IZEA Worldwide, Inc., the company that created the influencer marketing industry, has launched in the UK.
Its arrival, supported by a strong balance sheet amassed to grow the business globally, brings an entirely new game-changing approach that will reinvent and professionalise the disparate and highly-fragmented UK influencer sector.
The company was founded in the US by Ted Murphy in 2006, during the early days of MySpace and LiveJournal, when it launched the global creator economy we know today. It has now facilitated almost four million collaborations between influencers and brands, with technology that analyses over 40 million influencers.
IZEA has built a reputation as a trusted strategic and executional partner in its North American home market, providing influencer marketing campaigns and custom content creation for Fortune 500 businesses and some of the biggest agency names in the world. It is also pursuing similar success in China, where it established a presence earlier this year.
IZEA will now offer its flexible managed service model, underpinned by its powerful technology platform, Flex, to the UK market. This hybrid service/tech approach dispenses with the mandatory long-term retainers and hourly billing that currently dominate the sector.
IZEA President and Chief Operating Officer, Ryan Schram, said: “The influencer industry in the UK, as in many other markets, has tremendous growth potential, but lacks the expertise and innovation required by top marketers. We’d like to be instrumental in helping it structure for even greater success so as to better serve brands, agencies, and creators. Providing all of our clients with flexible access to influencer services and detailed performance data sit at the heart of how we do things. Insights from the nearly four million collaborations we have run give us a powerful level of predictive analysis and the ability to guarantee results.
“As a battle-tested, best-in-class partner, our mission is to fill a significant gap in the market, whether that’s working directly for a brand or with an agency as a white-labelled support. There is so much opportunity in the creator economy and we’re incredibly excited to have permanent feet on the ground in the UK, helping to drive maturity in the market.”
The new London presence will be headed by Sylvia Enotiades, a seasoned UK influencer marketing professional, as UK Country Lead. Her previous experience includes senior roles at influencer agencies Wildfire and Buzzoole, and she also serves as Industry Group Steering Expert for the Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA).
Sylvia Enotiades, Head of UK, Country Lead at IZEA, said: “Influencer marketing is evolving at breakneck pace and I’m incredibly excited to be part of that change. We’re introducing a totally new hybrid service/technology concept to the market, built on over 15 years of executional excellence and experience. Our success to date in China with its different cultural norms, languages, and social platforms demonstrates that our best-in-class model works globally.”
Ryan Schram added:”We could have looked to globalise by acquisition or joint venture, but establishing IZEA country offices headed up by brilliant people who are native to the local market is an authentic, committed approach that aligns best with our culture. In Sylvia, we have one of the best.”