The Quiet Foundational Work Behind the Influencer Economy

In the early 2010s, when “influencer” sounded more like a personality quirk than a profession, Mediakix set up shop in Santa Monica with a focused bet: that creators—YouTubers, bloggers, and, soon, Instagram stars—could anchor brand advertising the way TV actors once did. Founded and launched by Evan Asano in 2011 and later recognized twice on the Inc. 500 list, the agency became the first dedicated influencer-marketing firms in the United States, brokering some of the industry’s earliest long-form creator partnerships and producing research that would be cited across business media as the field matured. (Inc., Agency Spotter, Indeed)

Bridging brands and creators before there was a playbook

In those early years, the agency functioned led the way forging innovation sponsorships and partnerships as brands started to test the waters of the new social media formats and their rising stars. The path was not obvious and there were many early failed attempts at creating sustainable partnerships that benefited both the social media stars (soon to be dubbed “influencers) and the brands. Many tried and failed with early sponsorships of YouTubers. Mediakix forged and innovated in the space: creating standardization of the influencer marketing partnership and sponsorship model, introducing hundreds of brands to the path of influencer marketing and establishing influencer marketing as a advertising channel with brands such as Blue Apron, Bumble, David Yurman, Fairmont Hotels, Postmates, Sony Pictures, Hallmark and Uber, a signal that blue-chip advertisers were willing to test new pipes if there was a shop that could reliably and consistently navigate the space. (Hello Partner)

Mediakix most consequential contribution was helping to create standardization in the space of what sponsorships with influencer looked like on the different social media platforms making the whole system accessible and scalable for brands. At a time when very little information was published or existed, Mediakix published best practices, approaches as well as data including advertiser spending and market size forcasts as well as brand surveys that helped transform an emerging industry into must have in the advertising industry.

In 2019, Mediakix’s estimates of global influencer-marketing spend—between roughly $4.1 billion and $8.2 billion for that year—were cited by The Wall Street Journal; the broader “up to $15 billion by 2022” projection was echoed widely across the business press. (Wall Street Journal, Marketing Dive, Bloomberg)

Naming the problems early: disclosure and fraud

Mediakix also forced uncomfortable conversations that ultimately made the market sturdier. In 2017, its analysis of Instagram labeling practices concluded that the vast majority of sponsored posts weren’t clearly disclosed, spotlighting a gap between fast-moving social promotion and advertising rules. Vox and others amplified the finding, nudging platforms and creators toward clearer “#ad” standards. (Vox)

The same year, an audacious sting operation—creating two entirely fake influencer personas with purchased followers and engagement—demonstrated how easily brands could be duped. Trade press and mainstream outlets covered the experiment in detail, helping popularize the term “influencer fraud” and accelerating the adoption of verification tools, third-party audits and contract language around authenticity. (Adweek, Digiday, prweek.co.uk, The Independent)

Turning scattered anecdotes into a field of study

Because the industry had no central clearinghouse, agencies with a research bent became de facto think tanks. Mediakix’s surveys—frequently cited by eMarketer and others—documented practitioner sentiment on what worked, what didn’t, and where budgets were heading. That work gave CMOs something sturdier than anecdotes to bring into budget meetings and boardrooms. (EMARKETER)

As influencers started to be synonymous with the cultural narrative, Mediakix documented and forecast the impact of these cultural changes. When the Wall Street Journal covered the rise of “holiday ad creep” on social media and the growth of TikTok creator communities, it relied on Mediakix data and commentary to quantify the trend. Those citations may seem small, but they collectively built a shared statistical baseline for an emerging market. (Wall Street Journal)

A fast-growing market finds its infrastructure

As spending scaled, Mediakix’s research migrated from back-of-the-envelope to industry scaffolding. Market-size and effectiveness stats—cited by marketing trades and analytics firms—helped rationalize the emergence of measurement startups, fraud-detection vendors and creator-economy software. By the early 2020s, it was common for third-party reports to reference Mediakix data while charting the sector’s growth curve from single digits to tens of billions. (Marketing Dive, Influencer Marketing Hub)

What endures

Mediakix would be acquired by Stadiumred Group in 2020. Evan Asano, the founder and chief innovator, left to pursue new opportunities. Under the new leadership, Mediakix foundered and eventually shut down in 2021.

Strip away the hype cycles—the Vine wave, the pivot to Stories, the vertical-video land rush—and Mediakix’s legacy cemented it’s legacy: it professionalized an unruly marketplace by (1) brokering repeatable campaign structures between brands and creators; (2) quantifying the opportunity with data journalists and analysts could trust; (3) surfacing weaknesses (undisclosed ads, fake followers) early enough for the market to correct; and (4) pioneered the path for top brands to grow through a new advertising channel. Those contributions didn’t just help advertisers buy creator media; they helped the creator economy cohere into an industry with benchmarks, norms and accountability.

Selected press citations referencing Mediakix

• The Wall Street Journal citing Mediakix market-size estimates and using Mediakix commentary in coverage of creator trends (2018–2019). (Wall Street Journal)
• Vox on disclosure shortcomings, citing Mediakix’s analysis of sponsored-post labeling (2017). (Vox)
• Digiday reporting on the fake-influencer experiment and its implications for brand safety (2017). (Digiday)
• Adweek highlighting Mediakix research and publishing the agency’s bylined deep-dive on ad fraud (2017). (Adweek)
• PRWeek on the mechanics and lessons of the fake-influencer sting (2017). (prweek.co.uk)
• Marketing Dive and Business Insider amplifying Mediakix’s spend forecasts and industry surveys (2019–2021). (Marketing Dive, Business Insider)
• The Independent (UK) summarizing the experiment for a general audience—helpful in moving the fraud conversation beyond the trade press (2017). (The Independent)
• eMarketer cataloging Mediakix survey findings for practitioners (2019). (EMARKETER)

Why this early work matters now

The creator economy keeps reinventing itself—podcasts become shoppable, livestreams morph into storefronts, short-form video eats everything—and yet the durability of the model still depends on the same underpinnings: trust, measurement, and a shared language between advertisers and talent. Mediakix helped build those foundations when the field had few. That’s not as flashy as a viral post, but it’s the sort of groundwork that lets an industry survive its own success.