Lies, damned lies and the truth about influencer marketing

Influ­encer mar­ket­ing remains one of the biggest oppor­tu­ni­ties for brands to mar­ket to and con­nect with increas­ing­ly social media savvy cus­tomers. But, giv­en that it has had its fair share of neg­a­tive media cov­er­age in recent times thanks to the antics of real­i­ty TV stars, it is vital to get the strat­e­gy right.

Celebri­ty Kim Kar­dashi­an was an exam­ple of a cam­paign gone wrong last year when she was fined $1.26million by the U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion for pro­mot­ing an unproven cryp­tocur­ren­cy called Ethereum­Max on social media, with­out dis­clos­ing that the con­tent was part of a $250,000 paid part­ner­ship. 

Her half-sis­ter and fel­low TV star, Kendall Jen­ner, had pre­vi­ous­ly been slammed along­side oth­er social media influ­encers, for pro­mot­ing the infa­mous fraud­u­lent Fyre music fes­ti­val. Fans paid thou­sands of dol­lars for a sup­posed lux­u­ry event in the Bahamas but were met instead by, as the Guardian report­ed, ‘emer­gency tents, cheese rolls and squalor’. 

This celebri­ty focussed approach can hit brands’ rep­u­ta­tions and their bot­tom line. Recent stud­ies have shown that near­ly half of con­sumers are fatigued by repet­i­tive and ano­dyne celebri­ty influ­encer con­tent with only 3% of con­sumers now being influ­enced by their endorse­ments when buy­ing prod­ucts.

“When I tell peo­ple what I do for a job they imme­di­ate­ly think about brands pay­ing big celebri­ties thou­sands of dol­lars to push their con­tent to mil­lions of fol­low­ers on their social media feeds. It is essen­tial­ly, they believe, a media ad buy­ing exer­cise,” says Neil Bren­nan, SVP sales at influ­encer mar­ket­ing plat­form Klear. “I see it every day myself. I fol­low Lionel Mes­si on social media, and he will just lit­er­al­ly post ads on his Insta­gram for prod­ucts I assume he knows very lit­tle about.”

Healthy ROI

But despite the gloom brands have not shown influ­encer mar­ket­ing the red card – quite the oppo­site.

Accord­ing to the Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing Hub’s 2023 ‘State of Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing’ report brands and mar­ket­ing agen­cies believe that the ‘odd hor­ror sto­ry in the media is the excep­tion and not the rule’ and that influ­encer mar­ket­ing is still deemed to be ‘effec­tive’ with regards to sales, engage­ment, return on invest­ment and attract­ing a high­er qual­i­ty of cus­tomer than oth­er mar­ket­ing meth­ods.

One key dri­ver behind the use of influ­encer mar­ket­ing is the devel­op­ment of user gen­er­at­ed con­tent – indeed accord­ing to the State of Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing report it is now the main rea­son brands embrace the strat­e­gy. It can be an effec­tive way of pop­u­lat­ing a brand’s web­site with con­tent gen­er­at­ed by influ­encers rather than their own cre­ators there­by reduc­ing costs. An exam­ple is Lululemon’s ‘The Sweat Life’ cam­paign, where it encour­ages its cus­tomers to post pho­tos of them­selves in the brand’s clothes on their social media feeds. They are then repur­posed for use on Lululemon’s own web­site.

Accord­ing to Sta­tista, 60% of mar­keters say influ­encer mar­ket­ing has a high­er return on invest­ment than tra­di­tion­al adver­tis­ing. Oth­er stud­ies have found that it also boosts brand engage­ment with just a 1% increase in influ­encer mar­ket­ing spend­ing result­ing in an engage­ment boost of almost 0.5%. In addi­tion,  a third of social media users say they dis­cov­er new prod­ucts via influ­encers.

The Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing Hub report found that spend on influ­encer mar­ket­ing climbed 29% from $16.4billion in 2022 to $21.1billion in 2023. Where­as in 2016, this fig­ure was only $1.7billion.

Indeed, more than 80% of mar­ket­ing agen­cies and brands intend­ed to ded­i­cate bud­get to influ­encer mar­ket­ing in 2023, with a quar­ter look­ing to allo­cate 40% of their total mar­ket­ing bud­get. 

“Some few and far between influ­encer cas­es have become news­wor­thy. It is a human based prac­tice and there is always going to be some lev­el of con­tro­ver­sy but over­all, more peo­ple fol­low influ­encers online than fol­low brands and trust them more,” says influ­encer mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant Camille Kennedy. “Peo­ple from all gen­er­a­tions still look at influ­encers rec­om­men­da­tions and go to their feeds on Insta­gram and Tik­Tok to learn about the lat­est trends and prod­ucts.”

Microinfluencers spark engagement

It’s also increas­ing­ly about val­ues, argues Scott Guthrie, direc­tor gen­er­al of the Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing trade body. “Con­sumers from all gen­er­a­tions want to spend their mon­ey with brands they can iden­ti­fy with on dif­fer­ent lev­els,” he says. “They want them to mesh with their world views and behav­iours. They want to cosy up with brands, so find­ing the right influ­encer who aligns with these val­ues and can human­ise the brand is impor­tant.”

Con­sumers are also gen­er­al­ly savvi­er about being mar­ket­ed and sold to by brands. 

Brands have also been accused of appro­pri­at­ing social caus­es for com­mer­cial gain. Recent­ly, brew­ing com­pa­ny AB In-Bev saw sales of drinks such as Bud Light slump fol­low­ing a social media pro­mo­tion with trans­gen­der influ­encer Dylan Mul­vaney. The brand faced crit­i­cism from con­ser­v­a­tive­ly mind­ed drinkers who believed a trans­gen­der per­son did not reflect their social val­ues and from trans­gen­der sup­port­ers who thought the brand did not give enough sup­port to Mul­vaney fol­low­ing the back­lash.

Bren­nan believes brands must respond to con­cerns around influ­encer fatigue by re-shap­ing influ­encer mar­ket­ing strate­gies if they want the ben­e­fits to con­tin­ue. That means mov­ing away from celeb-dom­i­nat­ed influ­encer mar­ket­ing to more use of so-called micro and nano influ­encers with small­er but more engaged fol­low­ers.

This is already hap­pen­ing with the Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing Hub report find­ing that there is a pref­er­ence amongst brands and mar­ket­ing agen­cies to use small­er influ­encers. These typ­i­cal­ly have fol­low­er num­bers between 1,000 and 100,000 rather than mega or celebri­ty influ­encers.

“The heart of cre­ative mar­ket­ing is hav­ing a gen­uine and authen­tic rela­tion­ship between a brand, an influ­encer and the audi­ence they want to appeal to,” Bren­nan says. “There are so many cre­ative influ­encers out there who are author­i­ties in their space and have pas­sion­ate fol­low­ers. They cre­ate con­tent which res­onates with peo­ple. They want to read it and are delight­ed by it. Brands are increas­ing­ly part­ner­ing with small­er influ­encers, insert­ing a brand mes­sage into the con­tent but main­tain­ing that appeal, authen­tic­i­ty and trust.”

Bren­nan adds that this bespoke con­tent will help give brands an advan­tage in an altered con­sumer envi­ron­ment. “Most buy­ing deci­sions are now made by peo­ple who research online first. That’s usu­al­ly on Google for those over 25 years of age and Tik-Tok for those a bit younger,” he says. “If peo­ple are on these social chan­nels, then brands need to be more aware of what and who is being talked about on them.”

Brands should also embed influ­encer mar­ket­ing into an over­all cam­paign strat­e­gy. “Influ­encer mar­ket­ing is often seen in iso­la­tion. When a brand decides to run a cam­paign, they focus on their main ver­ti­cal – say TV or dig­i­tal – and influ­encer mar­ket­ing is just an after­thought at the end of it,” Bren­nan explains. “The brands who are doing this the best are using a joined-up strat­e­gy. As part of their over­all plan­ning process, they iden­ti­fy cre­ative influ­encers who will make a big impact via con­tent and mes­sag­ing, but it can also be repur­posed to be used on their own social chan­nels.”

Influencers are a must-have

Guthrie adds: “Influ­encers can be used at the top of the sales fun­nel, along with the big celebri­ties, to build aware­ness, in the mid­dle to nudge peo­ple to find out more about a prod­uct and at the bot­tom dri­ving con­ver­sion. Again, find­ing the right influ­encer fit is cru­cial as dif­fer­ent cre­ators are adept at doing dif­fer­ent things from aspi­ra­tional to sales-focused con­tent.”

Kennedy says it is about find­ing where these cred­i­ble voic­es can be more effec­tive­ly used. “That could be invit­ing influ­encers to red car­pet brand events such as the Met Gala. A decade ago, it would have been full of celebri­ties not influ­encers. They are also even being used on pack­ag­ing in retail stores and in TV adver­tis­ing,” she says. “It is a 360-degree inte­grat­ed approach where influ­encer mar­ket­ing is part of the core strat­e­gy, chan­nel mix and media plan. If you aren’t using influ­encers, you are leav­ing mon­ey on the table.”

Guthrie is equal­ly as demon­stra­tive. “Influ­encer mar­ket­ing is no longer siloed. It is the beat­ing heart of the mar­ket­ing mix,” he says.

In fact, Bren­nan adds, some brands have put all their chips into influ­encer mar­ket­ing. “They’ve cut all their paid dig­i­tal media based on ROI and are using only influ­encers in their con­tent cre­ation strat­e­gy,” he says. “What­ev­er way you use it, it is naïve at best for a busi­ness to dis­miss influ­encer mar­ket­ing. If you don’t explore it, you are dri­ving your busi­ness with only one hand at the wheel.”

Influencer marketing remains one of the biggest opportunities for brands to market to and connect with increasingly social media savvy customers. But, given that it has had its fair share of negative media coverage in recent times thanks to the antics of reality TV stars, it is vital to get the strategy right.

Celebrity Kim Kardashian was an example of a campaign gone wrong last year when she was fined $1.26million by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for promoting an unproven cryptocurrency called EthereumMax on social media, without disclosing that the content was part of a $250,000 paid partnership. 

Her half-sister and fellow TV star, Kendall Jenner, had previously been slammed alongside other social media influencers, for promoting the infamous fraudulent Fyre music festival. Fans paid thousands of dollars for a supposed luxury event in the Bahamas but were met instead by, as the Guardian reported, ‘emergency tents, cheese rolls and squalor’.