Digital marketing has changed shape more than once over the past decade. It used to rely heavily on reach. The goal was simple. Put a message in front of as many people as possible. That approach still exists, but it no longer carries the same weight. Audiences now spend more time inside smaller digital spaces where interaction feels constant and more personal. Gaming communities, private group chats, livestream chats, and creator-led channels all sit in that space.
The scale of influencer marketing reflects that change. Statista placed the global influencer marketing market at more than 24 billion dollars in 2024. But the number itself does not explain the shift in behavior. What changed was where attention sits. People follow creators more closely than they follow brands. In gaming, especially, that relationship is even more visible because audiences do not just watch content. They participate in it.
Sergi Cerrato has contributed to this discussion mainly through his writing in Forbes Agency Council, where he publishes articles on influencer marketing and digital communities. His work does not focus on theory in isolation. It is grounded in how campaigns are actually built and how audiences behave inside creator-driven platforms.
One of the ideas that appears often in his writing is that large audiences are no longer the main signal of impact. Smaller communities can behave very differently. They are more active, more reactive, and more consistent in how they engage with creators. In pieces such as “Micro-Moments and Nano-Creativity,” Cerrato describes how brands are adjusting to these smaller units of attention. Not always by choice, but because platforms themselves push communication into tighter circles.
That shift is easy to see in gaming environments. Platforms like Twitch and Discord have turned audiences into participants. Viewers do not just consume content. They talk, react, and influence what happens next. Cerrato’s analysis often returns to this point. In his view, marketing inside these spaces does not behave like traditional advertising. It behaves more like an ongoing conversation.
Another thread in his published work focuses on brand partnerships moving into closed environments. In “Beyond the Feed: Why Brand Collabs Are Moving Into Closed Communities,” he discusses how companies are increasingly working inside private groups, invite-only spaces, and niche creator communities. These environments are not always visible from the outside, which changes how campaigns are measured and understood.
This also affects how success is evaluated. In “Why Micro-Signals Decide Which Brands Win Attention,” Cerrato looks at smaller indicators of engagement. Likes alone do not say much anymore. Comments, saves, shares, and repeat interactions carry more meaning in digital environments where content moves quickly. These signals are often used to understand whether attention is real or temporary.
The idea is not limited to marketing metrics. It connects to how audiences behave in general. People move through content quickly, but they also return to creators they trust. Cerrato’s writing suggests that this repetition matters more than broad visibility. A smaller audience that keeps coming back can be more valuable than a large one that appears once and disappears.
Authenticity is another recurring topic in his Forbes Agency Council articles. In “Reprogramming Authenticity: AI Influencers and the Human Touch,” he writes about how artificial intelligence is changing the idea of what feels real online. AI-generated influencers and synthetic content are no longer unusual. They are becoming part of the same ecosystem as human creators.
This raises a simple question that appears throughout his analysis. What do audiences actually respond to now? The answer is not fixed. In some cases, people still prefer human creators. In others, they respond to consistency, design, or entertainment value, even when the content is not fully human-made. Cerrato’s writing does not frame this as a replacement of one system with another. It describes it more as an overlap.
Industry data around virtual influencers supports that direction. The sector has been estimated at several billion dollars globally and is expected to continue growing through the end of the decade. Within that environment, brands are testing different formats, from fully virtual personas to hybrid systems that mix human and AI tools.
Cerrato also writes about how AI is used behind the scenes in influencer marketing. Campaign planning, audience segmentation, and content analysis are increasingly supported by automated systems. His commentary often stays close to practical usage rather than abstract prediction. AI, in this context, is not treated as a separate category. It is part of the workflow.
Gaming communities appear again throughout his work as a reference point. Not because they are unique, but because they show changes early. Research from Newzoo estimates that global gaming audiences exceed three billion people. That scale makes gaming one of the most active digital environments for observing how communities form and evolve.
In Cerrato’s writing, gaming is not treated as a niche industry. It is treated as a testing ground for broader digital behavior. Trends that appear in gaming communities often show up later in other parts of social media. That includes creator trust, engagement patterns, and even how brands enter conversations without disrupting them.
There is also a consistent theme around how attention behaves. Cerrato does not present attention as something stable. It shifts constantly depending on platform design, content format, and audience fatigue. What works in one environment may not work in another. His articles often return to that uncertainty without trying to simplify it.
Taken together, his Forbes Agency Council contributions sit somewhere between reporting and observation. They do not try to define the entire industry. They focus on specific changes happening inside it. Smaller communities. Changing signals. Shifting ideas of authenticity. And the growing overlap between human creators and AI systems.
Sergi Cerrato Recasens’ writing reflects a period where digital marketing is still adjusting to how audiences actually behave rather than how platforms originally expected them to behave.
