Episode 23: Is the Future of Innovation Coming From the East?

In Episode 23 of Influencing Outcomes, Eliza Lewis is joined by Ben Gunn and Terri Owens to explore a major shift taking place across technology, commerce and creator marketing: what if the next wave of innovation isn't coming from the West, but from the East?

From electric vehicles and robotics to AI infrastructure and social commerce, the discussion explores how China and Southeast Asia are increasingly setting the pace for innovation. The team then brings the conversation back to creator marketing, examining Fabulate's own data showing how trends such as the shift towards micro creators, creator-led commerce and large-scale content production emerged in Southeast Asia before similar patterns began appearing in Western markets like Australia.

Rather than looking exclusively to the US for what's coming next, the episode asks marketers to consider whether Southeast Asia might offer a better preview of the future.

Innovation Is No Longer Travelling in One Direction

For decades, the assumption across many industries was that innovation started in markets such as the US, Europe and Japan before spreading elsewhere.

That pattern is changing.

From Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers exporting technology and manufacturing expertise globally to Southeast Asia becoming an important hub for AI infrastructure, innovation is increasingly moving in multiple directions. The same pattern can be seen in robotics, where Chinese manufacturers are moving beyond prototypes towards scaled production.
The shift isn't limited to technology either. Entertainment, beauty, commerce and culture are increasingly being influenced by trends emerging from Asian markets.

The result is a global innovation landscape where marketers can no longer assume the next major trend will arrive from Silicon Valley first.

Southeast Asia Is a Leading Indicator for Creator Marketing

Fabulate's own platform data suggests creator marketing may be one of the clearest examples of this east-to-west shift.

Between 2023 and 2025, the share of investment going towards mega creators across Southeast Asia fell from approximately 13% to just 2.5%. Over the same period, micro creators increased their share from 24% to almost 33%.

When Fabulate analysed Australian search behaviour, it found a remarkably similar pattern. Mega and macro creators were declining while micro and mid-tier creators were growing, but Australia appeared to be following the same curve approximately two years later.

The reason isn't simply changing marketer preference. Algorithmic distribution has reduced the importance of follower count, while relevance, credibility and the quality of individual content have become stronger indicators of performance.

Instead of concentrating budgets around a single hero creator, marketers increasingly need enough quality creative to allow platforms to identify and optimise towards what audiences actually respond to.

Creators Are Becoming Infrastructure, Not Just Media

Southeast Asia is also showing what happens when creators become embedded throughout the customer journey.

Across the region, creators aren't simply producing sponsored posts. They're acting as event hosts, product educators, livestream presenters, affiliates, sources of community feedback and even the point of purchase.

A TikTok Beauty Fest campaign discussed in the episode brought together 68 creators, 132 pieces of content, five brand livestreams, official campaign faces and a major physical event, with the ecosystem feeding directly into TikTok Shop.

That integration is particularly visible in social commerce. The episode highlights research showing that 40% of ecommerce transactions in Thailand happen through creator content, offering a glimpse of what could eventually emerge in markets such as Australia.

Rather than treating creators as another media line item, Southeast Asian marketers are increasingly building campaigns around them.

Complexity Is Driving the Next Wave of Marketing Technology

One reason Southeast Asia is innovating so quickly is necessity.

Operating across multiple markets, languages, cultures, regulations and purchasing behaviours makes traditional creator marketing workflows difficult to scale. Campaigns can involve hundreds of creators and hundreds of assets, creating challenges around localisation, brand safety, compliance and approvals.

Those challenges are forcing technology companies to solve problems earlier.

For Fabulate, that has meant developing technology capable of reviewing creator histories across languages, automating compliance checks and using AI to identify everything from contextual brand risks to competitor products appearing within creator content.

The next evolution could be agentic AI, where technology helps plan, coordinate, execute and optimise increasingly complex campaigns while humans remain responsible for strategy, creative direction, local judgement and final approvals.
The lesson is simple: if technology can handle the complexity of Southeast Asia, it can probably handle almost anywhere else.

For marketers trying to understand where creator marketing is heading next, the answer may be to stop looking exclusively west and start paying much closer attention to what's already happening in the east.
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