‘They did not deliver value for money’: Agencies respond to government’s influencer ban
Influencer agencies have responded to the federal government's decision to ban the use of paid influencers, arguing the issue isn't about the effectiveness of influencers, but a misunderstanding of the industry.
Following the government’s recent decision to ban all use of influencers in its future marketing campaigns, a spokesperson from the federal government has told Mumbrella it believes influencer marketing “did not deliver value for money” and “could undermine the effectiveness of relevant campaigns”.
“The government has decided that paid social media influencers are not to be used in any advertising and outreach campaigns of the Australian Government,” the spokesperson said.
“The government took the decision to rule out the use of paid social media influencers as they did not deliver value for money and the use of social media influencers could undermine the effectiveness of relevant campaigns.”
The influencer ban came after it was revealed that the government had spent more than $600,000 of taxpayer money in less than two years on influencers.
The campaign consisted of social media influencers posting fitness photos on Instagram in ads for the government’s health department.
The industry responds
Following the decision, Mumbrella reached out to Australian influencer agencies to get their take on the government’s claim that influencers do not deliver value for money.
Suzie Shaw, managing director, We Are Social believes the government’s decision is “short-sighted” and a “shame”.
“This unilateral decision by the Australian Government to exclude social media influencers from their campaigns seems short-sighted in that they absolutely can be effective in efficiently reaching and engaging, particularly hard-to-reach audiences.
“However, it’s much the same as employing any talent to represent or endorse your message: it’s critical to do due diligence in selection and vetting and construct the deal in such a way that does deliver a solid ROI. It’s a shame that they’ve obviously not achieved good outcomes, where many other brands and organisations have.”
Natalie Giddings, managing director at The Remarkables Group, agrees arguing the government’s ban on influencers signifies “some much needed maturing of the industry”.
Giddings says the government made a fundamental error when initially working with influencers as it skipped obtaining “the necessary research and vetting, even in its most basic form in the hope of getting engaging content at scale”.
“When plotting the influencers to work with, you must follow a multi-step process to inform your assessment, as if they are an extension of your brand team. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts.
“An advantage of doing this homework is working with each influencer to their strengths is maximising your budget and return on investment. Influencers are unique in skills, channel etc. And like all media channels and publishers have their own nuances and therefore a customised approach,” Giddings adds.
Social Soup’s CEO Sharyn Smith says the issue has nothing to do with effectiveness of influencer marketing, instead the problem lies with the inadequate choice of influencers.
“Where influencers are chosen through an in-depth vetting process they are chosen for their content relevance, authenticity and audience quality along with a whole host of brand safety checks the effectiveness is increased significantly.”
Smith says influencer marketing is still maturing and this is an important conversation to have within the industry.
“We need to work through increasing the quality of campaigns and clients can get more educated on what makes good influencer marketing. As an industry we need to provide education and tools on how to identify authentic influencers and good vetting processes to match the right influencers to a brand then we’ll increase the reputation in the long run.”
Vamp’s co-founder of influencer marketing platform Aaron Brooks, takes a similar stance to Smith, arguing influencers can absolutely undermine the effectiveness of a campaign if the business choosing to use influencers doesn’t do its due diligence.
“Influencers could undermine the effectiveness of a campaign, that’s why when choosing ambassadors, brands and organisations should take care to select the right person and do their due diligence. It’s also why we have always carefully curated an invite-only platform, so we can ensure our influencers can bring only value to our client’s campaigns.
“Controversies like this should see the industry become more regulated, and checks more thorough, which can only be a good thing.”
However, Brooks says marketers and brands shouldn’t be put off using influencers, just because it hasn’t worked out for one organisation.
“When chosen well – based on their professionalism and the quality of their content, rather than the number of followers they have – they bring authenticity and amazing engagement to campaigns.”
Erin Murphy, head of digital advocacy at Pulse Communications, says influencer marketing shouldn’t be banned, instead it should be regulated.
“Removing influencers from the marketing mix altogether may indirectly cause Australians to turn their attention to commercial entities as they continue to consume volumes of content online.
“It’s getting harder for organisations to reach their audiences, but when used effectively, influencers provide a valuable way for marketers to tell authentic stories in a targeted way.
“With one in five mobile minutes spent on Facebook, social as a source of information and a way to connect isn’t going anywhere so it’s short-sighted to remove influencers from the mix given their impact on younger demographics today. But influencers should be engaged wisely and carefully selected.
“They still drive resonance as a credible voice to amplify a message to the Australian public if they reflect the values of an initiative in an authentic way. It’s important for marketers to conduct comprehensive audits and brand safety checks to ensure the talent haven’t communicated any conflicting messages in the past and are well informed to advocate specific cause effectively.”
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Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.
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topics
Aaron Brooks
Girls Make Your Move
influencer marketing
Natalie Giddings
PR
Sharyn Smith
Social Soup
Suzie Shaw
The Remarkables Group
VAMP
We Are Social
Influencer (or “talent”) seems to mean hot girl who shows as much skin as possible or at least always wears activewear. Clickable of course but do they really influence?
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Of course the influencer program worked in spades! After all Malcolm virtually invented the interweb-thingie.
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It’s probably got more to do with the fact most of their ‘followers’ on Instagram are actually a way smaller a demographic than the Government Agency involved actually thought they were reaching out to. Of 100,000 followers, there will be heaps of men, lots of them professing undying love in the creepiest of replies to their posts. There will be teenage boys looking at half naked young women, believe it or not they actually do that. There will be all the bought followers, that happens with most ‘influencers’ to get them started. There will be lots of women there too, but how many will there be from a specific area that is hosting an event ? That’s probably the influencers actual friends. So all that money is spent influencing a very small amount of people for a relatively large sum of money. It is an emerging market that is still in its infancy, it will become easier to engage wider audiences as it grows, it’s a real way to make a living now, much like YouTube provides a platform for so many people, Social Media is always morphing. Most of these influencers will be ahead of the curve if they can keep paying the bills until it becomes a place where advertising revenue will bring serious money into the area.
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Excellent decision. The government comms and media departments should be held accountable for this wasted money. Someone obviously spotted an advertising band wagon – ‘hey everyone’s on Instagram these days lets get some influencers’ – too tempting not to hitch a ride on and throw cash at hoping some of it would stick and buy them the equivalent of government street cred.
Although the talent may be local, why we are funding OS platforms and predominantly OS jobs at the expense of local media, journalism and associated trickle down industry jobs? Why are we throwing money at platforms that provide opaque metrics and are open to manipulation by the talent and the platforms themselves?
If local companies want to throw cash and in-kind sponsorship at people that look pretty, and fuel their lifestyles then good luck to them. But our government should be accountable when they throw our money at disposable talent on dispensable media.
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Interesting that the response from the pro-influencer lobby appears to be: “If only they had done better due diligence they would have seen better results”
But what if they did do due diligence in this case (and I see no evidence that they merely stuck a pin and paid the money? What then? What is the defence if one spends time (and I assume engages with one of the agencies in the article) to identify and brief an influencer and it still doesn’t deliver? We are seeing this happen much more these days.
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Why use the same moniker as I did to comment directly below my comment without differentiating yourself?
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