Boon: How Creator Economy, Influencer Marketing are Transforming Media landscape

Recently, Expressions Influencer Agency, an offshoot of EXP Agency Group organised a conference in Lagos where clients and content creators brainstormed on evolving trends in the media landscape and its effect on traditional media and Africa’s future. CEO of Expressions Influencer Agency, David Boon, in an exclusive chat with Oluchi Chibuzor, emphasised the imperative of adapting to the new media reality or face setbacks. Excerpts

We would like to start by asking you what critical factors underscored your decision to launch the new content creation conference and platform. What do you hope to achieve?

The decision to launch the Media Shift: Nigeria – Live was driven by a fundamental shift in the media landscape. We are seeing a clear and sustained move of media spend by brands towards digital and social platforms, where they are delivering stronger, more measurable returns on investment. This is not a trend—it is a structural shift in how brands engage audiences for a better return on their investment. As an agency group that focuses on consumer engagement, we believe it is critical not only to respond to this change, but to lead it across our markets in Africa.

The purpose of the platform is therefore twofold: Firstly, it is about education and alignment—bringing brands and creators together to better understand how influencer marketing can be executed with greater intent, strategy, and accountability.

Secondly, it is about raising the standard of the category. Too much of what exists in the market today is still driven by vanity metrics. Our objective is to shift the focus towards performance-led campaigns—where success is defined by meaningful engagement, measurable outcomes, and the ability to consistently outperform benchmarks and drive performance that matters, performance that has an impact on the Brand.

Ultimately, the Media Shift event is designed to help shape a more mature, effective, and results-driven media of influence ecosystem in Nigeria.

The conference had the theme, ‘Winning With Influence’! Can you expatiate further on this bearing in mind that there are not much legacy systems to cite?

“Winning With Influence” speaks to a shift away from using influencer marketing purely for reach, and towards using it as a performance-driven channel that delivers measurable business outcomes.

What we already have is platform and process 10+ years old from our partner, and with this a growing body of proven results that clearly demonstrates its effectiveness when executed strategically.

For example, our partner, with over a decade of experience in influencer marketing, has successfully delivered end-to-end campaigns at scale—completing 568 campaigns in the year ended June 2025, with 96 percent outperforming goals / benchmarks. These outcomes were not driven by scale alone, but by smart campaigns that resulted in results that had a direct impact on the brand, together with improved efficiency across key metrics (CTM; CPC; etc.)

At Expressions, we are seeing similar results. In our first year of operation, the campaigns we have executed across the continent have all consistently exceeded performance targets and benchmarks, delivering strong return on investment for our clients.

So, “Winning with Influence” is ultimately about moving the brand from visibility to value. It is about applying the right strategy, the right mix of creators, and the right measurement frameworks to ensure that influencer marketing is not just impactful, but accountable and results-driven.

What will be your major takeaways from the day’s event?

Our objective was to open the conversation around the media of influence. So, in other words, the role of influencer marketing in today’s media and how it is showing that brands are getting a better return on investment from influencer marketing that is done correctly – performance and not reach.

It doesn’t say that other mediums aren’t working anymore. It’s just a matter of how do you get the right mix to ensure that you get the best return on investment from your spend and when you see companies like Unilever allocating 50 per cent of their media budget to social and influencer marketing and WPP Media’s global ad forecast showing that more than 50 percent of content-driven ad-dollars are flowing into creator platforms and not traditional media, it tells you something.

I think we achieved that today. I think there were healthy discussions, healthy conversations around everything that was presented and I think we’ve also shown, as an agency, how we can be of benefit to both clients and creators through our data-driven and analytical approach to influencer marketing – both in being smart and in measuring what is done. If we can show results and we can show clients and creators that we can help them achieve more, I think everybody wins. So it was healthy. It was good.

Expressions Influencer Agency is part of a group with operations across Africa. Are you going to be launching the new business and conference in the other markets or this is specifically designed for the Nigerian market?

Expressions Influencer Agency forms part of Exp Group, one of Africa’s largest wholly owned agency networks, with a presence across Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana. With over 44 years of experience, our footprint across the continent is both established and deeply rooted in delivering impactful brand experiences.

Our long-standing strategic approach, Live+ consumer engagement, is centered on amplifying live brand engagements beyond the physical event—extending reach, driving relevance, and creating sustained consumer impact. Expressions is a natural evolution of this strategy, which we define as Live+Influence and it is therefore fully integrated into our broader group vision.

We launched Expressions across all six markets in the second half of 2025, and our intention is to continue building both the business and the associated thought leadership platforms across key regions. The Media Shift series, starting with Nigeria, is not a market-specific in ambition—it is designed as a continental platform through which we lead industry thinking, shape the category, and help brands better understand how to maximise value from their influencer marketing investments.  Thought leadership is something we have successfully done on the experiential side of the business for many years and we take pride in leading the categories we operate in.

Influencer marketing, or what we refer to as the “media of influence,” is no longer optional—it is fundamental to how brands engage modern audiences. However, effectiveness today is not driven by scale alone. The future lies in curated, strategic influencer ecosystems—leveraging the right mix of nano, micro, and macro influencers—carefully vetted and aligned to brand objectives to drive meaningful engagement and measurable action and it is this that we are delivering as Expressions agency.

The next growth phase of the brand and content creation sector is being driven by technology, innovation and creativity. Trends in the content creation space and Information Technology sector in general are fast-paced. How do you think content creators can keep up with new and emerging technologies and innovations in order to meet consumers’ needs, especially in Nigeria?

Content creators in Nigeria—and across Africa more broadly—are not just keeping pace with change; they are leading it. They have proven that influence, when applied with precision and authenticity, can deliver far more impactful results than traditional, broad-reach approaches.

What sets the most successful creators apart is not simply access to technology, but how effectively they apply it. Technology will continue to evolve—whether through AI-driven content tools, platform innovations, or enhanced analytics—but it’s true value lies in enabling agencies like Expressions to better understand the Creators’ audiences and deliver more relevant, engaging content that is then amplified to a wider hyper-target audience, beyond just the reach of the influencers followers.

To keep up, creators need to adopt a mindset of continuous learning, experimentation and accountability. This means staying close to and understanding platform developments, leveraging data and insights to shape content decisions, and embracing new tools that improve efficiency and overall campaign management and performance. It is equally important, however, that they remain grounded in authenticity, as that is ultimately what drives trust and engagement with audiences.

In a market like Nigeria, where digital adoption and cultural influence are both incredibly strong, the opportunity is significant. Creators who can combine cultural relevance, strategic use of technology, and a clear understanding of brand objectives will continue to lead the next phase of growth in the media of influence and they will earn good money from it.

The new platform your organization just launched is undoubtedly a remarkable intervention in the media of influence. Are there other areas of need in the media marketing landscape that EXP Group has identified and plans to intervene in the near future?

Expressions Influencer Agency sits within what is one of the fastest-growing media shifts globally.

While the media of influence is growing rapidly, many brands still lack the tools, frameworks, and benchmarks required to accurately measure performance and attribute real business impact.

Expressions Agency has partnered with a leading agency and international platform with years of experience, giving us robust measurement models, data-led insights, and performance frameworks that enable brands to optimise campaigns and clearly understand their return on investment.

Ultimately, the future of media will not just be driven by where brands spend or by needing to have big influencers with big reach, but by how smart they will be in driving content for the right action and how effectively they can measure, optimise, and scale that investment—and that is where we see a significant role for Expressions Agency in shaping the category going forward.

In the media and communication space, we often hear the maxim – Content Is Everything. Does that axiom still hold true?

They say content is king and it does still hold its weight, but the shift is now in content from creators rather than advertising agencies alone.

Okay! Expressions Influential Agency is a new business under the EXP Group. As a pioneer CEO, can you give us an insight as to the goals you have set for yourself in the next five years?

We’re a year old – yesterday (July 1//), it was our one year anniversary from when we launched Expressions. The goal of entering this category was that even we as an agency need to evolve with the times. I think as you know EXP is an agency that’s come from an experiential marketing background. We pride ourselves in being able to connect consumers to brands, whether that be live or in a digital space. Our whole goal of entering this influencer marketing industry was because it’s clear that this is the future. And it’s a good component / addition to what we already offer as our Live+ strategy to consumer engagement. What is Live+? We execute the live brand experience and then we look to see how to amplify or leverage this, whether that is pre-event, during event, or post-event.  Influencer marketing compliments this as Live+Influence and it’s a powerful combination! We’ve already done a number of campaigns where the influencers are at our events. They’re creating content from our events. They’re putting that content on their platforms. Our technology then analyzes the content. It helps boost the content so it reaches a wider audience. And the winner is the brand as it has an integration of on-line and off-line tracking, combining your Live+Influence activities as one seamless campaign.

So, our goal was to bring world-class technology from our partners – Webfluential, Nfinity Influencer, The SALT –to our clients across the rest of the continent, and to offer them an opportunity to get a better return on investment from their campaigns.

Looking down five to 10 years down the line, what do you envisage will be the media influencer situation in Nigeria? Do you think content creation and media influence marketing would become key GDP contributors to the African economy?

Yes, without a doubt.

Do you see the traditional media, particularly radio and television, going into extinction as a result of preference for social media and influencer marketing?

I was also asked this question at our Ghana event yesterday.

Everything’s got its purpose. I think what you’ve seen, though, is that the way the world has moved with digital – with the telephone that you’re holding in your hand that has completely changed the way we engage, the way we see information, the way we experience things – it unlocked this new media.

Everyone needs to adapt. I have heard of big TV corporations that have seen substantial reduction in their advertising spend. What can they do about this? That’s not for me to say but fort them to evaluate how they remain relevant.

As a medium, we love television. It’s entertaining. It gives us our sport. It gives us our movies. It gives us our sitcoms. It gives us the news. But this is also now available through new digital solutions and traditional TV will need to adapt to stay relevant.

What would be your final message to our readers and investors about the Nigerian economy and its future?

The media shift happening in Nigeria right now is not a localized trend; it is the global trend. Nigeria possesses the youngest, most digitally agile population on earth, combined with an unmatched cultural export engine. When you see multinational corporations reallocating up to 50 percent of their media budgets away from legacy channels directly into the creator economy, you are not witnessing a trend. You are witnessing the birth of a new economic paradigm.

For the Marketing Community: The risk is not about over-investing in the creator economy. The risk is not understanding how you can extract value from it.

The Media Shift: Nigeria – Live is not just a summit to talk about the future. It is the room where the infrastructure for that future is being deployed. The media of influence is here, it is accountable, it is scalable, and it is playing a key role in driving the Nigerian marketing narrative.