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hough a buzzword of recent times, influencer marketing is not a new concept. For decades, brands have recruited musicians, athletes and models alike to demonstrate their affiliation and passion for their product. Perhaps one of the most memorable cases of all time was Michael Jackson’s role in the 1980’s Pepsi Generation commercials. It is said that Pepsi paid him in excess of five billion dollars for his feature; however, the campaign was indisputably successful as it allowed Pepsi to reinvent itself as the drink for the ‘new generation’, ensuring that Pepsi, like Jackson, was crowned the king of ‘pop’.
Yet, following the rise of social media, and most notably the ever-growing monster that is Instagram, influencer marketing has entered a new dimension, achieving unrivalled levels of global reach as a single post can trigger a universal response. Kylie Jenner takes the crown as 2018’s highest-valued influencer on social media as she earns 1 million dollars per sponsored post. But when that post can be broadcasted to 117 million followers with a simple click of a button, it is easy to see why. This heightened access to influencers through social media makes influencer marketing more investible than ever before; a notion that has not gone unnoticed by industry experts. According to Mediakix, it is projected to become a 5 to 10 billion dollar industry by 2020, and thus it should be regarded as a business in its own right. So, it’s no surprise to see influencer marketing agencies, whose sole purpose it is to create and execute influencer marketing campaigns, popping up left, right and centre; a sure sign of a changing culture. However, due to the fast-moving reality TV culture that we live in, brands are killing their credibility as they adopt an ‘anyone and anything’ approach to influencer marketing. By this I mean that they are targeting people who have been thrust into the limelight without a well-established personal brand. Companies are quick to snap them up as they are the ‘trending’ celebrities of the time, but the only benefit that they bring to the brand is their follower count. ITV’s Love Island is a prime example of this, as the contestants walk out of the show and instantly secure brand ambassador deals with fashion labels, despite our only prior knowledge of their individual style being the clothing they were dressed in by the show’s stylists, as dictated by the
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programme’s contract with Missguided. Our feeds are flooded with #sponsoredposts from Pretty Little Thing, Boohoo, Missguided, In The Style, (and the list goes on), only for this season’s golden girls to be replaced months later once the hype is over and everyone’s attention has shifted to the newer, shinier models. Brands are simply and unashamedly cashing in on a quick win. And what message does that send out about the brand? As a marketing technique, the main problem with this form of influencer marketing is that these celebrities have not earned the trust of their followers through merit or knowledge; they too are merely capitalising on short-term fame. And it’s blatantly obvious. So how can one authentically pledge for something that they have no knowledge of? These celebrities are not content creators; they are ordinary people who got lucky and shot to fame. Brands recognise this, and in an attempt to guide the celebrities, or rather control the message and tone of voice, they dictate the post’s content, sprinkling it with familiar slang and emojis to forge sincerity. And yet somehow, it just doesn’t feel sincere. Perhaps it’s the randomness with which celebrities who have never expressed an interest in fitness can suddenly be seen promoting protein shakes and slimming teas? Or perhaps it’s the repetitiveness of the posts across