Influencer bubble going to ‘burst’ suggests Nick Fordham
The influencer marketing “bubble” is set to be burst, potentially from a lack of transparency, the boss of a talent management agency has suggested.
Speaking at Mumbrella360 Nick Fordham, CEO and owner of The Fordham Company, which represents celebrities including Lisa Wilkinson, Sophie Monk, Mark Bouris and Peter Fitzsimons, said he defines a celebrity as someone who has a talent which “blows up the whole bubble of influencers”.
The term influencer refers to bloggers, Instagrammers, Youtubers and the like with big audiences and high engagement who partner with brands to send out marketing messages to their audience.
“Social media is a secondary thing to someone with a talent or a profile. Actually being talented at something and being paid a lot of money for what you do is how I identify talent,” he said.
“I’m all about transactions and money. If I’ve got a client fronting a campaign for someone, you want to make sure at the end of that two or three year turn, that their influence on the brand has made more transactions for that company.
“That will mean there’s a bigger chance of that company renewing that contract. You can’t judge a transaction on someone posting a photo holding a bottle of water.
“It brings in the other issue of disclosure for cash for comment which will come into the influencer space which is holding a product and pretending it’s part of your life and not disclosing you’re being paid. I reckon that bubble is going to burst pretty soon, in my view.”
In other breaking news: water is wet.
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I would respectfully disagree. Influencers are part of the total brand discovery ecosystem which includes everything from 30 second spots to outdoor billboards, blogs, tweets, product reviews and every other way a consumer might become aware or engage with a brand. Yes it all needs more transparency, trust and standard transactional terms, but it’s not going away at all.
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The cash for comment aspect is what I find really repugnant. The idea of obscuring something as paid advertising is pretty gross. There is nothing wrong with saying something to the effect of “I’m working with X company at the moment to spread the word about their new Y”
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Brands using influencers are putting so much trust in people where so much can go wrong with very little reward.
Just buy another fake review.
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Your opinion is self interest, fair enough. Like it or not influences do have data and greater acess to markets. You don’t have to be on TV to cultivate a huge following.
I don’t work in this space and gain no benefit.
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Probably the hardest thing for me was reading about talent and Sophie Monk in the same sentence
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Word. Also this guy is hardly impartial. He’s pushing his own agenda and “talent”.
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If this is most discussed you are pretty desperate. Are you related to this guy. It’s all just so obvious.
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Influencer Marketing is here to stay as long as the influencers keep the trust of their audience. Right now, consumers trust influencers over politicians, banks, advertising, governement and marketing campaigns. It is the most effective way to market a company in 2016. If influencers lose trust, influencer marketing will become a bubble. Intellectual influencers understand this, however most brands don’t. The more they try to control, the less the consumer will trust that influencer. Consumers are smart and they can tell when someone is being payed to do something. If brands want to maximize their strategy, they need to let go, and let influencers do what they do best. Influence.
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