For the love of the Instagram gods, can you please keep it real
HooZu’s Nathan Ruff breaks down exactly what went wrong with influencer Andrew Pap’s sponsored engagement announcement, after it received a torrent of negativity online.
Like the majority of my contemporaries in the advertising sphere, I’ve not been able to escape the Insta image of Renae Ayris getting proposed to over a cuppa joe from her loving fiancé Andrew Papadopoulos.
Great article and perspective from someone so close to the channel. Nice one Ruffy.
Good article and spot on.
Just can’t help wondering though (or at least musing on the irony) – how ‘real’ can any ‘campaign’ be when it is back up by ‘agency’ and ‘data tapping’ and ‘AI insights’?
Thanks Brian,
the brand advocates bring the “realness”
the agency guides it being “on brand” with out losing the realness
the data is used as insurance to ensure it will work with the audience
Such cringey marketing!
Way to devalue your personal life for a product that is universally associated with ‘morning smoko’, bad breath and office cheapskates.
All good points Nathan. The other point I’d like to add is that Instagram is literally flooded with images of beautiful people, fit bodies, stunning views, amazing homes, stylish clothes and great (often healthy) food. I question Nescafe’s relevance in this channel. I don’t (want to) know anyone who drinks instant coffee 🙂
Maybe it’s the Melburnian in me.
It’s the Italian in me who doesn’t drink instant coffee!
The guy is reflecting on his engagement over a coffee in bed? What’s the big deal? I’ve seen much worse…
I agree, the post is a little (very) cheesy and OTT, but is similar to the rest of Andrew’s uplifting and positive style of content.
However having seen this influencer’s statistics and back end data reports, his audience is real and therefore at least Nescafe is engaging with real Australians, which is more than can be said for so many Aussie influencers with fake following following and fake engagements who are still being offered paid gigs.
Anon, good points.
Hoozu vets its influencer audiences and every recommendations we put froward has their audience audited, we have a 15 step process and various proprietary platforms we use that will eliminate any suspicious behavior.
This is not as big a deal as everyone is bemoaning , and there are plenty of ways to confirm and restrict influencers partaking in fake and fraudulent engagements.
I’d love to see a guest post from you guys, naming and shaming those with fake followings, don’t use #collab/#ad and the brands that work with them.
If you are going to bring influencers down… bring the influencers and brands down who are actually ruining this industry rather than someone who made a slightly cheesy post about celebrating their engagement…
Love it. Absolute 0/10 for relevance. The sheer arrogance of trying to peddle instant coffee as a prestigious, insta-worthy or celebratory product is mind boggling. Kudos to the team for giving it a crack though, we can all learn from this.
I have only read the first couple of paragraphs of this article, and see one HUGE UNTRUTH! Let me correct you. This was NOT an insta post actually done during the proposal! It has been twisted to look like that, as noone has actually read the post correctly. He used the word engagement and everyone has got on their high horse. They were engaged 3 weeks before! The post would have been booked in before they even got engaged….. Fact is, instagram influencers are the way of the modern advertising world! If he had not mentioned “engagement” this would never have been attacked! I’m sure he is regretting it, but articles like this, basing themselves on untruths certainly don’t help!
Joanne, we had a bet going in the office that someone would not construe the opening paragraphs as sarcasm, Congrats
We are fully aware that instagram influencers play very important role in the marketing sphere, which if you read past the 3rd paragraph clearly states.
Like all forms of marketing , mistakes will be made and often criticised and as a collective marketing community , makes us all better.
what *are* you saying?
Are they on a boat?
Great insights, Nathan. Additionally, does the hashtag #collab satisfy the Australian regulators? I doubt it would keep the FTC in the US or ASA in UK content?
Pretty sure we all just misread the meaning of “engagement” among all the vapidity.
Maybe they were celebrating all their monetised engagement, having realised in a moment of sober reflection that their particular brand of banal exhibitionism was in fact all a concocted, meaningless sham, and that douche-casting live evidence of their pathological vanity would eventually run out of steam.
Make hay while the sun shines.
Maybe you should do your research properly as that wasn’t his proposal!! His proposal was private and intimate with no one else around and it was done in Sydney weeks before that photo. Fuck- why do people feel the need to bring people down during what’s supposed to be such a joyous and happy time. Get a life
Nobody ever said it was his actual proposal – have a cry over your mates, Domino!
Its very evident that he is willing to monetise anything in his life, though, even something personal.
In the immortal words of Barbie (above):
“their particular brand of banal exhibitionism was in fact all a concocted, meaningless sham, and that douche-casting live evidence of their pathological vanity would eventually run out of steam”