I've seen something which I think is even more interesting.
Second tier influencers (100k followers) paying expensive hotels and private plane trips of first tier influences (1 mil followers), so that they can appear on their feeds, and gain new followers.
I wonder why the strategy of these "brand personalities" has to be limited to "luxury" type branding.
For example, could you build a following traveling the country by interstate in a Fiesta, staying at Motel 6 and eating at Waffle House? It wouldn't cost Motel 6 and Waffle House almost anything to comp a few waffles and otherwise-unoccupied rooms as an experiment, if they aren't doing similar things already.
Pot bellied middle-aged bald white man drives to his Motel 6 in his Ford Fiesta, crosses the street to a Waffle House, gorges himself on waffles and syrup, and returns to his hotel room to cry and wonder where it all went wrong?
People want escapism. Something out of their ordinary lives. Like movies. As someone who is heavily involved in Instagram marketing, I don't see the value for anyone other than dreamers. Which is why my focus is niche, local, and accessible to everyone. In return I send a TON of real customers to places that I choose to promote.
This is sort of what the report of the week ('reviewbrah' [0]) is doing, no? Reviewing fast food in a quirky manner. Million+ subscribers on youtube, really interesting to have followed this for 5+ years when he had a few hundred subscribers.
Doing the exact same thing with very small refinements, over and over. It's not that glamorous, but I reckon at 1M+ subscribers he is doing quite a lot better than many obscure luxurious lifestyle personalities.
> traveling the country by interstate in a Fiesta, staying at Motel 6 and eating at Waffle House
The problem is that those things are not difficult to obtain, and so any following you would have would be shared by 100K people just like you. To be interesting, you'd have to have some unattainable quality in addition to eating at Waffle House, such as being a multi-billionaire, or an extremely successful actor/actress, or a Turner Prize winning artist.
Of course, this would end up with custom $250K Fiestas, Motel 6 starting a curated luxury brand, and Waffle Houses with chefs and monthlong reservation lists. The reason why a flow of money for nothing comes from luxury branding is pretty obvious. The cash is coming from people who spend large amounts of money casually, in a way that can be significantly influenced by the people they follow on Instagram.
To an extent that was what "Anthony Bordain - Parts Unknown" did. He frequently was in very nice places, but he would also go to hole in the wall places that always looked incredible.
Have you heard of the Fiesta Movement? [1] Ford essentially did that back in 2010.
With the right brand, right audience, and right production value, anything's possible. Influencer marketing can be finicky, though. A successful campaign requires authenticity – most audiences can see right through paid promotion. I think there's a different dynamic when a brand approaches a creator vs. a creator approaching a brand.
I think a lot of these self-proclaimed "influencers" seek out "luxury" type branding in an attempt to get free stuff they otherwise probably couldn't afford or to create content around a lifestyle which seems unattainable to their audience and therefore draws more views/clicks/shares/virality ("If only I could live like that one day") – mostly Internet junk-food.
It all depends on how entertaining the person is. Could Rowan Atkinson do that? Absolutely. Could your average person? No, it would be awkward and incredibly boring. In between, though, sure, someone could make something interesting based on that. Some of the best TV shows have very thin plots after all.
There are certainly people with channels that cater to camping or living out of a Jeep / Van. IAmJake for example on YouTube. [0] As evidenced by that I don't think a brand personality has to be luxury but it does have to have a point of view people can take interest in.
You could, but it misunderstands luxury marketing.
The difference between "luxury" marketing and even "premium" (or mainstream) marketing are the former's efforts to influence people who are never going to buy or use the product.
A lot of a luxury good's status comes from the "halo" given to it by all of us who'll unlikely use it - thus giving it the allure to the people who have the money.
So, in essence, it's more important for a luxury brand to have mass market penetration, than it is for a premium product.
For example, Aston Martin needs you to know it's an unattainable symbolic brand, and does that through mainstream marketing (like Bond product placements, YouTuber videos etc...) more than BMW does (who're selling to a premium audience who will buy on product rather than perception).
TL;DR: perversely, it's in everyone's interests to use influencers more for the luxury industry than the rest of the industry, and why it's seeing the abuse it is.
It seems to me that the target market of these “influencers” is teens with little to no money that spend hours looking at these “influencers” exactly because these pictures are as close as they’re gonna get to that luxury lifestyle.
People who can actually afford this will just go on holidays by themselves with no thoughts about the “influencers” whatsoever, also because by the time you can afford such lifestyles you widen up to the obvious commercial intents of these influencer “recommendations”, making their “review” purpose moot.
In my social circle people who spend days & nights looking and sharing the influencer pictures can’t actually afford any of that even if they wanted to. Those that can afford it don’t give a damn about the influencers.
I think Instagram is just replacing magazines. People use their phone for inspiration like they used to read paper travel content. Even if they are not traveling, the content fuels imagination and dreams.
Most people I know who follow "influencers" are blokes who just want to see hot chicks on their Insta feed, or girls with insecurity issues who want to live vicariously through Instagram.
Influencers do work for that certain demographic though, to an extent. Contiki, who offer group travel packages for the 20-something year old market who just want to go on a bar crawl through Europe or Asia, use influencers a lot to sell their product. They're just in the right price bracket where they can say "look, for only $4000, you too can live this kind of lifestyle".
It's the budget-luxury brands that get the best value for money out of influencers. When people splash out a bit of money, they'll look at the successful influencers and say "I want to be like them", and buy the stuff that they're shilling, trying to buy the lifestyle.
Personally, I wouldn't go on a Contiki tour if you paid me, but there are people who enjoy that kind of travel. There are even travel companies that sell packages specifically designed so you can get as much Instagram material as possible, in an attempt to become an influencer yourself. It's a vicious, self feeding cycle.
I think the majority of people that get large disposable income are heavily influenced by lifestyle marketing. The tech crowd tends to be the exception with our frugal, down to earth ways despite earning lots of money.
I think you are just used to the HN and tech bubble. A lot of us here most likely don't consume nearly as much social media as the average person does. "Instagram, owned by Facebook, says its users under 25 spend “more than 32 minutes a day on Instagram,” and users 25 and over “spend more than 24 minutes a day” on the app. [0].
In fact, my girlfriend who uses social media a lot more than I do says she knows like dozens of girls from college who are all wannabe influencers. There is a huge social media rat race currently going on which is why Facebook is making 40 billion dollars a year.
Ok, you are looking for a place to stay, who do you trust? The owners website, a booking website with a million properties? Or someone you know online, like their work, and recommend only a few places?
I think you're being a bit too jaded about this. It's less about the recommendation and more about the reach and discovery. There are numerous restaurants, vacation spots, and businesses that I would have never discovered on my own. Seeing a post for me is less about "oh I want to do what that person is doing" and more about "oh I didn't know that restaurant existed". This is incredibly valuable.
This is what I thought. But then I learned that lots of young professionals with some disposable income take their Instagram feed very seriously. It influences brand decisions, where to eat, where to stay, where to be seen. You would be surprised - I was - how much a post by the right someone can drive revenue.
In almost every field and industry, companies get requests like this go something along the same lines as mentioned in this post: "Hey, I have access to XYZ audience and we will be doing event ABC next month. It would be great to showcase/use your product and share that with the group. Your company and your product would be front and center for this group of people. All we need is your product for free."
In the end, all this is is just ad sales: I have alleged access to customers who want your product but don't know yet. I can share your company or product w/ them. They trust me. It will influence them to become your customer. Give me X."
And worse than that, many times those requests come with a price tag on top of providing the company's product or service for free.
And really it's no surprise given how social media works. Now any "idiot" can gain a following or an audience over some set of topics, or philosophy, or style, and gain a following that tunes. I say "idiot" less as a derogatory thing and more as a "every Joe or Jane" kind of thing who persists and is focused. Any following of people that tunes into something, anything, can often be cajoled into seeing or experiencing some mention or ad about an unrelated thing and that causes some %-age of that group to pay attention and some %-age of those that pay attention to potentially investigate further and possibly become paying customers of some company or product they didn't know about before. Certainly not rocket science and definitely not new.
What we're seeing here is merely a temporary fashion/trend that tends to focus heavily on luxury hotels and envious-appearing travel experiences.
I read a blog post a while ago from a camera tripod company that was talking about this.
Apparently a lot of people even sent in emails along the lines of "I don't usually use a tripod, but I totally would if you sent me one for free".
Of course, the post went on to say that they don't send them free tripods, because it would benefit nobody. The photography isn't going to magically start using a tripod because they got one for free, and the company wasn't going to get very good exposure from a photographer who has no experience shooting with a tripod.
I still see influencer advertising in a better light than a brand's own ads.
Influencers, especially the more popular ones, help inform consumers about a product/service/experience.
The only thing an influencer has is their followers and most influencers really are careful to not advertise products that they don't believe in themselves.
Almost all of these 'influencers' have fake followers. If they didn't buy them, the majority of their followers are auto following bots or people using bots to auto-follow to get more followers. Working inside this industry it's remarkable how little reach 99% of these people have.
Who wouldn't want to get luxury hotel stays for free, have brands send you free stuff, or get paid to promote something? It's an incredible deception and many are falling for it.
In "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" there is a story about a society that shipped out all its useless members (hairdressers and telephone sanitizers) off planet. If Douglas Adams was writing the book now he may have replaced sanitizers with influencers.
In "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" there is a story about a society that shipped out all its useless members (hairdressers and telephone sanitizers) off planet.
Stanford is doing that with their new Redwood City "campus", an office park five miles from the main campus. No professors. No students. No researchers. No labs. All administrators. "Stanford units that will have at least some employees at Stanford Redwood City include Business Affairs; Land, Buildings and Real Estate; School of Medicine administration; Office of Development; University Human Resources; University Libraries; Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning; and Residential & Dining Enterprises."
"The first phase of construction at Stanford Redwood City will include four office buildings, indoor and outdoor dining areas and plazas, a child care center, a glass-atrium fitness center, a parking garage, a landscaped greenway, a 2.4-acre park and a sustainable central energy facility."
It's Stanford's version of a luxury center for influencers.
(As a Stanford alum, I consider this embarrassing.)
> The story was that they would build three Ark ships. Into the A ship would go all the leaders, scientists and other high achievers. The C ship would contain all the people who made things and did things, and the B ark would hold everyone else, such as hairdressers and telephone sanitisers. They sent the B ship off first, but of course the other two-thirds of the population stayed on the planet and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.
> The ship was filled with [..] telephone sanitisers, account executives, hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives and management consultants. [1]
I think you vastly underestimate "influencers". Just replace that term with advertisers, because that's exactly what it is. Everyone is looking for the new advertising paradigm? You're looking at it. People are ACTIVELY following these people, and enjoying it.
Except the lack of telephone sanitizers led to the downfall of the Golgafrinchans, whereas the loss of blogger wannabes from a society would not have provided such a plot point.
I use Instagram and other social media. But I just don't get how this works. Perhaps someone can give me and others an overview. I only see the posts from my friends, so how would posts from these "influencers" influence me or other's like me? Why would I follow some random person I don't even know? Really, I'm looking for some enlightenment here. I assume that I'm not the only one.
People want an authority to tell them how to value things, and they choose this authority not based on facts or results, they choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar.
Every reputable travel publication/blog I know of have strict editorial policies against accepting freebies/discounts/gifts in exchange for reviews/coverage.
Those so-called "influencers" aren't really about serving their audience -- they strike me as just a scammy way to travel "for free".
This is such a downer on holidays, when you want to rest at luxury place, but some young people ruin it for you with their obnoxious behavior. I hope there will be hotels that ban such Instagram addicts from premises.
My GF has 18000 followers and gas worked hard for her brand to be meaningful as an influencer. She isnt just posting a picture sitting next to the pool. As a result she gets a number of things comped at hotels and restaurants, sometimes without even asking.
Influencers... Probably the same kind of people who reviews Amazon product for free and ends their review with "I've written this review with my own unbiased opinion". We all know it's biased. Thanks but no thanks.
Ironically everyone of those followers wants to travel to that special unknown destination, only after somebody with one million followers posts about it.
This phenomenon is well known among boro glass artists, or artists in general. Paying with 'exposure'. People frequently contact us on Instagram, asking for free merchandise, ostensibly to review. If they have 20,000 followers, that may be worth it... for 50,000, it probably is. Often, however, it someone with no significant following who therefore has little to offer. Businesses similarly ask for our time to be donated or traded when we do public demonstrations, though typically they would pay other entertainers such as musicians or comedians.
This definitely is not limited to my niche of glass artists. There's a twitter account about the wider world of people who think artists have vast advertising budgets and lots of free time: https://mobile.twitter.com/forexposure_txt
I think these hotels are in a similar spot - it may be worthwhile advertising, or it may be a worthless request.
I really think theres an opportunity for a startup here, some intermediary between the influencers and the clients (hotels, brands etc).
I think this will be another huge market for facebook when they eventually solve this. Proper tracking of influencer posts, verification of audience demographics, filtering out of time wasters would solve a lot of these issues.
[+] [-] 21|7 years ago|reply
Second tier influencers (100k followers) paying expensive hotels and private plane trips of first tier influences (1 mil followers), so that they can appear on their feeds, and gain new followers.
[+] [-] CamTin|7 years ago|reply
For example, could you build a following traveling the country by interstate in a Fiesta, staying at Motel 6 and eating at Waffle House? It wouldn't cost Motel 6 and Waffle House almost anything to comp a few waffles and otherwise-unoccupied rooms as an experiment, if they aren't doing similar things already.
[+] [-] orbitingpluto|7 years ago|reply
Sounds great.
[+] [-] overcast|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naturalgradient|7 years ago|reply
Doing the exact same thing with very small refinements, over and over. It's not that glamorous, but I reckon at 1M+ subscribers he is doing quite a lot better than many obscure luxurious lifestyle personalities.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheReportOfTheWeek
[+] [-] pessimizer|7 years ago|reply
The problem is that those things are not difficult to obtain, and so any following you would have would be shared by 100K people just like you. To be interesting, you'd have to have some unattainable quality in addition to eating at Waffle House, such as being a multi-billionaire, or an extremely successful actor/actress, or a Turner Prize winning artist.
Of course, this would end up with custom $250K Fiestas, Motel 6 starting a curated luxury brand, and Waffle Houses with chefs and monthlong reservation lists. The reason why a flow of money for nothing comes from luxury branding is pretty obvious. The cash is coming from people who spend large amounts of money casually, in a way that can be significantly influenced by the people they follow on Instagram.
[+] [-] kop316|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billdybas|7 years ago|reply
With the right brand, right audience, and right production value, anything's possible. Influencer marketing can be finicky, though. A successful campaign requires authenticity – most audiences can see right through paid promotion. I think there's a different dynamic when a brand approaches a creator vs. a creator approaching a brand.
I think a lot of these self-proclaimed "influencers" seek out "luxury" type branding in an attempt to get free stuff they otherwise probably couldn't afford or to create content around a lifestyle which seems unattainable to their audience and therefore draws more views/clicks/shares/virality ("If only I could live like that one day") – mostly Internet junk-food.
[1] https://hbr.org/2010/01/ford-recently-wrapped-the-firs
[+] [-] code_duck|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmorici|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbjw-VrJCUb8PTGoiDI2UMw
[+] [-] wastedhours|7 years ago|reply
The difference between "luxury" marketing and even "premium" (or mainstream) marketing are the former's efforts to influence people who are never going to buy or use the product.
A lot of a luxury good's status comes from the "halo" given to it by all of us who'll unlikely use it - thus giving it the allure to the people who have the money.
So, in essence, it's more important for a luxury brand to have mass market penetration, than it is for a premium product. For example, Aston Martin needs you to know it's an unattainable symbolic brand, and does that through mainstream marketing (like Bond product placements, YouTuber videos etc...) more than BMW does (who're selling to a premium audience who will buy on product rather than perception).
TL;DR: perversely, it's in everyone's interests to use influencers more for the luxury industry than the rest of the industry, and why it's seeing the abuse it is.
[+] [-] ourmandave|7 years ago|reply
By showing people what it's like to vacation in a Fiesta, Motel 6, and Waffle House you'll drive traffic to luxury hotels.
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikec3010|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] futurix|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rjevski|7 years ago|reply
It seems to me that the target market of these “influencers” is teens with little to no money that spend hours looking at these “influencers” exactly because these pictures are as close as they’re gonna get to that luxury lifestyle.
People who can actually afford this will just go on holidays by themselves with no thoughts about the “influencers” whatsoever, also because by the time you can afford such lifestyles you widen up to the obvious commercial intents of these influencer “recommendations”, making their “review” purpose moot.
In my social circle people who spend days & nights looking and sharing the influencer pictures can’t actually afford any of that even if they wanted to. Those that can afford it don’t give a damn about the influencers.
[+] [-] philip1209|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomanybeersies|7 years ago|reply
Influencers do work for that certain demographic though, to an extent. Contiki, who offer group travel packages for the 20-something year old market who just want to go on a bar crawl through Europe or Asia, use influencers a lot to sell their product. They're just in the right price bracket where they can say "look, for only $4000, you too can live this kind of lifestyle".
It's the budget-luxury brands that get the best value for money out of influencers. When people splash out a bit of money, they'll look at the successful influencers and say "I want to be like them", and buy the stuff that they're shilling, trying to buy the lifestyle.
Personally, I wouldn't go on a Contiki tour if you paid me, but there are people who enjoy that kind of travel. There are even travel companies that sell packages specifically designed so you can get as much Instagram material as possible, in an attempt to become an influencer yourself. It's a vicious, self feeding cycle.
[+] [-] rhino369|7 years ago|reply
Which is why this stuff works for premium mediocre products. Stuff that is more expensive, but still within the reach of the middle class.
But their followers cannot afford 1000 dollar a night hotels. So if I was a luxury hotel, I'd tell them to fuck off.
But if I was a cupcake shop, I'd let each of these influencers eat whatever they wanted for free.
[+] [-] tomcam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] majani|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrep|7 years ago|reply
In fact, my girlfriend who uses social media a lot more than I do says she knows like dozens of girls from college who are all wannabe influencers. There is a huge social media rat race currently going on which is why Facebook is making 40 billion dollars a year.
[0]: https://www.recode.net/2017/8/2/16081086/instagram-snapchat-...
[+] [-] megy|7 years ago|reply
You have to trust someone.
[+] [-] sky_rw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hh3k0|7 years ago|reply
That doesn't mean mom and dad got no money, though.
I happen to know a kid with rich parents and they frequently have to buy him stuff he discovered on instagram -- YEEZY shoes and whatnot.
I'm sure there are enough kids that'll bug their parents about planning their next vacation where some popular influencer were.
[+] [-] goatherders|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speby|7 years ago|reply
In the end, all this is is just ad sales: I have alleged access to customers who want your product but don't know yet. I can share your company or product w/ them. They trust me. It will influence them to become your customer. Give me X."
And worse than that, many times those requests come with a price tag on top of providing the company's product or service for free.
And really it's no surprise given how social media works. Now any "idiot" can gain a following or an audience over some set of topics, or philosophy, or style, and gain a following that tunes. I say "idiot" less as a derogatory thing and more as a "every Joe or Jane" kind of thing who persists and is focused. Any following of people that tunes into something, anything, can often be cajoled into seeing or experiencing some mention or ad about an unrelated thing and that causes some %-age of that group to pay attention and some %-age of those that pay attention to potentially investigate further and possibly become paying customers of some company or product they didn't know about before. Certainly not rocket science and definitely not new.
What we're seeing here is merely a temporary fashion/trend that tends to focus heavily on luxury hotels and envious-appearing travel experiences.
[+] [-] toomanybeersies|7 years ago|reply
Apparently a lot of people even sent in emails along the lines of "I don't usually use a tripod, but I totally would if you sent me one for free".
Of course, the post went on to say that they don't send them free tripods, because it would benefit nobody. The photography isn't going to magically start using a tripod because they got one for free, and the company wasn't going to get very good exposure from a photographer who has no experience shooting with a tripod.
[+] [-] davidmurdoch|7 years ago|reply
Influencers, especially the more popular ones, help inform consumers about a product/service/experience.
The only thing an influencer has is their followers and most influencers really are careful to not advertise products that they don't believe in themselves.
[+] [-] pentae|7 years ago|reply
Who wouldn't want to get luxury hotel stays for free, have brands send you free stuff, or get paid to promote something? It's an incredible deception and many are falling for it.
[+] [-] newfoundglory|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sorokod|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|7 years ago|reply
Stanford is doing that with their new Redwood City "campus", an office park five miles from the main campus. No professors. No students. No researchers. No labs. All administrators. "Stanford units that will have at least some employees at Stanford Redwood City include Business Affairs; Land, Buildings and Real Estate; School of Medicine administration; Office of Development; University Human Resources; University Libraries; Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning; and Residential & Dining Enterprises."
"The first phase of construction at Stanford Redwood City will include four office buildings, indoor and outdoor dining areas and plazas, a child care center, a glass-atrium fitness center, a parking garage, a landscaped greenway, a 2.4-acre park and a sustainable central energy facility."
It's Stanford's version of a luxury center for influencers.
(As a Stanford alum, I consider this embarrassing.)
[1] https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/
[+] [-] MattConfluence|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weinzierl|7 years ago|reply
Hmm, close enough.
[1] http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_Sh...
[+] [-] overcast|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mprev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marban|7 years ago|reply
-- Michael Burry (The Big Short)
[+] [-] kaendfinger|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mud_dauber|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] United857|7 years ago|reply
Those so-called "influencers" aren't really about serving their audience -- they strike me as just a scammy way to travel "for free".
[+] [-] merinowool|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goatherders|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kylehotchkiss|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fma|7 years ago|reply
Ironically everyone of those followers wants to travel to that special unknown destination, only after somebody with one million followers posts about it.
[+] [-] paulie_a|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] code_duck|7 years ago|reply
This definitely is not limited to my niche of glass artists. There's a twitter account about the wider world of people who think artists have vast advertising budgets and lots of free time: https://mobile.twitter.com/forexposure_txt
I think these hotels are in a similar spot - it may be worthwhile advertising, or it may be a worthless request.
[+] [-] cavisne|7 years ago|reply
I think this will be another huge market for facebook when they eventually solve this. Proper tracking of influencer posts, verification of audience demographics, filtering out of time wasters would solve a lot of these issues.
[+] [-] empath75|7 years ago|reply