May 2025: $150M Lawsuit Shockwave, LinkedIn's Creator Push & The Great Platform Consolidation

Influence Weekly

In this explosive episode, hosts Ceci Carloni and Nii Ahene tackle three industry-shaking developments that have everyone talking:

💸 The $150 Million Wake-Up Call: Alo Yoga faces a massive class-action lawsuit for allegedly hiding paid influencer partnerships, featuring A-list creators like Summer Rae and the West twins. We dive deep into why disclosure violations are still happening in 2025, who's really to blame, and whether this legal bomb will finally force the industry to play by the rules.

💼 LinkedIn Goes Full Creator Mode: The professional platform is making serious moves to become a creator destination, with B2B influencers building entire agencies and getting "most of their inbound" from the platform. But can LinkedIn scale beyond thought leadership into a real creator economy? We explore whether this is genuine transformation or just riding the wave.

🤝 The Half-Billion Dollar Shopping Spree: Publicis drops over $500 million this year on influencer acquisitions, merging Captivate with Influential to create what they're calling "the world's most powerful connected influencer platform." We break down what this means for agencies, creators, and the future of platform competition.

Don't miss our candid take on why brands still think they can game the system, whether LinkedIn can truly support full-time creators, and if we're about to see a platform consolidation frenzy.

The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.