Knowledge Paper 010 · Cultural Evolution
What Is the Real Value of Influencers?
Why creators generate cultural mutations, but brands build memory.
The short answer
Scroll through LinkedIn for five minutes and you might conclude that influencer marketing is the future of advertising.
Scroll through marketing science research and you might conclude the opposite.
So who is right?
The answer is both.
Creators and brands perform different jobs.
Creators are exceptionally good at discovering new ideas.
Brands are exceptionally good at making those ideas memorable.
Confusing those two roles has led to years of poor marketing decisions.
Humans evolved to copy other humans.
Long before Instagram or TikTok, humans learned by watching other people.
Imagine trying to survive 100,000 years ago.
You could discover everything yourself.
Or you could copy the successful hunter.
Evolution strongly favoured the second strategy.
Psychologists call this social learning.
Instead of learning everything through costly trial and error, we watch what appears to work for others.
That makes copying one of humanity’s greatest evolutionary advantages.
But we do not copy everyone.
Humans do not imitate randomly.
We pay attention to people who appear worth copying.
People with:
- expertise
- prestige
- experience
- status
- similarity
- credibility
This is why Joseph Henrich’s work on prestige bias is so important.
Prestige is not simply fame.
It is an efficient shortcut.
Instead of evaluating every option ourselves, we ask:
Following successful individuals often saves time, effort and risk.
Marketing science asks a different question.
This is where influencer debates often become confused.
Marketing science is not especially interested in whether people liked a creator’s content.
It asks a different question.
Did this activity increase the brand’s Mental Availability?
Did it reach future category buyers?
Did it strengthen distinctive memory structures?
Did it increase penetration?
From an Ehrenberg-Bass perspective, an influencer is simply another communication channel.
The important question is not:
“Was the creator popular?”
It is:
Creators are mutation engines.
Evolution works through three stages.
- Variation.
- Selection.
- Replication.
Culture behaves in remarkably similar ways.
Every day millions of creators produce new jokes.
New aesthetics.
New phrases.
New formats.
New rituals.
Most disappear.
A few spread.
Those surviving ideas become culture.
Creators are not primarily persuaders.
They are mutation engines.
Their role is to generate variation.
The market decides which mutations survive.
Brands are memory engines.
This is where advertising becomes essential.
Creators discover.
Brands stabilise.
Advertising repeats.
Memory accumulates.
Eventually the successful mutation becomes familiar.
It develops distinctive assets.
People begin recognising it instantly.
The creator may have discovered the idea.
The brand ensures it survives.
A drinks example.
Imagine a new energy drink.
A fitness creator invents a distinctive way of opening the can before drinking it.
Thousands copy the behaviour.
The ritual spreads.
Most brands would move on to the next trend.
A smarter brand does something different.
It adopts the ritual.
It appears consistently across advertising.
Packaging.
Retail displays.
Social media.
Over time the behaviour becomes associated with the brand itself.
The mutation becomes memory.
Why reach still matters.
This does not mean every brand should chase creators.
If your objective is broad market growth, you still need broad reach.
Creators often reach highly engaged communities.
Advertising reaches populations.
These are complementary roles.
One discovers ideas.
The other scales them.
One creates variation.
The other builds Mental Availability.
Common mistakes.
Treating creators as media channels.
Creators are often far more valuable as sources of ideas than sources of impressions.
Measuring engagement instead of growth.
Likes are easy to count.
Mental Availability is harder.
Guess which one predicts long-term success.
Hiring followers instead of creativity.
The size of an audience matters less than the quality of the ideas it produces.
Forgetting the other 95%.
Many creator campaigns only reach people already deeply involved in the category.
Most future buyers remain untouched.
Expecting virality.
Evolution produces countless mutations.
Most fail.
Creators are no different.
TheSignalWorks View
The creator economy has not replaced advertising.
It has accelerated cultural evolution.
Creators generate variation.
Markets perform selection.
Brands provide replication.
Memory determines survival.
The question is not whether you should use influencers.
The question is whether your organisation understands which job they actually perform.
The brands that grow are not those that rent audiences.
They are the ones that recognise good mutations early, nurture them consistently and embed them into memory.
Key Takeaways
- Humans evolved to learn by copying others.
- We preferentially copy people with prestige, expertise and credibility.
- Creators are valuable because they generate cultural variation.
- Brands create long-term value by turning successful variations into distinctive memory structures.
- Influencer marketing works best when it complements, rather than replaces, broad-reach brand building.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do influencers really work?
Yes, but not always in the way marketers assume.
They can introduce new ideas and behaviours, but long-term brand growth still depends on building Mental Availability across the wider market.
Are creators and influencers the same thing?
Not necessarily.
Some creators build audiences through original ideas.
Others simply distribute content.
The distinction matters because originality generates cultural variation.
Does Marketing Science support influencer marketing?
Marketing science does not reject influencers.
It asks whether they increase reach, strengthen memory structures and ultimately contribute to penetration.
Should every brand use creators?
No.
The decision should depend on your objectives.
Creators are particularly valuable when exploring new ideas or communities.
They are not a substitute for consistent brand building.
Further Reading
- Mark Earls — I’ll Have What She’s Having
- Joseph Henrich — The Secret of Our Success
- Byron Sharp — How Brands Grow
- Jenni Romaniuk — Better Brand Health
- Eaon Pritchard — Creators Aren’t Persuaders. They’re Mutation Engines.
Related Knowledge
About TheSignalWorks
At TheSignalWorks, we believe marketing works best when it reflects how ideas actually spread.
Not through isolated acts of persuasion, but through variation, selection, memory and cultural transmission.
Because brands do not simply communicate.
They evolve.