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- 66% of Brands Spent More on Creator Marketing in Past Year
- Hollister's partnership approach to its influencer marketing on TikTok
- Dollar Shave Club NIL deal for March Madness
- TikTok Becomes Cannes Film Festival's Official Partner
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Great Reads
Michele Thompson - A Look At The Journey To Becoming A Successful Food Influencer
In 2018, Michele took the leap into becoming a blogger and food influencer on Instagram and developed The Food Snob brand. The Food Snob brand shares Thompson’s passion for meal planning, cooking, traveling, drink-making, exploring new restaurants, and supporting minority and female-owned restaurants.
A challenge Thompson faced along the way was living in a small town with few restaurants and nothing to do. When she began her journey as a food influencer she was living in Georgia. She reports, “I would literally drive back and forth between Atlanta, which was like two and a half hours away just to get content.”
Even with content challenges and relocating to various cities in the United States, Michele has continued to build upon her brand and gain new followers. Ultimately, leading to additional collaborations and partnerships with food or restaurant brands.
Thompson has had several successful collaborations from smaller local restaurants to large name brand companies. Michele’s biggest success, however, came from her own research and approaching a business owner about posting a video about them. The restaurant she hails as the most successful collaboration was Mimi’s Taste of Cuba. Her posted video received 84K views. In another collaboration, Michele was sought out by the business owner to post a reel on their restaurant, DJs Cafe. That reel was viewed 60K times on TikTok.
2022 Influencer Marketing Report by Collabstr
As part of its 2022 Influencer Marketing Report, Collabstr broke down the top channels for both creators and advertisers, based on data from the 5,000 advertisers and 27,000 content creators on its platform.
Instagram remains the most popular platform for both influencers and brands, with the report finding that 94% of influencers that are offering paid content services do so on Instagram (keeping in mind that many influencers offer services across multiple platforms). On the advertiser side, 48% of influencer marketing budgets were spent on Instagram in 2021.
TikTok is catching up though, capturing 46% of influencer marketing spend last year. That percentage looks set to continue growing, with a number of leading ad agencies signaling their intent to double and even triple their spending on the platform this year. TikTok also is closing the gap on the influencer side as well, with 64% of creators offering paid content services on the video app.
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Campaign Insights
This is why Doritos roped in 3,000 influencers for its latest TVC
Pepsico’s snacking brand Doritos recently launched a filter that lets people record reactions and decide how the brand’s new ad ends. As per the brand’s claims, the filter ‘Doritos BoldChoice’ ensures engagement in a disruptive way.
In the TVC, actor and brand ambassador Kartik Aryan plays the role of a college cricketer alongside actor Sanjana Sanghi, where Aryan is sharing his contact with Sanghi. The duo is interrupted by the bowler of the opposing team who mocks Aryan and says he is all talks but no game. Aryan then tells Sanghi to note the rest of the contact numbers from the scoreboard.
He proceeds to score runs in the order of his phone number. However, at the last ball of the over, a twist is added by the filter. Users can choose between ‘Play It Smart’- in which Aryan purposely lets the ball go. The other choice is ‘Follow the heart’ where he lets the ball hit the stumps on the last ball. In both cases, the bowler later realises that this way Aryan has actually shared his contact with the girl.
Hollister's partnership approach to its influencer marketing on TikTok
It’s unclear what Hollister spends on influencer marketing as Scoular declined to share those figures. Per Kantar, Hollister spent $16.9 million on advertising in 2021, up from $6.3 million in 2020. Those figures don’t include spending on social media as Kantar doesn’t track social spending.
Aside from content creation, advertising, influencer marketing and brand awareness, working with influencers long-term also allows the brand to tap the Gen-Z influencers it works with as “sounding boards for products, marketing campaigns and more,” said Katy Wellhousen, senior account director, social and influence at 160over90, the full-service cultural marketing agency behind Hollister’s influencer marketing.
“Long-term relationships work,” said Wellhousen. “Symbiotic relationships help creators feel invested in our brand, which leads to more authentic content. We track ‘added value content’ — content the creators post about Hollister that is outside of their contractual obligations — and our Hollister Collective creators shared more than 800 pieces of added value content between June 2021 and February 2022.”
Wellhousen believes marketers should invest in creators and their growth as it will also benefit the brand. At least, that was the case for the first class of Hollisters’ creator collective.
Dollar Shave Club signs 'chin-fluencer' to NIL deal for March Madness
"Dollar Shave Club has signed a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal with Gonzaga University star Drew Timme, according to a press release. The deal comes as the Unilever brand has been named the official razor of the NCAA and March Madness.
The brand is calling Timme the first and only "chin-fluencer""due to the smooth chin he has had because of a handlebar mustache. Dollar Shave Club is running a sweepstakes on Instagram and Twitter through March 14 that asks consumers to share a picture of their smooth chins for a chance to win tickets to the Men's Final Four.
The "chin-fluencer" effort is part of the brand's "Noticeably Smooth" campaign, which also includes a new spot that will air during March Madness games. Developed by the brand's in-house creative team, 30-, 15- and six-second versions of "Mafia" will run across national broadcast and cable throughout 2022, with radio, digital and social extensions.
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Interesting People
Mike Merrill: The Rapidly Changing Online Creator World
Mike shares that Roll is more focused on minting the social money and setting up an underlying structure that people with social tokens can use, rather than getting more creators to make social money through them.
For example, many people don’t have their own digital wallets to hold crypto or social money. Roll has a “custodial wallet” that allows creators to send social money to new people via a URL or QR code, allowing creators to easily share their social money, even with people that don’t previously have experience in the social money world.
“And I would say specifically for getting your audience to engage with each other because I think that’s the power of the social token is you’re giving ownership of the community layer to the community itself.”
Often, creators will give audience members with social money a personalized message, access to a personal discord with a small number of people, information on the behind-the-scenes of the influencer’s life, and more.
‘This is my life’: Russian influencers take stock after Instagram access blocked
“This [Instagram] is my life, this is my soul. This is what I have been waking up to and falling asleep with for the last five years,” said the fashion blogger Karina Nigay, who boasts nearly 3 million followers, through tears. “I’m in a state of resentment and nowhere near a state of acceptance.”
Russian prosecutors demanded on Friday that access to Instagram be blocked after the app’s parent company, Meta, confirmed it was relaxing its policies on hate speech towards Russian soldiers and Vladimir Putin within certain countries in relation to the country’s war in Ukraine, although on Monday, Meta clarified its guidance by stating that “calls for the death of a head of state” were banned.
By Monday morning Instagram – the most popular social media platform among young Russians – was no longer accessible.
Karina Istomina, a popular DJ and Instagram influencer with more than 400,000 followers, said: “Roughly half of all my income came through Instagram advertising. To be honest with you, I am absolutely devastated that I am losing my page. I ran my profile for over 10 years. Most likely I will have to find new sources of income, will have to rediscover myself.”
Influencer Jade Marie on ASMR Beauty, Complexions by Jade, Skin Care
In the 12 years that influencer Jade Marie, also known as @jadeywadey180, has been in the beauty space, she’s done a 180 in her beauty practices, changing her social media content from the high-glamour makeup space to leaning into holistic skin care and mindfulness.
“A couple of years ago I was heavily in the makeup world and it was all about glamour, contour and coverage, and I just felt like I wasn’t being true and authentic to who I am,” she explained. “I kind of stripped away the layers and I got back to my skin care roots and started my YouTube series called ‘Complexions by Jade.’ I came back to my truest self, which I think is the healer, someone that truly loves skin care and healing through skin care.”
This change in her social media strategy has resonated with her followers. Marie’s following includes 671,000 YouTube subscribers and 1.2 million Instagram followers.
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Industry News
66% of Brands Spent More on Creator Marketing in Past Year
CreatorIQ's 2022 influencer marketing report suggests that creator-driven marketing campaigns will only continue to surge in popularity among brands in the year ahead. The report is based on a survey 150 brands and 200 influencers.
Brands are increasingly shifting budgets to power creator-driven marketing campaigns, with 66% reporting they spent more on this area in the past year compared with previous years, according to a new CreatorIQ and Tribe Dynamics survey shared with Marketing Dive. Additionally, 52% noted that their creator marketing teams have expanded to support this growing trend.
While Instagram and Instagram Stories remain the most popular social platforms for creator campaigns, TikTok has forced marketers to rethink their approach for finding and engaging with consumers. About 96% of brands and 88% of influencers reported regularly using Instagram Stories, while 46% of brands and 42% of influencers said they regularly use TikTok.
Amid swelling budgets, emerging platforms like TikTok and the proliferation of social commerce, brands and creators will continue to experiment and seek out best practices for the evolving influencer marketing landscape.
TikTok Becomes Cannes Film Festival's Official Partner
TikTok has become the official partner of the Cannes Film Festival — a new partnership that promises to connect the cultural event to the digital platform’s one billion users around the world.
While it banned selfies on the red carpet several years ago, Cannes is looking to draw global eyeballs and will provide TikTok users with exclusive content from backstage, glamorous red carpet scenes and interviews with talent.
Aiming to position itself as a top entertainment destination and content creator, the banner is also launching the #TikTokShortFilm, a global in-app competition of vertical short films that are between 30 seconds and 3 minutes in length. The jury of the first edition of #TikTokShortFilm will be presided over by a well-known director whose name will be announced at a later stage. Three awards will be handed out during the festival at an event attended by Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux.
Cannes and TikTok’s alliance may seem unlikely but makes sense as both strive to support creators and shine an international spotlight on emerging talent. Like the luxury brand Kering, one of Cannes’ main official partners, TikTok will also support the festival financially.
Rich Waterworth, the general manager of TikTok in Europe, described the Cannes Film Festival as an “iconic moment that has forever changed the landscape of global cinema.”
“We are truly honored to welcome them as an official partner. Entertainment fans from all over the world turn to TikTok to be entertained, express themselves or discover something new, but they share an authentic and rewarding sense of community unlike anywhere else,” said Waterworth.
Why TikTok is getting into longer video formats
“Advertisers are going to want to spend somewhere where there's rapt attention, where they know their ads are going to be around long enough and considered long enough to be seen,” Margo Kahnrose, CMO at intelligent marketing platform Skai, told Protocol. “TikTok has struggled with that, whereas the other platforms that have longer-form content really just command so much focus. That advertising performs.”
Social media consultant Mari Smith said longer videos could let TikTok monetize much more like YouTube does. YouTube places ads at the beginning of or throughout a video, whereas TikTok places ads as individual, separate clips that a user scrolls through just like they would a regular video. Those pre- and mid-roll ads on YouTube have historically brought in more cash for creators: A recent Forbes study found that about half of the money earned by YouTube’s top 10 creators came directly from ad revenue, whereas many of TikTok’s highest-earning stars are making a lot of their money elsewhere.
TikTok already knows creators will stick around for longer videos, too. Some creators may post a multipart video and ask followers to visit their channel to watch the other segments. “But this solution is not as elegant as simply being able to create and publish longer videos,” Smith said.
Brat TV takes YouTube and TikTok stars like Jules LeBlanc and turns them into actors
“When we started the company, the impetus was that there’s all this amazing talent blowing up online who didn’t have the resources or wherewithal to turn that into intellectual property,” co-founder Rob Fishman explains when I meet him at the Brat TV studio, located in an unassuming loft across the street from CBS’s Television City. They’re in the middle of shooting an episode of Sip or Spill, a new podcast on YouTube hosted by TikTokers Tati Mitchell and Louis Levanti. Today’s guest is Brooklynne Webb, a 17-year-old body positivity creator who recently released a (possibly?) satirical song directed at her haters. (The moment where I feel the most ancient is when none of them can remember the name of the TV show Little House on the Prairie. Those of us in the room who were born in the 20th century step in to help out.)
The podcast is part of Past Your Bedtime, a spinoff of the Brat TV universe catering to the age group most typically associated with TikTokers: late teens and early 20s. Brat’s branching out of the tween segment is in part a reflection on the maturity of the creator economy. A few years ago, says Fishman, film and TV execs barely paid attention to the influencers coming out of YouTube or TikTok. At that point, they may have been right to ignore them — the earliest digital influencers had a difficult time breaking into the traditional entertainment industry; most who found financial success did so by launching products, podcasts, or their own businesses instead.
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Registration Required
Great Paywalled Content
Influencer Coaches Are Charging up to $480 a Month As Demand Grows - Business Insider
Claire Henrick, 23, has been a full-time fashion influencer for a year. She's amassed about 30,000 followers on Instagram, and has started a mentoring business on the side. She said she charges $480 a month for weekly coaching check-ins, including $120 for an initial introductory call. She currently has six regular clients she meets with every week, but she also makes herself available over text if someone needs a pep talk or to ask any questions about best practices.
"Some people just want accountability, to be posting every day, and some people want followers or more consistent views," Henrick said. But she said that by far the most challenging aspect of her job is keeping her clients motivated.
"It is a lot of work; you need a lot of drive," she said. "You need to be able to get up and film every day even if you don't want to. It's interesting to find clients who don't have those skill sets ... you have to find a strategy with them that they can use to sustain long-term."
Henrick finds herself texting her clients during the week asking how they're doing. For those who need the push, she'll set a reminder every day and message them something like, ""Just checking in and saw you hadn't uploaded your [post] today, and was wondering if you needed content ideas."
Hawaiian bank recruits social media influencers to promote digital account - American Banker
The Olympic surfer Carissa Moore, the reality television contestant Avian Ku and the college football star Chevan Cordeiro have something in common: They all urge their thousands of social media followers to sign up for a Shaka checking account from Central Pacific Bank.
These Hawaiian celebrities were recruited by Central Pacific in Honolulu, a subsidiary of Central Pacific Financial Corp., to hype the all-digital checking account that debuted in November 2021. (“Shaka” refers to the hand gesture common in Hawaii that means “hang loose” or “right on.”) The $7.4 billion-asset Central Pacific, whose physical presence is limited to the Hawaiian islands, developed the online account with the same team that incubated a separate product, a challenger bank called Swell that is now an independent company.
The no-fee Shaka account, which the creators say is the first digital checking account in Hawaii, offers early access to wages and $20 reimbursement of ATM fees each month. It is accessed through the Central Pacific Bank website or app, and was designed to attract young local customers to the bank but also play off the allure of the lush islands, which is particularly strong among Japanese tourists.
Casey Neistat on Chronicling David Dobrik’s Rise and Fall; Facebook Sets Up a TikTok Account; Bob Iger Joins Genies — The Information
I've been at South by Southwest, which is back in person for the first time since 2019. This is my first time going to the tech and arts festival in Austin, Tex., but longtime attendees tell me the conference isn’t as packed as usual. There’s less hustle and bustle at events and in hotel lobbies, and companies are putting on fewer pop-ups on Austin’s historic Rainey Street. Still, there’s an excitement in the air around networking in person again, with some panels at capacity and long lines wrapping around the block for certain events.
One of the first things I did was attend the Saturday evening screening of “Under the Influence,” a documentary directed by longtime YouTuber Casey Neistat about the rise, fall and attempted comeback of David Dobrik, one of the video-sharing platform’s most recognizable stars. The auditorium was full, and at least a dozen people, ranging from 20-somethings to seniors, lined up to ask Neistat questions at the end of the film.
Dobrik, now 25, initially found success on the Vine app for making six-second videos, before he started a vlogging channel on YouTube in 2015. He’s best known for uploading short videos of pranks and dangerous stunts featuring his group of friends, known as the Vlog Squad. Dobrik also frequently bought his friends expensive gifts, like a Tesla, and filmed their reactions.
“His videos were unlike anything I’d seen: They were raw and crude,” Neistat told me ahead of Saturday’s premiere. “They were these four-minute highlight reels of what it meant to be young, free from responsibility with unlimited resources and unlimited access and sort of an unchecked privilege.
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