Last week, the Influencer Marketing Trade Body (IMTB) welcomed members to YouTube’s London HQ for an exclusive event exploring the future of the creator economy.
The afternoon brought together industry leaders for keynote sessions and a fireside chat featuring representatives from Vodafone, creator Felicity Kane and Connect Management, alongside exclusive insights into YouTube’s latest developments for brands and creators.
From the continued growth of creator marketing to new BrandConnect features and YouTube’s expanding commerce ambitions, our Creator Director, Laura Smith, shares her biggest takeaways from the event.
Picture credit: Influencer Marketing Trade Body
1. Creator marketing continues to outpace the wider advertising industry
In a day of big stats, one figure captured the pace of change: UK creator marketing spend is growing 28% year-on-year, compared with 6.4% growth in overall UK ad spend.
As IMTB Chair Emma Harman noted during her keynote, creator marketing is no longer just a marketing conversation—it’s increasingly becoming a business conversation.
2. Open Call expands to the UK
One of the biggest product announcements was the UK rollout of Open Call, YouTube’s latest BrandConnect feature.
Open Call enables brands to publish a creative brief directly within YouTube, making it available to more than 3 million creators in the YouTube Partner Program. Rather than brands sourcing creators individually, creators can proactively pitch ideas, with approved content eligible to run as Partnership Ads.
Following a successful pilot in the US, the expansion gives UK brands another scalable way to source creator-led content directly within the platform.
3. YouTube is building towards full-funnel commerce
YouTube also shared more of its commerce roadmap for 2026, including:
- – In-app checkout
- – Google Pay integration on Connected TV
- – Product feeds connected directly to Shopping Ads
These developments reflect YouTube’s ambition to become more than a discovery platform, helping brands connect creator content more directly with measurable sales outcomes.
So what does it all mean?
It was clear last week that the creator economy is evolving faster than ever. And as investment grows and platforms build more sophisticated tools for brands and creators alike, YouTube is strengthening its position as an increasingly important part of the marketing mix. That’s massively exciting for brands – providing they’re effectively set up to take advantage.