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‘Influencers are coming for their lunch’: News UK’s social shop on the fifth estate

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By Sam Anderson, Network Editor

April 5, 2023 | 8 min read

Founded in 2019, The Fifth is a social agency within News UK. The Drum sat down with founder Oliver Lewis to talk about the “maturing” creator industry and it’s evolving relationship with traditional channels.

Oliver Lewis, founder of agency The Fifth

The Fifth's Oliver Lewis on a coming 'convergence' between traditional media and creators / Credit: The Fifth

There’s a medieval way of carving up the world by (bear with us) dividing people by the power that they held into three ‘estates of the realm’: first, the clergy and religious leaders; second, the nobility (excluding kings and queens, who were, of course, laws unto themselves); and third, everybody else.

In the 19th century, the press became so powerful that theorists decided it needed its own category: the fourth estate. Since then, commentators have invoked various internet-related power shifts to declare the arrival of a fifth estate; political commentators, ‘citizen journalists’, and bloggers have been given that label. More recently, the likes of Mark Zuckerberg have declared social media the fifth estate.

That idea gives social creative and talent agency The Fifth its name. Surprisingly for an organization that takes its name from the idea that power is shifting away from traditional media, it was set up (and continues to live) within the walls of publishing behemoth News UK.

As founder and chief executive, Oliver Lewis tells The Drum, “From a marketing perspective, if you layer on the News UK angle, these influencers are effectively coming for their lunch – the level of authenticity, trust and engagement is only going to increase. That’s why I got the idea of calling the business The Fifth, because I love the idea of the fourth estate investing in the fifth, and the idea that they’re not afraid of what’s coming; they’re investing in the future.”

Professionalism, maturity and legitimacy

Lewis is a News UK stalwart, with almost two decades of service at the publisher. His first job there was decidedly old-media (selling charged-by-the-letter ‘births, deaths and marriages’ announcements in The Times), but Lewis says that “I jumped as soon as I saw the opportunity into digital”.

This wasn’t long ago – the mid-00s – but even then, says Lewis, “digital was seen as the upstart that would never catch on”. Rising to roles like head of digital over the following decade, he says that social quickly took on that upstart status. “It became thunderous, the noise and disruption coming from social and influencers. This was five years ago; the market is still in its infancy now, but it was really in its infancy then”.

In 2019, he petitioned bosses at News UK to set up The Fifth as “an agency within a publishing environment”, pitching the idea as a start-up and staking his career on it – he recalls a sense that “if it falls over, there’s essentially no job for you to go back to”. Initially a talent management shop, the agency now also handles social creative and a wider ‘full-service’ influencer marketing offering.

If the market was (and is) in its infancy, Lewis sees his job ad helping it to mature – both at The Fifth and in his role as a co-founder of The Influencer Marketing Trade Body. Even until recently, says Lewis, “the space lacked professionalism, real standards and ethics”. His philosophy of professionalizing the influencer world, he says, is based on “pulling it firmly from PR into the marketing channel.”

Lewis goes on: “The key for me was leading with strategy and creative at a time when [influencer work] was still seen as an answer to media. There was a divergence happening: you could either be very a platform- and technology-led player, commoditizing talent and building audiences as a media play; or you could lead with creativity and the authenticity of the content that would have benefit for their channels and driving objectives but also, over time, becoming intrinsic to a brand’s channel strategy. That’s where we are now – but it’s taken a few years.”

For Lewis, there’s still plenty of work to do to make good on promises to round out the professionalism and legitimacy of the influencer space (he’d like to see greater transparency around talent payments which is currently “murky at best”; an improved “common language” around relationships; and a shift “from projects to programs”, with longer-term engagements and less agency churn) but insists that further “monumental” shifts in power (in news, entertainment and politics) to fifth-estate creators are inevitable.

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The fourth estate-fifth estate convergence

Lewis sees this move toward the fifth estate as nothing short of a paradigm shift. “We felt that the fifth estate would become the most influential realm in society, entertainment, politics, culture and (of course) advertising,” he says. “That’s bearing out, and that’s not to say that the other estates don’t have influence – but we’re getting to a point where the fifth estate should be the most important part of your investment. That’s where we’re headed – to the inverse of where we are now, where you start with TV and it trickles down through out-of-home and social comes as an afterthought. We want to reverse that.”

As fifth-estate creators gain more power, Lewis says, they have “less dependency on brands and ad deals – the top creators are entrepreneurs; small businesses creating their destiny, and web3 is only going to help that”. Here, that ‘eating publishers’ lunch’ concern takes on a new hue: these small businesses are increasingly trusted, autonomous, and powerful – and many of them are taking on publishers’ old roles in ecosystems as varied as journalism and advertising.

Lewis insists that those traditional media players like his own employers are “in a good position to capitalize” on these shifts. “Even though creators are born on social, and want to be less dependent on media businesses, there’s still a craving for legitimacy that TV, radio and print can give them in mainstream consciousness. There’s a sweet spot there that we’re well-positioned to offer to talent.”

“The credibility of the fourth estate will continue to exist – what we’re looking at is a convergence.”

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