Influence without silos: why maturity is the real shift

What’s your take on the state of influencer marketing in France?  

Europe, and France specifically, has helped generate a more premium and structured approach to influencer marketing. Brands are now much more conscious about how influencer marketing is run. When we speak with international clients, one of the things we emphasise is brand safety. Ethical and responsible influence is something that really comes out of France, it’s been pushed hard here.

In many markets like the Middle-East, Asia, Africa or the Americas it can feel a bit like the Wild West. France reacted firmly, perhaps even overreacted at first, but it structured the market. That structure is now a real asset.

More broadly, when brands enter a new market, simply adapting brand banners isn’t enough. Banners don’t generate conversation. Creators are the link that helps localise a brand, they bring culture into the message. Instead of wondering whether a centralised media message will work in a specific country, influencers help you connect locally. That’s why they’re such a powerful way to run international campaigns.

Some say France is too regulated. Do you agree? Does transparency reduce performance?

It’s a good question. Yes, at some point France may have gone a little too far, even the European Commission suggested that. But perhaps that was a reaction to what happened initially. Some influencers pushed things too far, and then politicians reacted strongly, possibly also for political reasons.

Am I nervous about more regulation at EU level? No. If I were nervous, it would mean I don’t believe in the industry. The final judge is always the consumer. If consumers lose trust, then we have a problem.

Today, audiences appreciate transparency. At the beginning, influencers were worried that labelling partnerships would hurt engagement. Now it’s normal. People understand how influencer marketing works. Transparency actually encourages creators to stand behind what they promote and to do proper research. There’s a natural selection happening between creators who constantly push promotions and those who genuinely stand for something.

A mature creator economy actually gives brands more communication options instead of relying solely on platforms like Google or Meta.

What are the key influencer marketing trends that will define the year ahead?

The main trend is maturity. Companies aren’t just “trying” influencer marketing anymore, they’re doing it more strategically.

Video has been key for 10 years. What’s changing is the pressure on brands to convert. Some brands are very sales-driven at the moment, particularly with TikTok Shop pushing further down the funnel.

But companies still need to balance performance with long-term brand building, staying top of mind and creating preference.

UGC is one of the trends. We encourage brands not to rely only on one or two top influencers, but to think in terms of social proof. People need multiple touchpoints. A UGC campaign allows brands to generate ongoing content that integrates into the user journey.

Today, consumers might discover a product on TikTok, verify it on Instagram, and purchase elsewhere. Influencer and UGC content supports SEO, search visibility and now even AI-driven “answer engines”. The more authentic content exists around your brand, the more legitimate you appear, both to consumers and, increasingly, to AI systems.

There are few different definitions of UGC floating around. How do you define it?

UGC is characterised by two very simple things.

First, by definition, it’s user-generated content. That means it’s not a major influencer with a large audience, it’s smaller creators or even everyday users producing content.

Second, because it’s user-generated, it’s usually less heavily briefed. It feels more natural, more authentic. There isn’t a rigid brand script behind it. It’s not overly polished or pushed. That’s exactly where the value lies.

What you do with that content is another question entirely, that becomes strategy. You still need to think about the funnel. Awareness, consideration, conversion, those stages haven’t disappeared. UGC can play a role at each level, but you need to position it correctly.

If someone discovers your product on TikTok, they may look for validation elsewhere. UGC supports that validation process. It helps confirm legitimacy. 

There’s also an important SEO and AI dimension. Increasingly, search and answer engines analyse semantic signals, trends, video content. The more authentic conversations and content exist around your brand, the stronger your positioning becomes, not just for people, but for algorithms as well.

UGC isn’t just “cheap influencer marketing”. It’s about generating distributed, credible social proof at scale. But like everything else, it only works properly if it’s integrated into a broader strategic framework.

How should brands think about integrating influence more strategically into the marketing mix?

The problem is that influencer marketing is often treated as a silo. There’s a separate team, a separate budget, and it runs independently from PR, media, SEO or events. But that doesn’t reflect how communication actually works.

At our agency, we handle social media, PR, SEO, partnerships, content, paid media and events. So when a brand comes to us, we don’t start by asking which influencer they want. We start by asking what their business looks like.

For example, if a brand is running a big TV campaign with heavy investment for two months, but then nothing happens before or after, that’s a missed opportunity. Influencer activity could sustain pressure around that campaign window, create an influencer event, create teaser posts or provide exclusive behind-the scenes into the campaign making and thus keep the brand present in conversation.

If the PR team is organising a product launch event or an anniversary event, have they thought about how influencers can create content around it? Not just attend, but produce material that lives beyond the event, content for social, for the website, maybe even for paid amplification.

And importantly, journalists and influencers don’t necessarily need the same experience. Journalists may need technical detail. Influencers may need something more visual or experiential. So integration doesn’t mean mixing everything together blindly, it means designing different layers with different objectives.

Influencer marketing shouldn’t just be transactional. It’s not just buying a post. It should reinforce other activities across the funnel, upper, middle and lower stages.

That also means measurement needs to be integrated. Attribution is complex, but there are tools: affiliate links, voucher codes, traffic signals, assisted conversions. Influence can support brand awareness, preference building and performance at the same time.

The key is to think in ecosystems, not silos.

And there’s also the operational side. Managing 50 creators is more complex than buying one TV campaign. That’s where agencies add value, by reducing complexity, handling contracts, validation, reporting, and making sure everything connects properly to the broader marketing architecture.