The creator is not a media placement: they are a strategic asset.

For years, the communications industry has talked about “mature influencer marketing.” But what does maturity actually mean when most brands still treat creators as advertising inventory to be bought campaign by campaign? On April 28, 2026, in Room 400 at the University of Pavia, Paola Nannelli – Global CEO of Pulse Advertising, a social media and influencer marketing agency with more than 125 professionals across 10 offices in London, Milan, New York, Dubai, and Shanghai — presented data and operational frameworks that leave little room for comforting interpretations.

The market: where we really stand

Global social commerce reached $2 trillion in 2025. According to projections by Research & Markets, it is expected to grow to $8.5 trillion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 26%. This is not a linear evolution: it is a restructuring of how people discover, evaluate, and purchase products.

The statistic that truly shifts established assumptions comes from user behavior. According to the Sprout Social Q2 2025 Pulse Survey, conducted among 2,280 users across the US, UK, and Australia, 41% of Gen Z users now begin their searches on social media before using a traditional search engine, compared to 32% who still prefer Google as their primary source of information. The crossover has already happened. This is not a trend: it is a redefinition of the discovery infrastructure.

On the ecosystem side, DataReportal recorded 5.35 billion active social media users in February 2025; the updated figure for April 2026 has risen to 5.79 billion, representing more than 69% of the world’s population. The average user accesses 6.5 different platforms each month.

Regarding the creator economy, the IAB/PwC 2025 Internet Advertising Revenue Report (published in April 2026) estimated direct US advertising spend in creator advertising at $37 billion in 2025, with projections reaching $44 billion in 2026. This growth is four times faster than the overall advertising market. IAB explicitly defines creator marketing as a “core media channel,” no longer an ancillary category.

The structural problem: the brief-post-pay model

In the analysis presented to students at the University of Pavia — based on operational experience across multiple international markets — Pulse Advertising identified three systemic breaking points in the way most brands manage creator partnerships.

First: transactionality. The dominant model is still: brief → content → payment → end. No narrative continuity, no deep integration with the brand. Audiences perceive the message as disconnected and external.

Second: scripting. The brand speaks, the creator repeats. The result is content that feels forced because it is forced. Pulse’s research reports that 68% of consumers express frustration with sponsored content: a clear signal that the market is not receiving enough value from simple exposure.

Third: partial measurement. Conversion is the only metric considered. Brand building, cultural credibility, and community are all sacrificed for the click. This approach fundamentally underestimates the creator’s long-term value as a strategic asset.

The operational framework: 5 strategic roles

Looking ahead, even the roles within influencer marketing are likely to be redefined. New professional profiles will probably emerge, each with specific objectives and responsibilities:

1. Commerce Driver
   The creator as a purchase accelerator: native content, TikTok Shop, affiliate marketing. The objective is to shorten the funnel, transforming inspiration into transaction. The most cited case study: e.l.f. Cosmetics shifted 34% of its marketing budget toward creator-led content, reaching the number one position in brand awareness among Gen Z consumers in the US.
2. Brand Ambassador
   The long-term face of the brand, integrated into campaigns, events, and multi-season storytelling. Pulse recommends moving from one-off campaigns to 6–12 month partnerships, with real access to brand assets (product launches, events, store openings), not just press kit deliveries.
3. Creative Director
   The creator as co-author of brand identity. The example discussed during the lecture was the Google × Alex Cooper partnership: Google did not hire Cooper simply to appear in an advertisement, but integrated the entire product ecosystem into the real workflow of her company. The Pixel 10 ad “Get Lost” was conceived, written, and produced by Cooper and her agency. Three layers of collaboration, a multi-year agreement, and no traditional sponsorship model.
4. Community Builder
   Creators do not have followers; they have communities. Peloton built its strategy on this same principle: treating instructors as creators with distinct personal brands, styles, and audiences generated a self-sustaining community (more than 475,000 members in the Facebook group alone, with 91% of search traffic driven by organic, community-led discovery).
5. Cultural Consultant
   Creators live within subcultures that brands cannot effectively access through traditional marketing tools. Their value is not posting a product: it is helping brands understand the unwritten rules of a cultural space before entering it. Cultural credibility must be built before the campaign begins. Brands that attempt to monetize a subculture before earning its trust are rejected.

The variable that separates these results from average market performance is not budget. As Nannelli stated: “It’s the structure: creators treated as strategic assets within an always-on logic, not as media inventory purchased for individual campaigns.”

MiRò’s perspective

The work of MiRò Comunicazione sits precisely on this boundary: between visibility that is generated and visibility that is strategically built over time. Paola Nannelli’s lecture at the University of Pavia confirms what we observe daily in our work with clients: the difference between a communication strategy that creates value and one that simply produces reports lies in the ability to understand the system and in the courage to propose approaches that are not measured solely through AVE.

The market has shifted. For those working in strategic communication today, the real question is no longer “How many followers does this creator have?” but rather “What function can this creator perform within the client’s brand architecture?”