The Australian creator economy is now worth well over a billion dollars and continues to expand rapidly. At the forefront of this maturation is AiMCO and its Managing Director, Patrick Whitnall.
Whitnall recently shared his time with Mediaweek for our CMO Spotlight, to discuss the vital work being done to safeguard child influencers, why the distinction between brand and performance is fading in creator marketing, and the very real threat of unethical AI.
Protecting child influencers
Mediaweek: What’s the piece of work from the past 12 months that best captures how your brand wants to show up right now?
Patrick Whitnall: The initiative I am most proud of is the Child and Family Influencer work we launched last year. It originated from a very deliberate place. As a sector, we needed to proactively ask how we protect children when they feature in family social media accounts involving brand partnerships. While protections already exist across film, television, and photography, those safeguards become far less clear when the set is a family home.
Rather than waiting for regulations to update or reacting to negative headlines, we brought our members together to think deeply about what responsibility actually looks like here. That process took around 18 months. It involved brands, agencies, talent managers, and creators working through some genuinely complex issues.
Given the broader public conversation around kids and social media, it felt like the perfect time for the industry to take the lead. I am incredibly proud of the working group and the fact that we chose to step forward instead of sitting back. Alongside that initiative, our annual awards continue to capture what the best work in this space looks like. They serve as a highly useful barometer of how creator marketing is evolving and what world-class thinking looks like in practice.
The end of brandless performance
MW: Where is your marketing budget working hardest today?
PW: As a not-for-profit industry body, our marketing budget remains quite limited. That naturally forces clarity. Instead of paid activity, we rely heavily on relevance, trust, PR, and word of mouth. Our growth comes entirely from members seeing genuine value in the work and choosing to participate.
From a broader industry perspective, brands consistently tell us that their investment in influencer and creator marketing is working exceptionally hard. Even during tighter economic conditions, marketers are seeing real impact from their spend in this space. We are seeing growth across both brand consideration and performance outcomes, which proves this is no longer just a niche or experimental channel.
MW: What’s changed most in how you balance brand and performance?
PW: I am not entirely sure that distinction makes as much sense as it once did, particularly within creator marketing. Originally, influencer work focused purely on word of mouth and consideration. It then evolved into UGC-style content and reviews. Now, we are seeing creator work deployed directly within performance budgets as creative that successfully converts.
Simultaneously, growing evidence shows that creators are building brands, not just driving performance. Research from System1 demonstrates that creator-led work delivers many of the same brand-building effects traditionally linked to long-term advertising, including high emotional engagement, memorability, and distinctive brand assets.
This matters because it fundamentally reframes the creator’s role. Brands are borrowing trust and creativity, not just reach. Creators build audience familiarity over time, carry cultural meaning, and compound that emotional connection. When brands integrate creator content into paid activity, the results easily justify further investment. Ultimately, there is no such thing as “brandless performance” when creators are involved.
Creativity and the AI challenge
MW: Which channel, platform or partnership is currently over-delivering for you?
PW: Creators themselves remain the channel that continues to overdeliver. Brands keep investing in creator marketing because it generates results, and they increasingly want to help shape what “good” looks like in the space. That is precisely why many choose to engage directly with AiMCO.
For us, partnerships matter the most when they extend beyond standard membership and move into shared responsibility. We place massive value on our relationships with government departments, regulators, and other industry bodies. The collaborative work we have done with organisations like the ACCC, ATO, and TGA helps our members understand expectations and reduces market uncertainty.
MW: What role does creativity play in your commercial strategy right now?
PW: Creativity forms the absolute foundation of the creator economy. Brands approach creators specifically for their ability to connect with audiences and produce resonant work. As creators increasingly operate like standalone media publishers, that creativity becomes even more critical. Without it, you cannot build or sustain an audience. And without an audience, you have no performance.
MW: How are you using data, tech or AI in a way that genuinely improves the work?
PW: We hear a lot of noise around AI right now, making it easy to focus on headline-grabbing elements like virtual influencers. Our position remains quite simple: transparency, IP protection, and disclosure matter above all else. Consumers deserve to know when AI is used, and creators deserve the confidence that their work, likeness, and ideas remain protected.
One major risk we hear about from creators involves the unethical repurposing of past campaign content. We are seeing original scripts, concepts, or entire videos recreated using AI actors or synthetic faces. Often, platforms struggle to recognise this as a violation, leaving creators exposed and frustrated. AI should never become a shortcut that undermines trust or erodes creative IP. When used poorly, it damages the whole ecosystem. Used responsibly, it genuinely improves how we operate.
Partnerships and professionalisation
MW: What does a good agency partner look like for you in 2026?
PW: Good partners simply show up. They contribute their time and strategic thinking. They actively participate in working groups, councils, events, and education initiatives. They help push the entire industry forward, rather than just driving their own commercial agendas.
Brands increasingly seek partners who help mitigate risk and uphold strong governance, rather than those who just deliver basic execution. Creator marketing is no longer unregulated. It is highly professional, completely accountable, and increasingly complex. The best agency partners understand that reality and lean right into it.
MW: What’s the toughest call you’ve had to make as a CMO?
PW: One of the tougher calls involved evolving the AiMCO Awards into a full-day Summit. As a not-for-profit, we must carefully weigh any decision that increases our cost and complexity. Events carry significant financial, operational, and reputational risks.
Ultimately, it felt like a necessary evolution. The industry demanded more depth, learning, and connection, rather than just a celebration. Backing that decision meant investing ahead of certainty, but it was vital if AiMCO wanted to grow alongside the industry rather than trailing behind it.
MW: What’s one misconception about your brand or category that your team is actively trying to unpick through marketing?
PW: The biggest misconception we still encounter is the idea that influencer marketing remains the ‘Wild West.’ While that may have been true several years ago, it no longer reflects our reality. The industry has matured significantly. Governance, compliance, and professionalism sit at the absolute centre of how we work today.
A persistent misconception also remains that being a creator is an easy or unskilled job. In reality, creators run sophisticated businesses, manage large audiences, balance brand partnerships with strict ROI requirements, comply with complex regulations, and produce high-quality work at scale.
MW: Looking ahead, where will your next big marketing bet come from?
PW: In the short term, we are focusing heavily on the Awards and Summit as premium platforms for learning, connection, and industry leadership. Looking further ahead, our biggest bet relies on collaboration. We plan to work much more closely with industry bodies, regulators, and global partners to continue professionalising the creator economy.
That means heavily investing in education, data, research, and confidence-building measures. We want to support creators as legitimate businesses while helping brands navigate the space responsibly. That is where we will see the greatest long-term impact.