The week
in evidence.
Five things worth knowing this week.
We read 979 industry articles this month. 671 said influencer marketing worked; 47 mentioned how they knew. We are still deciding what to make of that.
Gymshark sued in class action over undisclosed paid endorsements
Lupea v. Gymshark USA was filed in New York on 16 June, alleging paid fitness creators posted authentic-seeming endorsements without disclosing the relationship. Whatever the outcome, it is a good week to check what your creators are putting in their captions.
The EU is coming for influencer marketing properly
The Digital Fairness Act, which the EU Consumer Protection Commissioner calls the most significant consumer legislation in 15 to 20 years, will target influencer promotion of weight-loss jabs and cosmetic surgery first. Worth reading now rather than when it lands.
Someone finally put real numbers behind creator ads
System1, WPP Media and TikTok studied 1,217 paid ads, 620 of them creator-led, across 23.6 billion impressions in eight markets. Their finding is that the metric that matters is brand memory, not engagement rate. It is free, and it is better evidence than most of us have.
Gymshark again, for better reasons
Their creator pipeline runs in three tiers (seeding, then ambassador, then athlete), and they scout creators rather than take applications. If you are building a programme from scratch, it is a structure you can steal.
Unilever now runs 300,000 creators
Up from 10,000, across 190 countries. Speaking at Cannes, their team said they have automated everything except the relationship itself.