In 2021, brands globally invested $13.9 billion in creator partnerships. By 2025, that figure will reach $37 billion—growth that outpaces the broader media industry by a factor of four. This is not incremental change but a structural reallocation of marketing capital, and it carries profound implications for how brands and agencies in the GCC approach celebrity endorsements and influencer collaborations.
By Hoda Rizk
The creator economy has more than doubled since 2021, with 2025 projections showing continued acceleration as brands shift budgets from traditional channels to creator partnerships.
The inflection point has arrived. What began as experimental campaigns with Instagram personalities has matured into a distinct marketing channel, now ranking as a “must buy” for 48 percent of advertisers globally, trailing only social media and paid search. For marketing directors and agency leaders across the Gulf, the strategic question is no longer whether to invest in creators, but how to deploy them with the sophistication this moment demands.
The Authenticity Crisis—And Its Resolution
The paradox facing the industry is stark. Even as influencer marketing expenditures surge, consumer skepticism has intensified. Sixty-three percent of respondents in recent studies noticed an uptick in sponsored influencer content, up from 53 percent in 2020. This saturation has bred cynicism. When beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira faced backlash for allegedly using false lashes to promote a mascara, it catalyzed a broader “de-influencing” trend—creators advising audiences against purchases.[3]
Yet the market continues to expand at breakneck speed. The resolution to this paradox lies in a fundamental shift marketers in the GCC are already navigating: the transition from transactional campaigns to strategic partnerships grounded in genuine alignment.
“To build legitimacy, a collaborator needs time to truly understand the brand,” explains Nathaly Khoury, Public Relations and Media Manager at Bulgari, “at a minimum, a year is needed for a relationship to become meaningful.”
This insight, drawn from exclusive interviews with marketing directors at some of the world’s biggest brands operating in the GCC, reveals a critical trend. One-off celebrity posts are giving way to year-long ambassadorships. Scripted content is being replaced by co-created narratives. And the metrics that matter are shifting from vanity impressions to authenticated engagement and measurable conversion.
The data validates this approach. Brands incorporating long-term partnerships into their marketing strategies see 28 percent of revenue stemming from these collaborations, with an impressive 50 percent growth trajectory. The key differentiator is authenticity—the quality that cannot be purchased in a single transaction but must be cultivated through sustained partnership.
Celebrity vs Influencer: The Strategic Calculus
The question marketing executives most frequently pose is deceptively simple: should we invest in celebrities or influencers? The answer, as the data reveals, is both—but deployed with precision based on distinct strategic objectives.
The data reveals a nuanced picture: celebrities excel at awareness and reach, while influencers dominate credibility and trust-building. Smart brands deploy both strategically based on campaign objectives.
- “To build legitimacy, a collaborator needs time to truly understand the brand. At a minimum, a year is needed for a relationship to become meaningful.”
— Nathaly Khoury, Public Relations and Media Manager, Bulgari- “When you move toward celebrities and mega influencers, you often face diminishing returns. You gain scale, but you also gain passive followers, bots, and less involved audiences.”
— Mitin Chakraborty, Head of Marketing, Babyshop- “In a market full of noise, the agencies that stand out are those that move fast and adapt quickly for optimal execution.”
— Haroon Rasheed, Senior Vice President & Head of Marketing, Max Fashion
A Google study demonstrates that celebrities excel at driving brand recall, outperforming influencers 84 percent to 73 percent. Their reach is unmatched, their ability to generate mass awareness unparalleled. When luxury brands like Louis Vuitton partner with Zendaya, the objective is clear: a 25 percent sales uptick driven by aspirational appeal and widespread visibility.
Yet on the metric that increasingly matters most—brand credibility—influencers dominate. YouTube creators prove four times more effective than celebrities at building trust. The reason is structural: fans perceive influencer endorsements as peer recommendations rather than paid advertising. This translates directly to purchase intent, where influencers match celebrities in effectiveness despite drastically smaller follower counts.
The strategic framework emerges clearly. Celebrities serve brand image, reach, and visibility objectives. “From a commercial standpoint, the value in working with celebrities lies in reach and image,” confirms Khoury. “Their role is more about brand image, visibility, and connection with our community.”
Influencers, by contrast, drive engagement, credibility, and conversion. An insider from the luxury sector explained the complementary approach: “While big celebrities bring reach and aspiration, micro and macro influencers bring authenticity and engagement. So it’s really about combining the two.”
The GCC market demonstrates this principle in action. When a Bollywood actor partnered with a UAE telecom brand, app downloads surged 34 percent. When a fashion retailer targeting South Asian millennials engaged an Indian TV actress, social media engagement jumped 42 percent. These results stem from precise audience alignment—the strategic deployment of celebrity influence where cultural resonance matters most.
The Micro-Influencer Ascendance
Perhaps no trend carries greater implications for marketing strategy than the dramatic pivot toward micro-influencers. Eighty-six percent of US brand marketers plan to partner with micro-influencers in 2025—a tenfold preference over mega-celebrities. Only 16 percent now work with celebrities commanding over one million followers, while 80 percent collaborate with creators under 100,000.
The reasons are both economic and strategic. As reach increases, engagement typically decreases. “When you move toward celebrities and mega influencers, you often face diminishing returns,” says Mitin Chakraborty, Head of Marketing at Babyshop. “You gain scale, but you also gain passive followers, bots, and less involved audiences.”
Nano-influencers demonstrate this inverse relationship powerfully, achieving average engagement rates of 5 percent—more than double the 2.2 percent average across all influencer tiers. Their audiences may number in the thousands rather than millions, but the commercial value per follower is substantially higher.
The GCC market mirrors this global shift. The region now hosts 263,000 monetized influencers, a 75 percent increase since 2023. Lifestyle and travel creators expanded from 31,000 to 58,000 in the same period. This proliferation enables brands to construct diversified creator portfolios, activating dozens of micro-influencers across specific demographic segments rather than investing heavily in a single celebrity spokesperson.
The GCC creator economy has accelerated dramatically, with a 75-percent increase in monetized influencers in just two years, positioning the region as one of the world’s fastest-growing influencer marketing markets.
“At Max Fashion, we work with around 350 influencers across micro and macro tiers,” notes Haroon Rasheed, Senior Vice President & Head of Marketing. “What works now is no longer about ‘made-up stories’, but about how influencers bring real topics, concerns, and everyday needs to life.”
This approach also addresses a persistent challenge: exclusivity. Luxury insiders confirm they “avoid creators who work with too many brands” because “if luxury becomes too accessible, it risks losing its value.” Micro-influencers, by necessity of their scale, maintain more selective brand partnerships, preserving the perception of authentic endorsement rather than paid promotion.
The ROI Imperative: Measurement in a Maturing Market
As influencer marketing transitions from experimental tactic to core channel, measurement rigor has become non-negotiable. The average ROI stands at $5.78 per dollar spent—a compelling return, but one that demands sophisticated attribution to validate.
Forty percent of buyers now rank overall ROI as their top KPI for creator campaigns. This represents a fundamental shift. Early influencer marketing was justified on soft metrics—awareness, sentiment, cultural relevance. Today’s CMOs expect hard attribution: conversion rates, cost per acquisition, measurable sales lift
Budget allocation patterns reveal influencer marketing’s evolution from experimental tactic to core channel, with most brands dedicating 10-30 percent of marketing spend to creator partnerships.
The GCC is no exception. With 35 percent of shoppers reporting that creator content directly influences purchasing decisions, brands require tools to connect influencer touchpoints to revenue outcomes. This necessitates technical infrastructure: UTM parameters for traffic attribution, affiliate links, promo codes, platform-specific tracking through TikTok Ads Manager and Instagram Insights.
The challenge lies in the complexity of modern consumer journeys. A customer might discover a product through an influencer’s TikTok, research it via YouTube reviews, engage with brand content on Instagram, and finally convert through a paid search ad. Attributing that sale to the originating influencer touchpoint requires sophisticated multi-touch attribution modeling—a capability many organizations still lack.
“When it comes to measuring influencer ROI, experts across categories are aligning on one thing: there’s no single magic metric,” the research confirms. “Brand KPIs are tracked consistently across campaigns, but attribution, especially when it comes to quality and influence, remains complex to measure.”
The solution emerging in advanced organizations combines quantitative metrics (sales, clicks, conversions) with qualitative indicators (reach, engagement, sentiment). Earned Media Value (EMV) serves as a proxy for ROI when direct attribution proves elusive, calculating the equivalent cost if the same reach were achieved through paid advertising.
For luxury brands, where boutique experiences remain central to the purchase journey, the metrics differ entirely. “Online conversion simply doesn’t carry the same weight,” explains a luxury insider. “Digital platforms are primarily used for discovery and storytelling, guiding clients from screen to store.” In these cases, foot traffic, in-store inquiries, and sales associate reports become the relevant KPIs.
The Fraud Imperative: Protecting Investment in an Unregulated Landscape
The industry’s explosive growth has attracted sophisticated fraud. One insider interviewed for this feature noted that “up to 50 percent of celebrity followers can be fake.” This is a persistent challenge that costsbrands billions in wasted expenditure.
The fraud mechanisms are diverse. Bot accounts inflate follower counts. Engagement pods create artificial interaction. Comment farms generate generic responses. Growth services employ click farms to manufacture the appearance of popularity. For marketers evaluating potential partnerships, distinguishing authentic influence from manufactured metrics has become essential.
Detection tools have evolved in response. Platforms like HypeAuditor employ machine learning trained on 53 plus behavioral patterns to identify suspicious activity. Influencity offers multi-layer AI verification that flags sudden follower spikes and abnormal engagement ratios.
Yet technology alone proves insufficient. Manual vetting remains critical. “You might have someone with 13 million followers who does not align with the brand image, values and audience,” Khoury observes. “Meanwhile, some creators with as little as 10,000 followers can drive far more meaningful conversations if the engagement is real.”
The vetting process must examine follower profiles individually, assess comment quality and relevance, analyze engagement patterns over time, and cross-reference multiple metrics beyond follower count. Normal Instagram engagement rates hover between 1-3 percent for most creators. Suspiciously low figures indicate disengaged or fake audiences. Oddly high engagement, especially repetitive or irrelevant responses, often signals comment pods or paid interaction.
For brands without internal expertise, agency partnerships become essential. The challenge, as Rasheed notes, is that “many offer similar services, but the real differentiators are speed, accuracy, and agility.” Agencies that deploy advanced fraud detection as standard practice protect client investments while maintaining campaign integrity.
The Agency Selection Framework: What Brands Must Demand
The maturation of influencer marketing has spawned a parallel evolution in agency capabilities. Marketing directors evaluating agency partners face a transformed landscape where talent access alone no longer suffices. Best-in-class agencies now offer both the talent relationships and the technology infrastructure required for sophisticated campaign execution.
The selection criteria must emphasize several dimensions. First, strategic alignment and brand fit. Exceptional agencies conduct deep research into audience demographics, sentiment analysis, and brand tone to ensure natural partnerships rather than forced collaborations. When alignment exists, campaigns deliver long-term brand equity. When it’s absent, the partnership appears disingenuous and damages both parties.
Second, data-driven influencer selection. Top-tier agencies leverage AI-powered systems and proprietary algorithms to identify which creators will yield optimal results. Metrics analyzed include engagement rate, audience location, content relevance, and follower authenticity. This transforms influencer marketing from intuition-based art into measurable science, providing clients with transparency and confidence.
Third, operational agility. In markets characterized by rapid change and intense competition, speed of execution matters. Agencies must demonstrate ability to identify opportunities, activate creator networks quickly, and adjust campaigns in real-time based on performance data. “In a market full of noise, the agencies that stand out are those that move fast and adapt quickly for optimal execution,” Rasheed confirms.
The GCC presents unique requirements. With its multilingual, multi-ethnic consumer base, agencies must demonstrate cultural fluency.
The AI Question: Enhancement or Replacement?
Artificial intelligence has emerged as both opportunity and threat. Seventy-four percent of creator ad buyers are using or plan to use AI within the next year. The applications span content editing (49 percent), creator brief development (46 percent), and content personalization (45 percent). For campaign optimization, predictive analytics, and fraud detection, AI capabilities are becoming table stakes.
Yet 95 percent of advertisers harbor concerns about AI in creator marketing. The top worry—loss of human connection—strikes at the core value proposition. Influencer marketing succeeds precisely because it feels human, authentic, imperfect. AI-generated content risks undermining that quality, transforming genuine recommendation into algorithmic output.
The GCC perspectives captured in interviews reflect this ambivalence. “AI can support research, creativity, and problem-solving, but it should remain a support tool,” Khoury states. “Even if a brand were to collaborate with AI in the future, it would be an addition, not a replacement for humans.”
Yet some see inevitability in AI’s advance. “You can’t sit on the fence. You have to try, invest, and improve,” argues Rasheed. “From Facebook to Instagram to Snapchat and TikTok—and now AI—the constant is change. LLMs are accurate, adaptive, and retain knowledge.”
The likely trajectory involves AI augmentation rather than replacement. Virtual influencers may capture niche applications where perfect control over messaging justifies sacrificing human authenticity. AI tools will streamline creator discovery, brief development, and performance analysis. But the core value—trusted human voices delivering authentic recommendations—will remain resistant to automation precisely because consumers can detect the difference.
The GCC Opportunity: A Market Coming of Age
For brands and agencies operating in the Gulf, the moment carries particular significance. The GCC creator economy has accelerated dramatically, positioning the region among the world’s fastest-growing influencer marketing markets. Yet only approximately 10 percent of daily livestream creators in MENA currently work with agencies—a statistic that represents both challenge and opportunity.
The market’s expansion is structural rather than cyclical. Social media penetration in the Gulf ranks among the highest globally. The population naturally gravitates toward personal recommendations over traditional advertising. The consumer base is extraordinarily diverse, ranging from luxury buyers in Dubai to Gen Z trendsetters in Riyadh to multinational expatriate families across the region.
This diversity enables precise segmentation. Lifestyle creators have doubled from 31,000 to 58,000 in just two years. Brands can now activate creator networks calibrated to specific demographic, linguistic, and cultural segments—a level of targeting nearly impossible through traditional media.
The integration with social commerce accelerates this trend. Shoppable posts, live shopping events, and TikTok Shop functionality transform influencers from awareness drivers into distributed sales channels. When paired with performance-based compensation models that align creator incentives with business outcomes, the result is a fundamentally different relationship. Influencers cease to be marketing vendors and become commerce partners with direct stakes in conversion.
The strategic implications for agencies are profound. The industry’s professionalization lag—only 10 percent of creators working with agencies—presents a greenfield opportunity for firms that can offer comprehensive services: creator discovery and vetting, fraud detection, contract negotiation, content strategy, performance measurement, and payment processing. For agencies that build these capabilities, the GCC market offers a runway for sustained growth.
Purpose-driven partnerships aligned with Saudi Vision 2030 provide additional differentiation. Creators who authentically champion environmental responsibility, wellness, and cultural initiatives resonate powerfully with audiences increasingly motivated by values beyond consumption. Brands that identify and partner with these voices gain not only commercial impact but cultural relevance.
Conclusion: The Institutional Imperative
What distinguishes this moment from previous inflection points is the institutional commitment now backing creator marketing. When 48 percent of advertisers rank it as a “must buy” channel, when budgets approach $40 billion globally, when major brands allocate 25 percent or more of marketing spend to creators—this is no longer experimental. This is infrastructure.
For GCC brands and agencies, the imperative is strategic alignment with this reality. The brands that will lead their categories five years hence are those that build sophisticated creator marketing capabilities today: measurement systems that attribute revenue, fraud detection that protects investment, cultural fluency that enables regional precision, and partnership orientation that drives authentic collaboration.
Those who recognize this structural shift and invest accordingly will define the next era of brand building in the Gulf and beyond. Those who view it as tactical execution risk irrelevance in a market that increasingly demands authentic, creator-driven narratives. The choice, and the opportunity, is clear.
