Advertising and Influencers: The New Rules in a Brave New World [Oi Conference 2018]

Advertising and Influencers: The New Rules in a Brave New World

Ross Brown, Vice President: Brand Strategy and content at PMK-BNC

Advertising used to be simple.

Advertising has got more complicated with the rise of influencer advertising. You need to let your audience know when the are being advertised to and don’t forget the rules are different all over the world.

However, even influencer advertising has its drawbacks. We are all suffering from image fatigue. The average dwell time is 2 seconds. 95m images are uploaded daily onto Instagram and 300m images are uploaded daily to facebook.

However, using influcencers as part of your advertising and marketing strategy is a viable strategy and might work for you. After all traditional and digital media and advertising are not that far apart you are simply utilising the different daily consumption habits of your consumers.

Working with Influencers

Finding the right influencers can be a challenge. Getting the right influencers with the right audience can mean spending more time on your casting model to make this work. Make sure your brand fits with your influencers ideals and existing conversations.  Check the audience demographic per social platform to ensure that the influencer speaks directly to the people that your brand wants to target.

If you are unsure about what you want then work backwards. define what success looks like and then work backwards to find your influencers.

You can’t have only 1 or 2 people carrying your entire message for you. So make sure that you identify a range of influencers to work with. There is no one size fits all so be experimental and try different levels of influencers to see what works for you.

When you have identified your influencers make sure that you plan the narrative and prepare for everything. Build a briefing document that contractually ties to the influencer to the campaign outlining key details such as posting dates, content, campaign messages, any key handles/hashtags, fee etc.

If they are experienced influencers and understand your brand you don’t have to dictate the content too rigidly – this allows them to be more authentic and embrace the brand and is more likely to pave the way for longer term collaboration.

Finally, when your campaign is underway, make sure that you track this in real-time. Track awareness, engagement and reach of all the content produced by your influencer(s).