蘑菇AV

The news: Here鈥檚 a look back at the most popular stories from January through June 2025. The final word: Gen Z鈥檚 healthcare attitudes, social health influencers, marketing strategies, and how patients use AI drew the most attention from our audience.

The trend: Younger generations continue to prioritize wellness more than older consumers and are purchasing products across a range of health and well-being categories. Our take: Sharing practical tips and advice is helpful, but brands and marketers can further stand out on social platforms by replying to users鈥� comments and questions within a post. Building partnerships with wellness influencers is essential, and it鈥檚 important to find creators who have real-life experiences that are relatable to the targeted audience.

The news: Generative AI (genAI) is taking on a multifaceted role in users鈥� lives, as an influencer, a personal companion, and a consumer proxy. 87% of genAI users would consider asking the technology for social or relationship advice, per Accenture鈥檚 Me, My Brand and AI: The New World of Consumer Engagement survey. Our take: Embedding AI tools like chatbots, agents, and recommendation engines into brand websites can help users shop faster and discover new content. Offering transparency around data use and building opt-out features could help users trust the tools more and give them the peace of mind to hand over personal information in exchange for assistance and recommendations.

Brands are shifting away from traditional influencer marketing to tap into the power of everyday consumers sharing authentic content about products they genuinely use and love.

Consumers trust social health 颈苍蹿濒耻别苍肠别谤蝉鈥� medical advice: The influencer opportunity is one that can鈥檛 be ignored by healthcare and pharma brands.

Influencer marketing spend will grow15% YoY, outpacing digital and social ad spending, and will reach $10.52 billion in 2025, 蘑菇AV forecasts. Despite its growth, influencer marketing has maintained a core communication issue鈥攏o one knows what to call the people who are doing the work.

Unilever invests big in social channels: The company plans to spend half of its media budget on a new strategy that puts influencers front and center of its marketing.

Social shoppers find inspiration for their purchases from many different types of content, but none more so than creator, influencer, or celebrity influencer content.

Here鈥檚 what healthcare and pharma brands need to know about making social health influencers a bigger part of their marketing strategies in order to sway consumer decisions.

Instead of casting a wide net on social platforms and pursuing the creators with the highest follower accounts, marketers are now more focused on resonating with the right audience.

The news: WPP has lost the $1.7 billion Mars global media account to Publicis, just months after parting with Coca-Cola鈥檚 North America business. The deal encompasses media, social, production, and commerce, and further weakens WPP鈥檚 hold on major global clients. Our take: WPP鈥檚 loss is both financial and reputational鈥攁nd their aggressive counterattack via a client-facing report signals a deeper crisis. As rivals like Publicis gain ground and agency power consolidates, WPP鈥檚 public posture and CEO transition raise questions about future strategy. Winning back trust will require more than critiques of the competition鈥攊t will demand structural clarity and client-first execution.

The news: Pinterest will host high-performing influencer content posted on affiliate shopping platform LTK, automatically bringing popular images from the platform to Pinterest, according to The Verge. Pinterest also hired Chip Jessopp, former Amazon director of global accounts and ad tech sales, as head of programmatic, per Digiday. Jessopp will help Pinterest create new demand channels while scaling its programmatic abilities. Our take: Pinterest鈥檚 moves could better position it as a legitimate competitor in digital advertising and a promising growth area for influencers and marketers鈥攇iving the platform more legs against social commerce giants like Meta and TikTok.

The news: Brands are increasingly engaging with nano-, micro-, and mid-tier influencers鈥攃reators with up to 10,000, 50,000, 500,000 followers, respectively鈥攁nd shifting away from macro- and mega-influencers with larger followings. Nano-influencers maintain the highest engagement rate across influencer categories on Instagram at 6.23%. On Instagram, there鈥檚 a notable trend of engagement rates decreasing as follower count increases. Our take: Partnering with nano-, micro-, and mid-tier influencers enables brands to tap into deeper authenticity and niche audiences, translating to more meaningful engagement and higher ROI than broader, but less personal, macro-influencer campaigns.

The news: Faceless creators and VTubers are gaining momentum as brands look for cost-effective, scalable influencer marketing options. Networks like AffiliateNetwork are growing rapidly, with top earners bringing in $30K鈥�$40K monthly using AI-powered tactics. Creators run multiple accounts, post hundreds of videos, and rely on formats like AI-generated texting stories to deliver results. Our take: This shift marks a new phase in creator marketing鈥攐ne defined less by personality and more by production speed and performance. As AI tools improve and creator skepticism fades, brands will increasingly work with digital personas that deliver value at scale鈥攔egardless of whether there鈥檚 a human on camera.

Meta鈥檚 new Stories payout model drops view minimums, aiming to reengage influencers and win back young users.

For brands, working with influencers was once an experimental addition to their media plans, but growth in influencer marketing spend is now outpacing its digital and social counterparts, per our forecast. While influencer partnerships still account for a significantly smaller part of the media mix, their growth is a sign that the industry is maturing鈥攁nd more legacy advertisers want in.

Medical misinformation 鈥榠nfodemic鈥� on social media: Influencers are promoting misleading information about medical tests. Here鈥檚 what healthcare and pharma brands should be doing to combat it.

Social media fuels micro-dosing trend with Ozempic: The trend speaks to the power of social health influencers, but emphasizes responsibility to marketers who need to make sure consumers are getting the most accurate drug information on the channel.