Vancouver-based influencer Laura Ullock documents an all-you-can-eat pizza experience in a video that would soon garner more than a million views. Creators like Ullock help drive traffic to local businesses as viewers trust their recommendations.Isabella Falsetti/The Globe and Mail
It was a 22-second video that changed the fortunes of a Hong Kong bakery in British Columbia.
Laura Ullock, a prominent food and lifestyle social-media influencer based in Vancouver, had heard about Unique Slow Rise Bakery, a small, family-run business tucked away next to a campground in the shadow of Shannon Falls, in Squamish.
Arriving unannounced one day this past spring, Ms. Ullock and her partner took a seat outdoors at a faded wooden picnic table. In a video later posted to TikTok and Instagram, she displays a small feast that includes hefty pineapple and BBQ pork buns, an egg tart, juicy pork and soup dumplings, and a braised pork belly rice bowl, eating and nodding in approval as a picturesque waterfall cascades behind her.
The effect was immediate. Owner Unique Chan said the bakery suddenly saw 2.5-hour line-ups, and business tripled. The parking lot became so congested that they hired a traffic controller.
“We had an entire system change. We streamlined everything to bring the wait time down, to have quicker turnaround to avoid the parking issue,” Ms. Chan said in an interview.
“Laura’s impact forced us – in a good way – to really step up our game.”
Ms. Ullock had worked most of her adult life in corporate roles for Canadian charities, only beginning to dabble with content creation in 2020. As COVID-19 swept the globe, and life ground to a halt, she began posting videos about how local restaurants were adapting to pandemic restrictions, fuelled mostly by personal interest.
An early video showing a local Mexican restaurant’s affordably priced family-style takeout taco kits was her first to go viral.
“I had probably about 40,000 views, and about 25 followers at the time, so it was nuts,” Ms. Ullock said in an interview. “So I just kept posting about food finds.”
That included a Taiwanese fried chicken cutlet, shaped in a heart; a take-out order with generous portions from a beloved Greek restaurant; and a juicy BBQ pork bun from a popular Chinese bakery.
Ms. Ullock experimented with music, voiceovers and hooks to catch a viewer’s attention, learning how critical the first three seconds of a video are. She replicated her videos onto Instagram. Her videos soon began amassing tens of thousands of views each, with some reaching hundreds of thousands.
Brands began reaching out to inquire about partnerships, offering payment that, while modest, showed her that money could be made in content creation.
Content creators in Canada can earn money through brand partnerships, shared ad revenues, subscriptions, affiliate links and creator programs. However, policies of both social media companies and the government make it more difficult here than in some other countries.
Interactive Advertising Bureau Canada, a trade group representing Canadian advertisers, has noted that while comprehensive data is lacking, influencer marketing as an industry has grown year over year in the country.
Ms. Ullock left her corporate job to become a full-time content creator.Isabella Falsetti/The Globe and Mail
In 2023, IAB Canada surveyed members on current and future expenditures and platform investments, finding that, of those spending on influencer marketing, two-thirds did so with micro- and mid-tier personalities – those with between 10,000 and 500,000 followers.
Instagram was the leading platform used for organic influencer marketing, followed closely by TikTok and YouTube. The group has launched a creator committee and plans to commission new research on the sector in coming months.
IAB Canada president Sonia Carreno said that, while reliable data on Canada’s creator economy is still emerging, its impact is clear.
“Content creators are increasingly operating as digital publishers – building audiences, driving cultural influence, creating jobs and helping brands grow,” she said. “Recent reports from TikTok, Google and YouTube show this sector’s significant economic footprint, contributing billions to GDP and supporting tens of thousands of Canadian jobs.”
Ms. Ullock, who has grown a following of 95,000 on TikTok and 84,000 on Instagram, said she now earns double what she did at her corporate job and is on pace to triple the amount this year. Her primary revenue stream is brand partnerships.
Isabella Falsetti/The Globe and Mail
Dennis Pang, founder and agency director of the Vancouver-based digital marketing and media agency Popcorn, said many brands choose content creators over traditional advertisements for one reason: trust.
“People feel like they know the influencers they follow – what they eat, where they go, what they care about,” he said. “So when that creator recommends a restaurant or product, it doesn’t feel like an ad. It feels like advice from a friend.”
A food influencer himself, Mr. Pang said he has insight into both sides of the business, recognizing the hustle of content creation but also the impact it can have on local businesses. For this reason, he posts only about restaurants that he enjoys, choosing to offer constructive criticism to restaurateurs in private.
“It’s not easy for restaurant owners and I sympathize with them a lot because many are just barely scraping by,” he said. “But there are other influencers that will just take anything from anyone and post about it, regardless of how they feel, because they see it as more of a job.”
Similarly, Ms. Ullock said she has been intentional in posting only about food and experiences she loves.
“I’ve gone to countless restaurants and events where it’s maybe been fine, but if it’s not good enough for my community, I pay for that bill and then I never post about it,” she said.
On Unique Slow Rise Bakery in Squamish, Ms. Ullock described the owners as “the sweetest couple” who had said during her visit that they had been having trouble reaching new customers beyond the Sea to Sky region.
“I love those kind of things, because it shows the power of social media, it shows that people are interested in finding things around Vancouver, and it’s nice to see people like that win, because they were nice, had good food, good location, a good idea.”
