Your 🆕 Weekly Creator Marketing Update 🚀
12/05/2024
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📌Inside the debate among marketers for and against virtual influencers
TL;DR
Should you - or should you not consider collaborating with a virtual influencer?
HEADLINE QUOTE
“Virtual influencers are better used for functional purposes rather than emotional, because we as consumers still need to connect with humans, if we’re to build that emotional connection,”
OUR TAKE
Before I dig into this one, I’d like to add some context that during my time at Formula E (back in 2021) we worked with a virtual influencer on a specific activation (I wanted to share the content, but it appears it has since been deleted) - I also had a brief conversation with their creators for the newsletter, too.
The main argument in the for column revolve around cost efficiencies. In my personal experience however (and this may depend on which tier of virtual influencer you decide to partner with) production costs were at least on-par or higher than some of their human counter parts with similar reach. This is mostly due to the fact that there are a lot of different elements involved that come together in the creation of virtual creator content, and it requires specialist (human) expertise to roll this out effectively. Content and voice-over changes were also much more time-consuming in my experience (counter to the article which notes that virtual influencers come with more flexibility and availability). All in all, I don’t think any blanket for statements should and can be made, as (the same with human creators) it remains heavily dependant on who you work with.
Another big argument for is content control, something that without a doubt many will find highly appealing. In addition to the brand safety element. However, my (perhaps old school) view is that creator marketing is at its core a human-to-human endeavour. Controlled content has its place, but the best creative comes from a partnership where creator and brand develop a campaign that would or could never be developed in-house.
When we look at the against column, I want to focus on the “lack of authenticity or emotion” point - and would be inclined to agree with the idea that virtual influencers have the potential to be highly useful in functional/educational content.
All in all, I believe that virtual influencers / AI has a role to play in content creation and I could see this to continue develop positively. Personally, I would view the concept of a virtual influencer as much more appealing and appropriate from an brand-owned perspective, rather than a sponsored partnership perspective. Having said that however, there are already studies out there saying that Gen Z is more interested in brands that use AI influencers.
🏭 This week’s must-reads
📈Influencer marketing trends across industries
Let’s explore five influencer marketing trends, based on data from The Influencer Marketing Report and other sources. For this report, we conducted a survey with over 2,000 consumers and 300 influencers to get perspective on what makes influencer marketing successful and predict how the landscape will evolve.
✍️ Will the TikTok ban spell the death of the influencer?
On 24 April, President Joe Biden signed a piece of legislation into law, threatening the existence of TikTok in the US. Kaleigh Werner and Olivia Hebert explore whether the ban on TikTok could diminish the impact of the influencer
📲Digiday+ Research: Influencers see more Instagram engagement with still images than Reels
Carousel ads are quickly becoming a preferred posting format for brands, especially as the feature grows in popularity and functionality. Meta recently added a helpful carousel ad feature to Instagram which Instagram advertisers can use to automatically apply custom positioning to media feeds, regardless of the following size of the advertised account.
🎙️PepsiCo wants to remain a ‘driver of culture’ as it turns to influencers and activations amid rebrand
Melis calls influencer-led activations like the cornershop pop-up examples of “retail-tainment,” a concept he said was “very important” to PepsiCo. “We want to show up in stores in new ways, in unique ways — disruptive ways,” he added. In plainer terms, that means deploying ad creative that reinforces the link between sales and Pepsi’s cultural links.
💵 The $21 billion influencer industry has an ad fraud problem
But these days, influencer marketing is off the rails. According to analysts and experts who spoke with Business Insider, influencer brand deals and advertisements are rife with unethical business practices thanks in part to limited regulation of a practice that is rapidly growing year over year.