#InfluencerDebate: Jules Lund, Eaon Pritchard and Jamie Crick debate effectiveness of influencer marketing
The effectiveness of influencer marketing was debated today in a live hangout between Tribal’s Jules Lund, King Content’s Eaon Pritchard and Emotive’s Jamie Crick.
Influencers are generally defined as people who have a large social media following, often based around a particular interest like fashion, cars or entertainment.
This morning Subway launched what its agency Emotive claims is the largest ever influencer marketing campaign in Australia, as it looks to reposition the brand and make it more appealing to younger consumers, which Emotive CEO Simon Joyce said would “move the dial” in sales for the brand.
However, some in the industry debate the effectiveness of influencer marketing and question whether there is really evidence that it is able to make a decent impact on results.
The Mumbrella video hangout saw the trio examine both sides of the argument debating whether influence can be exerted intentionally, who influencers really are, what metrics marketers should be using to measure success on these campaigns, and what the next iterations of it we can expect to see are.
Joining today’s debate were Jamie Crick, strategy director for Emotive, Eaon Pritchard, head of strategy of King Content and Jules Lund, who presents The Scoopla on the Today Hit Network and is involved in influencer tech startup Tribe.
Timeline of discussions:
- 0.01 – Introduction to panel
- 1.26 – What is the case for influencer marketing?
- 3.46 – Is it different from traditional celebrity endorsement that has been used for so many years?
- 4.14 – What is the case against the influencer model?
- 6.13 – What’s the strategy behind the Subway campaign in terms of influencers?
- 9.20 – What are the scientific arguments for or against influencer marketing?
- 14.30 – Is influencer going to replace mass marketing or is it more about a complimentary approach?
- 17.00 – Is introducing a brand to social media influencers a challenge to their authenticity for their followers?
- 20.20 – Is it a generational thing? Is it perhaps an effective way of reaching ‘millenials’?
- 23.39 – Is there a case for sticking with a particular influencer and driving through a series of campaigns?
- 25.35 – Is there a case here that brands can just match with influencers and cut the agency out of the equation altogether?
- 31.00 – How does the money flow from brand to agency to influencer?
- 33.50 – What parts of the budget are marketers going to be stripping back on with the influencer model?
- 35.19 – Is the model a threat to PR?
- 37.17 – Is there a more effective way for brands to actually reach ‘millenials’?
- 40.10 – Is influencer marketing adding benefit to clients and is worthwhile pursuing?
- 45.00 –What’s the best way to measure influencer ROI? CPM or CPE? Any winning formula?
- 46.35 – What do you think we will see next in influencer marketing?
- 48.38 – How does Subway track what the ROI on the influencer part of the campaign over the above the line part of the campaign? What’s next?
- 49.45 – What are we going to see next? Where do brands go from here? How will this space develop?
Can we please not pretend that it is anything more than paying someone to plug a product. It’s just another paid product endorsement. Wrapping it up in data and “science” (?) doesn’t remove the fact that endorsements of this nature are not believed as genuine. They are still cheesy and forced. Why are consumers treated as being a bunch of dumb arsed fools who would fall for this rubbish? Hang on,,,,,maybe that’s what the people pedaling this approach are relying on.
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I doubt these influencers have a large following in AU. And if the brand buys views to hit an AU audience, the claims about authenticity become false.
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I don’t think anyone is relying on the public to be foolish with influencer marketing. Consumers are arguably now more discerning than ever.
Whether or not the endorsement is paid, social media influencers are conscious of their own brand as well. In our experience, they won’t endorse products that they don’t already genuinely love. As discussed in the hangout, if it’s not done properly it can definitely appear forced and out of place – but the backlash to that kind of content is precisely why influencers are careful about what they will endorse on their own channels. Jules and Jamie were absolutely right about the key benefit of influencer marketing being that it is organic and authentic when done properly.
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@really? It is possible to verify an influencer’s Australian following before engaging them and is one of the first things anyone working with influencers should check.
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Jamie you have missed my point. Simon claims this will move the sales dial. However for that to happen you need reach. If we assume this influencer only has 5% of their total audience coming from Australia, like most Youtubers in this country, Subway has paid for significant wastage. And my point above, if you buy true view to extend the AU reach then the authenticity from such a campaign, as claimed here, is lost.
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@really? I take your point but don’t entirely agree. The measure of whether you’ve got the right content in front of the right people is in their (voluntary) engagement with it: view-through, shares, likes, comments, etc. Paid media can be a legitimate part of accelerating distribution if it succeeds on these terms.
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