Kantar: 73% plan more creator spending; 29% trust impact measurement

Research firm Kantar found that 73% of marketers intend to increase their spending on content creators, while only 29% feel confident in their ability to measure the impact of this spending. This gap is backed by a review of 15,000 content assets in 2026, which concluded that engagement aligned with brand impact in about one out of every three cases, meaning that views, likes, and shares alone do not prove brand building.

In an analysis conducted by Kantar with Whalar across 101 creator assets, 62% achieved short-term results along with fair long-term brand equity, compared to 27% for the company's usual digital advertising benchmarks. This comes at a time when creator content has become among the fastest-growing touchpoints in brand impact since 2022, rising by nearly 77%, compared to an average growth of about 4% across 20 key touchpoints.

The analysis revealed that the strongest-performing assets featured a direct call-to-action to purchase, delivering the highest short-term results and the highest value on the long-term brand scale. Instagram tends to drive brand building, while TikTok tends to drive engagement through storytelling, though Kantar warns against treating this division as a fixed rule. Hani, Creative Solutions Lead at Kantar Indonesia, said: "Engagement remains a useful signal, but it is not enough as a sole measure of success."

Kantar's recommendations coalesced around four principles: giving the product a meaningful role rather than a fleeting appearance, turning promises into visual proof through demonstration, testing, and comparison, grounding content in authenticity supported by the product's reality, and adding a call-to-action once a reason to try is established. The global creator economy is projected to reach $376 billion by 2030, figures that mean organizations increasing their creator spending must build measurement tools that keep pace with that spending rather than playing catch-up.

What Do These Terms Mean?

Creator Economy: The sector built around the content of individual influencers, their platforms, and associated sponsorship and advertising deals.

Impact Measurement: Determining the actual outcome of ad spend on sales or brand image, rather than relying solely on engagement numbers.

Engagement Metrics: Signals such as likes, views, and shares that measure audience attention and are insufficient on their own to measure impact.

Brand Equity: The cumulative value of a brand's image in the audience's mind resulting from repeated exposure, which manifests over the long term.