Two Trade Groups Decide That Influencer Marketing Has Grown Up Enough to Need a Framework

The British advertising industry has long believed that if something is worth doing, it is worth forming a committee to measure it, and now it appears that influencer marketing has reached that particular threshold of respectability.

ISBA, the trade body that represents major British advertisers, and the Influencer Marketing Trade Body have announced a formal partnership to develop standardized measurement for creator marketing — the sort of framework that suggests an industry has moved from its adolescent phase of breathless growth into something more closely resembling adulthood.

The partnership will focus on what the organizations describe as four areas: effectiveness and trust, responsible marketing practices (particularly as artificial intelligence begins generating its own influencers), transparency in payment and procurement, and the development of skills for members of both groups. The work will proceed through ISBA's Creator Marketing Forum and IMTB's member forums, in what has become the traditional British approach to industry self-regulation.

The collaboration is not entirely new. The two bodies already share ownership of an Influencer Marketing Code of Conduct, which carries government backing and counts HSBC, John Lewis and Asda among its signatories. (Whether the average consumer scrolling past a sponsored post has ever consulted this code is perhaps a question for another framework.)

"Advertisers who are increasing their investment in creators want to measure their reach and return," said Simon Michaelides, director general of ISBA, who called the partnership a "direct reflection of the growing importance to brands of creator marketing."

Mr. Guthrie of IMTB noted that the British influencer marketing sector has been growing at 28 percent year-on-year, which he said "demands robust scaffolding."

The announcement arrives amid a broader effort to professionalize the creator economy in Britain. The IAB UK recently introduced a 90-minute qualification program for creators, endorsed by both ISBA and the Advertising Association, designed to demonstrate knowledge of responsible marketing practices.

One suspects the Ramones never needed a certificate to play CBGB, but then again, no one was paying them to hold up a soft drink.

Original story published in Marketing Week: "ISBA and Influencer Marketing Trade Body ink partnership"