Influencers: Are They a Good Option for Brands?

Influencer marketing is an industry that continues to evolve exponentially and is becoming an increasingly recurring tool in the marketing world, not only in Mexico but globally. Data from our Media Reactions 2022 study confirm what is becoming more evident every day: 57% of marketers in Mexico declare that they will increase the use of Influencers in their activities this year, while only 5% said they will reduce it. 

The foregoing is understood by noting that 80% of marketers in Mexico have a positive attitude toward influencers, while the positive attitude for any medium in Mexico is 65% on average.

Although it emerged as an authentic way to reach the public, the drawbacks in the use of influencers were evident for both brands and consumers. Since brands have little control over the production from these influencers, since they own the creation of the ad content, partnering with them can damage the relationship they have with their consumers if their endorsements are inappropriate or opaque. Not for anything else, for some time there has been a struggle to have a clearer regulation that helps consumers receive communication that can be identified as paid advertising and that sets clearer limits on what is seen and said about the products and services.

Influencers are opinion leaders; the majority are people who have built a good reputation on social networks and their channels, since that is where they share their experiences and knowledge on a specific topic and most of them have become gurus to their thousands of followers; however, consumers and marketers may not always trust influencers, given the many examples of them inflating their following to attract better brand opportunities and if that weren't enough, the lack of systematic measurement has prevented influencer content from going at an even faster speed.

How far does your influence reach?

We know that influencers are a good way to promote brands without falling into direct advertising. These collaboration agreements are considered a very effective method for indirect advertising.

In 2022, influencer content became the preferred online advertising channel for consumers according to Kantar's Media Reactions study globally. It is the leading online ad format for consumers in large markets like China, France, Brazil, India, the US, and the UK. In Mexico, it’s considered a fun and entertaining channel and is among the Top 5 advertising formats for Generation Z.

Given its current position as part of the marketing plan's channel mix, now is the time for influencer marketing to be proven to generate ROI, contribute positively to brand building, and refine its role in the atomized media arena. 

Does influencer marketing really deliver what it promises?

At the previous Cannes Lions, Kantar launched new capabilities for evaluating digital ads as part of our Context Lab solution, which allows us to test creative effectiveness in any digital environment, including influencer content. We measure brand impact and creative performance, as well as provide insights into influencer content behavior.

After six months of global testing, we conducted an exclusive meta-analysis to understand if influencers really do drive positive influence for brands.

Creative performance

Our recent analysis of 30 influencer campaigns with more than 6,000 consumer interviews in different categories such as beauty, fintech, sports and retail revealed that influencer content is particularly effective in functional aspects. Compared to the norms of our database of nearly 9,000 global ads, Influencer Executions are in the top third for providing fresh information and being credible. Many consumers also find the content relevant to them. In a natural way, influencers strengthen the functional and rational aspects of the messages to be communicated.

This is good news, but is it enough?

When it comes to the emotional side of things, there is work to be done. Enjoyment of tested content is particularly weak, ranking in the bottom 40% of ads tested in their respective markets. The enjoyment of the content is extremely important to retain audiences with increasing agility to skip or instruct the next content with the ease of moving a finger.

And what about the impact of the brand within the context? Do the contexts in which marketers place influencer content translate into real results for the brand?

The answer to this question currently seems daunting.

Our analysis identified a particular role in trend setting, where influencer content performs better than your average ad. This indicates that influencer content is a great way to make your campaign and brand go viral, and really influence what people think is “cool.”

However, its effectiveness in building brand awareness, building favorability or affinity, increasing brand freshness, or building powerful brand associations falls short of that of an average digital video ad. These indicators are essential to build Brand Power and thus build a stronger predisposition toward the brand that is being advertised. The performance of the influencers' pieces consistently underperformed, generating a very poor positive lift.
 

Influencers, a good strategy for my brand?

These findings show the importance of properly integrating influencer content with other executions within brand campaigns and highlight the need to understand when it should be used and for what purposes. The indicators shout to us that the rational reinforcement of messages that could be more complex is ideal to exploit and explain them through these formats. Similarly, if we want to viralize a more complex message, influencers can put it in the viewers' showcase and from there it spreads within the targets that follow the creators.

The most important challenge lies in making content more enjoyable and that can be leveraged from ideas or Insights that are part of a more impressive audiovisual campaign that allows us to stand out from other content and that we can remain as many seconds in front of the eyes of our audiences before being brutally kicked off the content reel.

As an integral part of a marketing campaign, it's critical that marketers rigorously apply measurement of effectiveness to influencer content, just as they do to content on other channels, so they can continue to ensure that their campaigns are really optimized in all channels and that they are used for a valid and determined reason and not as part of a wave or a train that one must get on without knowing for sure why or for what. Not doing so will lead us inexorably to the path of waste and failure.