Doug Simon

A Google search of “What’s Wrong with Influencer Marketing?” generates more than 28 million results. Influencer Marketing is popular because it works, but clearly there are problems with the way it’s currently being practiced. Are you building long term value? Are you putting your brand’s trust and authenticity at risk?

This article is featured in O’Dwyer’s Apr. ’17 Social Media Broadcast Services Magazine

As practiced today, we’ll see the law of diminishing returns take effect with influencer marketing. As Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia says “marketers ruin everything.” As we go from the Kardashians to micro-influencers, what could go wrong? 

It’s time to flip the script on the traditional approach to influencer marketing. Instead of working with influencers as brand reps, we need to be promoting our own experts. We need to redefine influencer marketing.

According to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, trust for business is 27% higher than trust for government and 21% higher than trust for media. NGOs are even more trusted. So, why are we risking our authenticity by putting our brand’s reputation in the hands of outside influencers? Is there a smarter way to partner with influencers to grow your brand and your influence without the risk?

Andy Polansky, CEO at Weber Shandwick noted “the strong link between corporate reputation and CEO engagement” in a recent press release. This approach builds long term value for your organization. This approach builds authenticity and trust.

Surprisingly, turning your experts into influencers also helps to earn media across platforms. The D S Simon Media Brand Video Communications Report found, your in-house experts outperform third-party spokespeople. In the report, 200 brand communicators were surveyed.  84% of them reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their own expert’s ability to earn media, more than double the level when using outside experts. PR agency people also found in-house experts outperformed outside spokespeople. This matches our internal results when clients feature in-house experts during Influencer Media Tours.  Perhaps it’s time to remember the forgotten influencer inside your organization.

But do outside influencers still have a role? Yes. Instead of working with influencers as brand reps, we recommend partnering with them as media bringing your experts to their audiences without the risk. These outside influencers can amplify your message by interacting with your experts, via video and sharing the content with their audiences on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or Twitter as well as traditional broadcast channels. This provides a safe harbor for your brand while building the amount of influence your expert or leader has — all key factors for growth.

Here are some tactics that work With Influencer Media Tours your spokespeople will be interviewed by influencers on television, radio, online and through social media channels. Influencer Media Packages provide custom content with your experts directly to influencers in your space. As part of an Influencer Video Series, your in-house expert engages in conversations with key opinion leaders, business prospects and online influencers to expand your reach. Some other useful tools are Influencer Junkets and Digital Press Conferences that allow you to generate media coverage around the globe. With any approach authenticity is key and leveraging your internal experts is more cost-effective and ensures your brand messaging is delivered in the most reliable way possible.

Leaders at major brands understand the power of an authentic spokesperson. We recently worked with the Head of Products at Check Point Software Technologies, Michael Shaulov, who served as the spokesperson for his company’s recent media outreach. He had this to say about the benefits of using internal leaders as spokespeople: “Dealing with customers, we are in the field, we are in the ecosystem day and night. When we talk about those topics we are way more credible then someone you might bring from outside because we can bring real examples that we’ve experienced over the last couple of weeks, relevant information that we’ve captured from our customers. With the industry today, this goes way better than anything else.” Nicole Hayes, an in-house spokesperson for Toys’R’Us also said “We truly value what we do in bringing our expert toy opinions and baby opinions to media so you get that inside look and that true expert opinion from us directly.”

D S Simon Media is partnering with equities.com, House Party, Inc, Looksmart and The DGTL Advisors to amplify messages. Our influencer marketing division has these tips to get the best results:

• Treat third-party influencers like media instead of a brand rep to amplify your expert’s message without the risk

• Invite media and influencers to have a conversation with your leader via video that can be shared by all parties

• Create custom video content with your experts designed to be distributed by specific influencers

• Create video series where your experts interact with influencers

• Post video featuring your experts on your social media platforms that can be used as a tool to pitch the media and promote initiatives.

• Remember you save money using an in-house expert. Use that to expand reach.

Something needs to change. We’ve seen many examples of how influencer marketing can go wrong. Take for example Disney’s alignment with YouTube megastar Pewdiepie. Earlier this year, reports surfaced of anti-Semitic content in Pewdiepie’s videos and Disney had to quickly distance themselves to protect its brand.

Bad behavior is not the only risk. Third-party influencers hired by brands as media spokespeople can be less familiar with the story and more prone to error and misstatements.  During a partnership with Adidas last year, supermodel Naomi Campbell accidentally copied and pasted an entire email from the Adidas marketing team in the caption of an Instagram post that read: “Naomi, so nice to see you in good spirits!!! Could you put something like: Thanks to my friend @gary.aspden and all at adidas — loving these adidas 350 SPZL from the adidas Spezial range.  😘 😘 💜 ✊ @adidasoriginals.” A lack of authenticity in influencer marketing is going to be a growing concern.

Increasingly, your key audiences value trust and authenticity. Your own experts and leaders know the story and subject matter. They need far less training and are less likely to be flustered by an unexpected question. By investing in your own people instead of outside experts you are positioning your organization for long-term growth. You can create content that feeds your social media eco-system. You can provide a platform for your leadership. Your leaders are the forgotten influencers no more.

***

Doug Simon is CEO of D S Simon Media, an influencer marketing company. 

New Delhi , Apr 13 (ANI-BusinessWireIndia): Hyundai Motor India Ltd, (HMIL) the country’s car exporter and second largest passenger car manufacturer, received an overwhelming response for its first-of-its-kind innovative digital campaign ‘Comebackpedia’ on the newly launched 2017 Grand i10.

The campaign garnered over 6.7 million views across social media. Based on Humour, around 10,400 interesting Memes were generated by users and shared on Social Networking sites.

« We believe Hero Content always makes the brand distinctive and engages the user effectively. We took humor as the campaign driver by engaging the popular Humour Artists to do the Meme sourcing with fun elements. We are glad that Comebackpedia has received huge popularity and appreciation from our Customers, social media fans and Critics, » said Sr. General Manager and Group Head Marketing, HMIL, Puneet Anand.

« Comebackpedia » campaign is the first of its kind done by an Auto Brand has utilized Meme marketing to capitalize on the huge popularity of these humor artists amongst the youth with the New 2017 Grand i10. « Comebackpedia », is a unique encyclopedia of comeback memes with branded video content of popular humor artists like Cyrus Broacha, Vir Das, MallikaDua, Amit Tandon, Vipul Goyal, KaneezSurka and Rahul Dua.

The campaign was designed to invite fans to log on to www.itswowsome.com and create a MEME using the expressions of their favorite humor artists, by simply adding an interesting reaction to a comeback and share with their friends. The most unique MEMEs featured in the video series created by the artists and participants also got a chance to win #Wowsome merchandise.

Campaign related Video content was released in three phases. First phase – humorous videos of the artists inviting fans to create comeback memes and engage with the brand. Second phase – ‘The Comebackpedia Show’, was released which featured winning memes and Artist’s hilarious versions of Come backs in a second episode show.

The third phase included a dramatic, upbeat and humorous video which concluded the entire campaign with brand integration highlighting ‘The Drive with Besties’ when one buys a new car. (ANI-BusinessWireIndia)

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One thing about Samsung is for certain, it goes all-in when it comes to marketing. Remember last year’s building-sized, Galaxy S7 edge-shaped billboard in Russia? Yeah, me too. So of course the Korean giant is doubling down on its efforts this year, this time targeting the UK…

As the release date of April 21 fast approaches, Samsung has commissioned a series of enormous 7x3m custom sculptures in an effort to capture the immersive nature of the Galaxy S8‘s Infinity Display.

The various installations have been scattered across notable landmarks in the UK, and are essentially giant windows to places like Stonehenge, London’s Westminster Bridge, St. Ives, and more.

The idea is part of a bigger marketing campaign, named “The 20 Greatest British Views“, involving famous (and award-winning) landscape photographer Matthew Cattell, who was given the phone to actually collect a series of photographs from the various interest points the sculptures have later been relocated in.

Sure, excellently-lit landscape panoramas do not represent exactly challenging scenarios, but if the S8 predecessor’s camera is anything to go by, we are still sure that the this year’s Samsung flagship will leave us with very little room for complaint.

For now, you can enjoy some of Cattell’s masterful shots and Samsung’s own video and then let us know your thoughts down below.

SnugZ USA (asi/88060) claimed the first Advantages Product Video Contest with “Germ Warfare, » a video that touts the benefits of the company’s hand sanitizer products in killing off “bad nasties” – the germs that exist in our everyday life. Catchy and well shot, the video is not an exception for the West Jordan, UT-based supplier; SnugZ has produced dozens of creative videos, shot in-house on little budget. Cody Belnap, the company’s digital marketing coordinator and one of the on-screen “Bad Nasties,” shares the secrets (and some fun making-of photos) behind the winning video.

Q: How did SnugZ come up with the idea for the video?

Cody Belnap: Video is an essential component of our marketing strategy here at SnugZ USA. In the case of “Germ Warfare,” [SnugZ Senior Content Strategist] Jeff Anderton’s daughter was part of the inspiration when she came home sick from school. From there the creative process took over, and we began piecing together what would become a funny and educational video about sanitizer.

Q: Your company has produced a lot of creative videos – what’s the idea generation process?

CB: As a marketing team, we hold ourselves to a very high personal standard. We set our creative bar at whatever is currently moving the social zeitgeist meter in the video realm. We are constantly noting the work that moves us, makes us laugh and gets us thinking. We find that over the years we have built such a library of ideas that it becomes a relatively straightforward process to collaborate, brainstorm, and finally concept several ideas based on our objectives. (You can do this while watching a movie in the middle of the day. … Did I say that out loud?)

Our brainstorm sessions typically begin with identifying the root of the problem or need that can be fulfilled with a SnugZ promotional product. Consumers buy through emotion, so we ask ourselves, “How do we create that connection?” At that point we’re then able to develop a creative way to tell that story through video, ads, social media, sales sheets and more.  

Keep in mind there is always a dual purpose behind the campaign: convey a message that resonates with our distributor customer while also providing them with a marketing tool to help them do their job of selling to the end-user. Therein lies the challenge. Most commercials and branded content do not require this next-level creative step.

Q: Was the video produced in-house? Are the people in the video employees or actors? 

CB: The “Germ Warfare”video was 100% shot and produced right here at SnugZ USA with our own actors who double as employees. I played Bad, Chris Duncan (our senior graphic designer) played Nasty, and Mickey Peterson (who works in sales support) was our sanitizer model (and on-set makeup artist). We had fun playing up the big personalities of the “Bad Nasties.” And you’ll be surprised at the talent you can discover right within your own company!

Q: There are lots of fun creative elements, especially the Bad Nasties. How did you create them and where did you get the costumes?

CB: First off, you can’t find these costumes at the store. Trust us, we looked for them. Our idea of the “Bad Nasties” started out as an animation, but as it evolved we thought having real characters would contribute a life-like element to the story.

Once we had determined to shoot everything practically, the first question was: “Uhhh … how are we going to make germs out of people?” After several failed attempts (which we should have gotten on film for future generations), Jeff was at Home Depot one night looking at sprinkler supplies for his yard, when it hit him: “We’ll use sprinkler piping.”  Twenty bucks of extruded plastic later, we were in business, and our videographer Wendy Gregory used other materials to handmake the rest.

Time after time we’ve found that you don’t need a million-dollar budget to create high-quality video. It requires a vision, passion, and creative elbow grease up the wazoo. Anyone telling you they need a six-figure budget hasn’t put themselves into their creative box. Once you set limits, it gives your team the freedom to dream up solutions you never would have thought of in a million years!

Q: Why are videos important for your company?

CB: Video is the most consumed media there is. Period. By the end of 2018, 80% of all internet traffic will be video. Ninety percent of users say that seeing a video about a product is helpful in the decision process, and 46% take some sort of action after viewing a video ad. Stories are becoming more important than ever and it’s evident with Snapchat, Instagram Stories and now Facebook Stories. That’s why it is important to us, because that’s how the world wants to consume and share content.