The global influencer marketing market is expected to reach a record $33bn in 2025, having already tripled in size since 2025. Major players are doubling down: Unilever’s new CEO, Fernando Fernandez, recently announced that the company will be allocating 50% of its total media spend to social channels, while partnering with 20 times more creators than before.

There are plenty of signals indicating that this change in strategy makes sense – audiences are spending more time with content creators than traditional celebrities, with 56% of Gen Z and 43% of Millennials stating that social media content felt more relevant than traditional content. However, faced with a rapidly evolving market containing seemingly contradictory trends – such as the rise of de-influencing, whereby influencers advise their followers not to buy products or follow certain trends – how can brands successfully navigate the influencer marketing landscape?

The Content Consumption Puzzle

Gen Z and Millennials reportedly spend around 6 hours a day engaging with media and entertainment content across a variety of mediums including TV, social platforms, gaming, music, and podcasts. This fragmented landscape can make it difficult for brands to know where to focus their efforts to meaningfully connect with their target audiences, and so it becomes increasingly important to understand not only where the audience is, but how they’re engaging with different platforms and why.

The Opportunities and Challenges of Influencer Marketing

Our research shows that Gen Z and Millennial audiences are most likely to be found using WhatsApp (59%), YouTube (56%), Facebook (57%), Instagram (56%, and TikTok (48%) and they’re most likely to be looking for content that is ‘exciting’ (16%) and ‘authentic’ (14%). Influencer content is a major pull for these platforms, with half of Gen Z and Millennials claiming they feel a stronger personal connection to social media creators than they do to traditional celebrities, signalling a rise in modern parasocial relationships – one-sided but emotionally significant connections between viewers and creators.

But trust in these platforms varies – only 31% of respondents chose Instagram as the platform that had the most trustworthy content, falling to 27% for TikTok.

This represents another challenge for brands to overcome – although influencers are recognised for their ability to make authentic connections with their audiences, increasingly commercialising this environment can put that authenticity at risk.

For this reason, brands should consider partnering with nano and micro-influencers who have smaller, but more engaged, audiences. Our research shows that 46% of Gen Z and Millennials are more likely to trust content from social media accounts with between 1 – 100k followers, falling sharply to just 11% for accounts with over 1m followers.

What Makes Content Feel Authentic?

To avoid over-commercialisation, brands need to understand what kind of content audiences want to see, and what makes content feel authentic to them. Rather than viewing a stream of posts endlessly plugging products, our research shows that Gen Z and Millennials want to see creators responding to their followers (32%), hosting live streams (27%), and speaking out about current affairs (27%).

Partnering with Purpose

The influencer marketing landscape is evolving, but the key to success remains the same – authenticity and strategic partnerships. Through audience research, brands can:

• Identify the influencers that truly connect with their target audience
• Pinpoint the platforms where their audience is most engaged
• Understand what content styles feel genuine and resonate

When brands truly understand their audiences – their motivations, preferences, and digital behaviours – they can brief influencers to deliver key messages without compromising their creative freedom.

Want to connect more meaningfully with your audience through influencer marketing? Get in touch with us today to see how our expert research methods can help you successfully leverage the ever-growing power of the influencer marketing landscape.