpoints at every stage.
LBB>In fact, how does AI enhance the way brands identify and collaborate with creators?
Cristina>The most practical upgrade brands are three things: current cast, brand safety and smarter localization. AI and platform machine learning makes it easier to scale what works (for example, Instagram can suggest creators like the looks based on who you work with or admire, so it doesn't start from scratch every time).
In terms of brand safety, platforms like IAS are expanding brand compatibility measurements across Facebook and Instagram feeds and reels, taking into account brand risk tolerance and more. Another example is how Tiktok, Meta and others partner with brand safety platforms such as ZEFR to help brands feel safer by avoiding inappropriate or harmful content. And when it comes to localization, features like YouTube auto-dubbing and Tiktok's Symphony AI Dubbing help brands and creators quickly turn great creatives into multilingual content, keeping their paces up without compromising quality.
LBB>During that time, have creators changed the way they work to adapt to this AI-driven shift?
Cristina>Creators treat AI like a partner, editing, translate and editing versions faster across the platform. Most people seem to use AI to help with clear points within the content creation process. This also helps to avoid losing your perspective. They use these new tools and increase their scale by appearing in more places without burning out. And they are transparent about what has been AI-assisted (to maintain the trust of the audience) and they continue to focus on what makes their voices clear. Again, the AI is not driving here. They use AI to gain a place where they are moving faster without losing who they are.
And as creators leaning towards AI, governance and source are more important than ever. Viewers want to know what is being assisted and what is not. Tiktok currently supports C2PA content credentials to automate content generated by Auto-Label AI from other platforms, and Meta has deployed similar labels across Facebook, Instagram and threads. Our holding company joined the C2PA steering committee in 2023 and worked with industry leaders to build a blueprint for the source and reliability of content. Transparency is not just a matter of compliance, so we lean towards these standards. It's a trusted builder. And in a space where trust encourages engagement, transparency is a true growth lever for both brands and creators.
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