Your Weekly Influencer Marketing Update 🚀
25.01.2021
☀️ Happy Monday! ☀️
⚠️ The government spent £63,000 on influencer marketing for Test and Trace
Back in the summer of 2020, the UK Government decided to spend a modest amount of money on influencer-generated content. For some reason, the website Full Fact decided it wanted to know just exactly how much was spent on this type of activity through a Freedom of Information Request. The outcome..? £63,000 has been paid to 42 individuals to promote its Test and Trace campaign.
Between the summer and now, there have been numerous of headlines around this campaign, three of which I’ve shared below:
Government admits paying Love Island stars taxpayer funds to promote Test and Trace scheme
Influencers paid taxpayer funds to promote struggling Test and Trace scheme
These aren’t the only articles, either. Other outlets include: BBC, Sky, Evening Standard, The Independent, The Sun, and Metro.
So we’ve decided to collect our thoughts on the topic and write them down for you.
The UK government’s spend on influencers has generated more traction and conversation than all of its efforts combined.
It’s interesting to note that The Freedom of Information Request was used on on an initiative that cost the government less than what it pays an individual MP in parliament. In the meantime, however one of the Government’s media agencies easily pockets more than £25m in a singular month to work on COVID-19 related advertising - without any questions asked.
The influencer piece is interesting because it’s generating a disproportionate amount of media coverage and awareness against its very slight investment. It’s without a doubt reached swathes of younger audiences, but has also managed to reach the mainstream due to its (rather negative) coverage across the mainstream board. A lone PR manager somewhere might be very proud of this accomplishment.
We should be encouraging the government for taking a modern approach to advertising and trying to reach younger audiences.
Have you heard the tagline “hands, face, space” recently? I haven’t, because unless it had paid media supporting it on Netflix/Amazon/the wider social media landscape, it won’t reach me. My guess is that there is an entire generation out there that would say the same thing.
Moving spend to influencers instead is a fantastic and forward thinking call. I’m not saying that putting millions behind TV ads and out of home advertising isn’t a good idea, but it’s clear that the younger generations are not being treated with the same relevant spend - and some of the bigger media outlets would rather report negatively on influencers than write about how this innovative way could quite well be the route to reaching and engaging younger audiences in a relevant way.
I have since recently also noticed that the Government is showing COVID awareness ads on TikTok, which is another step in the right direction. Let’s keep that trend going.
We should be looking at other countries for best practices.
Finland - seemingly has a more mature approach to influencers and crisis comms - but also doesn't get the same treatment from its dailies.
“The influencers' quick mobilization was possible because they have been part of Finland’s emergency contingency plans for nearly two years. Social media influencers were added to the pool of essential actors a year and a half ago, after the media section of the national emergency supply organization realized traditional media would not be enough to reach the whole nation in a crisis.”
The term influencer seemingly has become a catch all.
While the likes of Shaughna Phillips, Chris Hughes and Josh Denzel enjoy large numbers of followers on social media, their origins lie elsewhere. They owe the majority of their (online) audience due to traditional TV appearances or other affiliations to more traditional properties such as sport or journalism.
This is slightly at odds when we look at personalities such as Nathan Evans (the Seashanty guy) , Zoella, NikkiTutorials, PewDiePie, or brands such as Glossier that have gained large audiences first and foremost through social media.
However in 2021, the term “influencer” has seemingly become a catch-all for anyone who has a relevant audience on social media and is able to charge brands for their posts.
The Government should vet properly, and contract accordingly.
Some of the influencers that have promoted the Track & Trace programme have since been spotted in exotic locations and have duly deleted their original posts. Shady.
Proper vetting, background checks, solid contracts, and diligent agents should be able to (contractually) prevent this from happening. Don’t skip these steps when it comes to influencer marketing.
🏭 Industry Headlines
Is it the right time for fmcg brands and retailers to start TikTok?
”M&S, of course, has high brand awareness anyway. But one of the advantages of TikTok is that success is within the reach of smaller companies with limited marketing budgets. Like DTC home-baking brand and chain MyCookieDough, which tapped the ‘soothing’ clip trend; racking up millions of views on videos of oozing chocolate sauce.
“You can get results quickly. Unlike other social channels where you have to build up your followers before you get any traction, on TikTok you can drop a good video that’s funny or for whatever reason, and it will take off, even if you don’t have many connections,” explains George Hughes of food and drink video agency Small Films.”
21 Influencer Trends For 2021
“With social media becoming such a prominent part of our daily lives, it’s no surprise we’ve seen a significant rise in influencer marketing in recent years, and it’s set to continue to increase in 2021. Influencer and Celebrity association should not be an option. It should be part of every company’s marketing plan. In today’s world celebrities and influencers dominate social media, news headlines, TV channels and people’s conversations, with influencers and celebrities gracing the web and getting a stronger online presence than ever through their social media following. Using social media as their online currency, brands can be made or broken through as little as a tweet or a social media post. Here are tips on how to contact celebrities and influencers “
TikTok Launches New 'Creator Portal' Education Platform to Help Creators Maximize their Efforts
"With the different tools, analytics, effects, and creative ideas to balance on a TikTok account, making a strategy for creating content can be daunting. That's why we're excited to launch the TikTok Creator Portal, an online hub on TikTok.com filled with educational resources for creators to learn the basics of getting started on TikTok, connecting with their audience, and cultivating best practices to bring their videos to the next level."
TikTok’s new Q&A feature lets creators respond to fan questions using text or video
“TikTok is testing a new video Q&A feature that allows creators to more directly respond to their audience’s questions with either text or video answers, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature works across both video and livestreams (TikTok LIVE), but is currently only available to select creators who have opted into the test, we understand.”
Shopping reimagined: The tech powering today’s video commerce
“In July 2020, Google’s in-house startup incubator Area 120, in reactionary fashion to TikTok, launched the mobile-only Shoploop, which allows users to discover new beauty and fashion products by scrolling through 90-second videos from creators. Two months later, The Lobby, an early-stage venture backed by First Round Capital debuted a similar video–centric marketplace, with over 30 boutique brands selling products through short videos created by the U.S.’ most fashion-forward new-generation influencers, including Portland, Oregon-based Claire Most and Miami‘s Gemary Ermus.”
Makeup influencer capitalizes on her following to launch own brand
“After six year’s of work producing hundreds of makeup tutorials on YouTube, with each video generating anywhere from thousands to more than 1 million views, influencer Lisa Jauregui decided it was time to launch her own makeup brand.”