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Last month, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the biggest grouping of advertising and marketing people you could ever hope to avoid – introduced a new award: the Social and Influencer category.

Yes, those gurning thumb-flexers forever punching #YOLO, #instacool and #nofilter into their smartphones as they plug products have come of age.

Influencer-dom is now a fully-fledged industry. Yet only a year or two ago we were told by many (rather gleefully in some cases) that the influencer was dead or at least in crisis.

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