By Ben Gunn, Chief Revenue Officer, Fabulate
WARC’s latest Global Ad Trends report makes one thing very clear: global advertising spend on professional journalism is in decline. But what it misses is a clear understanding of why this change is occurring.
The report cites keyword blocklists and brand squeamishness around hard news. Let’s be honest, those issues are nothing new and while yes that’s been a factor, the real story is far bigger and far more fundamental.
The reality is marketers and brands have been following audiences, not keywords.
Since 2019, we’ve seen platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram explode not just in usage, but in their power and influence. People are no longer relying on traditional news outlets for news, education, entertainment..
Instead, they’re turning to creators (and yes, I mean influencers), real people with real opinions, who’ve built sizable audiences through having credibility and loyalty through consistent, authentic content.
Let’s call it what it is: an audience migration. And why are marketers going there? They are simply following where the attention goes.
The truth is that the news industry is facing some fundamental challenges, while creators are growing audiences that rival or surpass major media brands and they’re doing it on platforms designed for engagement, not legacy display ads.
If you’re a marketer choosing where to place your budget, you’re not asking “what’s the CPM next to a newspaper article?” You’re asking, “where will I actually drive results?”
Trust is also an increasingly important part of the equation.
One of the most overlooked aspects of this shift is how audiences trust the creators they follow.
Now for years, publishers have traded on the importance of trust. But in a “post-truth” world increasingly filled with sensationalism, bias, and misinformation, audience trust in traditional media has eroded. Study after study has told us this.
‘User-generated content can be powerful, authentic, relatable, and cost-effective’
Creators, on the other hand, earn trust daily through their vulnerability, consistency, and niche expertise. They’ve built direct relationships and the data proves it with creator-led content consistently outperforms brand ads by 30–50% in ROI.
The recent WARC report noted how in response to declining investment in news brands, media agencies are introducing ‘quality CPM’ measures.
The introduction of “quality CPM” as a metric to support news brands sounds noble. But let’s be honest, marketing is about results and while environment matters, money will follow results..
ROI will always trump sentiment. If creator content consistently delivers lower cost per acquisition and higher engagement, that’s where the money will go regardless of how well-intentioned a metric is.
One point often lost in conversations, like WARC’s news from a couple of weeks ago, is the difference between user generated content and a true creator-led strategy.
User-generated content can be powerful, authentic, relatable, and cost-effective. But it’s just one part of a broader shift brands are making toward strategic creator partnerships.
What we’re seeing across the industry is a move toward holistic creator strategies: built-for-platform content, long-term creator collaborations, data-led creative iteration, and distribution that drives real business outcomes.
The beginning of a new era of storytelling
To conflate that with one-off user generated content (UGC) posts is to miss the point entirely. This is about influence at scale and performance at the core.
This isn’t the end of journalism. It’s the beginning of a new era of storytelling, where individual creators are the new publishers, and where influence isn’t institutional, it’s personal.
In my job I’ve seen this shift first-hand across hundreds of campaigns. And it’s why we believe creators aren’t a side tactic, they’re increasingly central to how modern brands communicate, engage, and grow.