As influencer marketing continues to explode and brands prioritize harnessing the power of creators, Her Campus Media, the #1 media portfolio for college women and Gen Z, announced that it has acquired Zfluence, a platform connecting brands with passionate young content creators. This new addition to the Her Campus Media family reinforces its position as the preferred Gen Z marketing solution for the world’s leading brands, powering authentic and organic collaborations between companies and the highly sought-after Gen Z demographic.
Bringing in Zfluence will further strengthen Her Campus Media’s influencer marketing capabilities by growing its community of Gen Z influencers and integrating Zfluence’s proprietary tech–which allows brands to match with, filter, and select influencers for their campaigns–to the Her Campus Media ecosystem. As a collective, Her Campus Media will now have the ability to run even larger, stronger, more scalable and robust influencer marketing programs that deliver on brand goals.
“We have always admired Zfluence’s ability to harness the power of Gen Z to deliver results for brands with ease and efficiency while fostering a robust community and aligning with influencers’ goals in turn,” said Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Her Campus Media. “We are proud to welcome Zfluence to the Her Campus Media family and look forward to partnering with Zfluence founder Ava McDonald to leverage Her Campus Media’s deep reach, resources, and expertise and use them to supercharge the unbelievable platform she’s built. This acquisition will allow us to continue delivering on our mission as a full-service marketing agency connecting brands with college students and Gen Z in authentic ways.”
Her Campus Media has always been driven by its mission to create opportunities for and empower the next generation, and welcoming Zfluence into its portfolio exemplifies this mission in more ways than one. Not only does Zfluence enable Her Campus Media to unlock opportunities for more Gen Z creators, but also Zfluence founder and CEO Ava McDonald is a Gen Zer herself and a current college senior at Georgetown University, further embodying Her Campus Media’s commitment to young entrepreneurs and career development.
“I can’t imagine a better home for Zfluence and our nationwide community of Zfluencers than Her Campus, which shares our passion for authenticity and empowering Gen Z,” said Ava McDonald, founder and CEO of Zfluence. “Her Campus has an exceptional team, an extensive network, and substantial resources, and I am confident that Her Campus will propel Zfluence to exciting new heights of success and influence.”
The organization plans to seamlessly marry Zfluence’s robust community of influencers and proprietary tech with Her Campus Media’s full-service end to end influencer marketing and integrated programs that span influencer, digital, experiential, ambassadorships, market research, creative, and sampling. The deal marks the sixth acquisition for the completely bootstrapped Her Campus Media. Previous acquisitions include HerUni, a UK-based college women’s media property (2013), the Lala, a young women’s lifestyle media property (2019), College Fashionista (2019), Spoon University (2019), and Endorsify, an influencer marketing agency (2020).
About Her Campus Media
Her Campus Media is the #1 media portfolio for college women and Gen Z, and reaches hundreds of millions of readers and social followers across its family of brands, including Her Campus, Spoon University, College Fashionista, InfluenceHer Collective, and Generation Hired, with a highly curated network of 50,000+ influencers and ambassadors across 1,500+ colleges. Leveraging its digital, social, experiential, influencer and on-campus reach, Her Campus Media provides award-winning marketing programs that drive consumer engagement and loyalty for the world’s leading brands. Her Campus has been named to Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies, Adweek’s Campaign of the Year, Entrepreneur magazine’s Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America, and Forbes 100 Best Websites for Women among other accolades.
About Zfluence
Founded in March 2019, Zfluence is a marketing platform that connects brands and the influential Gen Z consumers who authentically love them. Zfluence solves two key marketplace needs: it enables brands to engage in and practice authentic brand advocacy and empowers Gen Z consumers, who seek alignment with the brands they support, to participate in building the brands they love. Zfluence addresses the Gen Z demographic’s emphasis on authenticity as a core value, enabling companies to leverage the genuine insights and influence of their genuine Gen Z fans to attract new Gen Z consumers. Using the Zfluence platform, brands connect with their genuine Gen Z fans and mobilize them in a variety of ways, from posting authentic content on Instagram and TikTok and participating in brainstorming sessions to wearing branded merchandise on campus.
