Ethics

The changing nature of influence – from Lil Miquela to Fashion Ambitionist

June 21, 2019 by Susan Getgood

Lil Miquela is a fake “person” who seems real. Until the company that created her revealed that she was a virtual influencer last year in a publicity stunt, her 1.6 million followers presumably thought Miquela Sousa was just another teen Instagram star, not an avatar designed specifically to attract follows and likes. She has partnered with brands like Calvin Klein and Prada, and according to the NY Times, more than 80,000 people stream Lil Miquela’s songs on Spotify every month. She’s also not the only virtual influencer in the market, designed to be the perfect spokesperson. Some are more transparent than others that they are constructs; for example, KFC’s newest Colonel Sanders.

Fashion Ambitionist is a real person whose journey to matrimony, as documented this week on Instagram and pitched to sponsors, can best be described as staged spontaneity. For those that are not familiar, the short story is that her boyfriend is whisking her away for an amazing proposal in a faraway and romantic locale, with a variety of stops along the way. All of which is being documented in her Instagram stories. Supposedly, she is in the dark (at least about the details if not the ultimate objective), with everything being orchestrated by her boyfriend, friends and staff of her website. Maybe. There is a detailed sponsor deck for potential sponsors to evaluate the opportunity, so on some level she has to be in the know. It is after all her brand. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter whether or what she knows. It all feels a bit fake, even though they are undeniably real people and the whole thing is (at least somewhat) entertaining.

Fake person appearing real. Real person appearing fake. All in the service of finding followers and influencing them on behalf of brands.

There is no doubt that both Lil Miquela and Fashion Ambitionist have influence with their followers. But is this influencer marketing?

Yes. And no. Or at least, it is not consumer-to-consumer influencer marketing grounded in the genuine authentic endorsement of a consumer sharing her story and experiences with a product with her friends and yes, followers.

It is easy to see how Lil Miquela herself should perhaps be categorized as social marketing, not influencer marketing. Influencer marketing works because we like or identify with the person who is recommending a product, trust that recommendation is grounded in his or her own experience, and are therefore more likely to take action ourselves. While Lil Miquela seems real, her endorsements and actions are fabricated. She’s neither authentic nor genuine and her recommendations are simply advertisements. We can like and enjoy her content, but we are engaging in a pleasant fiction. We may share her content with our friends, but we should know, they should know, that they are engaging with an avatar, and responding to an ad, not another human. I strongly advocate for deeper disclosure than the simple #sponsored when it comes to avatars.

Fashion Ambitionist is a harder call. On its face, she is simply doing what all social influencers do – telling her story and weaving in brands as part of the tale. Just on a more dramatic scale. It’s not that different from what influencer marketing agencies (like SHE Media’s internal team) do when building programs for brands: we recruit influencers who love a brand to create sponsored content, although we don’t forget the sponsored disclosures. Since there aren’t any on these posts, either no one sponsored, which is sad, given the effort apparently expended, or they are violating FTC guidelines, which is just bad.

Except this Fashion Ambitionist stunt is different. Our goal with influencer marketing should be to have consumers create content that shows how brands are part of their lives. Not to have them stage their lives to provide a vehicle for brands. It’s a fine distinction.

It’s also unfortunately one that increasingly we collectively are not making. People are staging their lives for brands or trying to present some perfect image of themselves on Instagram in the interest of likes and followers. This isn’t authentic consumer storytelling. It’s a performance. Nothing wrong with it as a marketing activity; we should just understand what it is. Furthermore, when social posting detracts from actual enjoyment of the event, it’s not a good strategy and we are not getting the authentic engagement we wanted. Don’t miss the moment because you are trying to get the picture.

Note that I am not arguing against staged marketing opportunities. Flash mobs are fun. Virtual influencers are engaging in a creepy way. Some people are enjoying the Fashion Ambitionist content. In general, parties and events are a great way to create moments that can be shared across social media. Our BlogHer events have been providing sponsors with opportunities to connect with female consumers for more than 15 years, robot-free.

All these things — flash mobs, events, parties, virtual influencers – are opportunities for social marketing to tap into the desire of consumers to share content that excites them.

Influence, certainly. But influencer marketing well done isn’t just staging the event or making a social splash. It’s not about how much someone was paid to create content, and I am definitely not arguing that influencers shouldn’t be compensated for their work or that compensation somehow corrupts an endorsement. We don’t love a brand any less when it asks for our help in its marketing efforts.

Influencer marketing done right is about harnessing consumer passion for brands and connecting them to opportunities to share their love in the context of their own story. It’s about helping the brands reach those consumers in the right way, with the right opportunity, at the right time.

The influencer marketing moments that make my heart sing? Those are rooted in love.

A mom creating a sponsored post for a sunscreen and sharing a moment of joy of her child at the beach. A family test driving a car for a week and sharing their hectic, happy and not-so-happy moments along the way. A makeup lover sharing her tips, tricks and favorite products with her followers on YouTube, always trying out new things. Sometimes sponsored, sometimes not. A home chef leveraging her love of cooking into sponsored content opportunities and her own cookbook. Fans of a much-loved TV franchise sharing their excitement about the reboot.

Those moments when we capture that lightening in a bottle and connect a brand with its customer and make influencer marketing magic.

I love that.

— UPDATE 6/24 —

NY Times article on Fashion Ambitionist’s wedding stunt. Spoiler: they are married, sort of. French law has very specific residency requirements to legally marry in the country, so the stunt ended with a fake wedding. Which is perfect in its own way.

The lines between real life and entertainment are forever blurred thanks to reality television. Social media didn’t create this phenomenon; Fashion Ambitionist’s wedding stunt was no different than your typical reality show, which is why it captured public interest. If you were entertained by it, great. If you thought it was ridiculous, fine too. Different strokes for different folks.

But don’t confuse it with the principled practice of influencer marketing. The pitch wasn’t very good. Hard to read, light on the specific value for brands. Sponsored disclosure was terrible. The burst of followers is likely to be fleeting. It also was a lousy advertisement for Fashion Ambitionist as a legit influencer.

In other words, if you are mapping out your strategic plan to grow your own influence, this may not be the model to choose. It all depends on whether you want to be famous or infamous.

Because the difference between the two? It matters.

Two Truths and a Lie: trust, #ad and privacy

August 27, 2018 by Susan Getgood

Gregarious Narain is on vacation until the end of the month. We’ve got a couple guests lined up to join me in his absence, but this week was a little hectic so (truth) I did not have time to prep them properly, so this week it was just me, and a slightly shorter show.

Would you like to join us on the show? It’s pretty easy. We broadcast live on Fridays at noon eastern for about 20 minutes. I send you a link to connect to the broadcast platform in the morning along with any show notes we’ve prepared and you log in by 11:50 am for an AV check. Sometimes you’ll be joining Greg and me, other times it is just me.

What will we talk about? We are open to discussing any topic related to marketing writ rather large — digital and social media, advertising, influencer marketing, technology , but also Internet culture, consumer behavior, digital fraud, privacy, artificial intelligence. If YOU have a topic you’d like to bring to the table within that rather large brief, we’d love to build a conversation around it with you. Email me at sgetgood@getgood.com or message me on Facebook.

Now to this week’s topic — consumer attitudes and trust. Joining me are my two guests this week, Mr. Rogers and Captain Rogers, two icons of honest integrity.

I only have 2 topics this week, because both are both truth and lie. The first is that consumers don’t like or engage with sponsored content the same way that they do so-called organic content. I wanted to discuss this (again) this week after reading a great op ed in Ad Age, In Defense of the Lowly Hashtags #ad and #sponsored by Natalie Zfat. Written in response to the statement “nobody likes the hashtag #ad” at an industry panel (filled with marketers), she shared her pride in using #ad because it meant she was able to successfully monetize her content while creating valuable content for readers.

This strikes a chord with me because I think treating sponsored content as a second class citizen is lazy thinking. Fact: transparency and best practice would dictate that we disclose relationships that might impact an endorsement even if the FTC Guidelines did not. But also Fact: the FTC guidelines in the US and similar guidelines in other countries DO dictate that we disclose when the content we create is sponsored or influenced by payment, business relationship or free product. And finally FACT: people are not as black and white in their consumption of content as the conceit organic:good, sponsored:less good makes it seem. I have seen more than a little organic content that is AWFUL and quite a lot of amazing sponsored content.

It is not that we don’t like advertising. It’s that we don’t like bad advertising. Whether an ad or a sponsored Instagram image. It is incumbent upon us as content creators to create quality content, full stop. When it is sponsored, we disclose, because it is the right thing to do. Cap agrees!

On social media, there is no situation where you do not have to disclose that the content is sponsored. Not even for celebrities. The reason for this is that on social, we have none of the cues that inform us that the endorsement is an advertisement that we have in other media. When we see a celebrity on Ellen, we know she is pitching her new movie because that is inherent in the talk show format. When we see an athlete in logo gear, we assume that he or she is sponsored by the brand, because that is how sponsorship works at that level. When we see the same celebrity promote something on Twitter or Instagram, her post looks just like all her other posts, and just like all the other posts of all the other people using the platform. There are no cues to clue us in that this post is sponsored. When an advertisement doesn’t look like an advertisement, it must be disclosed. Just this week I ran across another article about celebrities failing to disclose, this time in the UK. This is one time where wishing won’t make it so. Wishing you didn’t have to disclose or inventing all sorts of reasons why it doesn’t apply to you won’t change the facts. Because it is all about trust. Right, Mr. Rogers?

So, while it is true that people do treat sponsored content differently, the difference, in my opinion, is largely in the minds of the creators. If we stop assuming that people view sponsored content differently, create amazing quality content and honor the trust of our readers by being honest about our business relationships, we can be proud of #ad.

This week’s other part truth part myth is also related to trust. In this case, our trust in the social platforms and websites. Axios Media Trends reported this week on Census Bureau Data that indicates Americans are less worried about online privacy, largely, the report surmised because we have become accustomed to trading it for access and services.

But we are still concerned about data privacy, security and integrity. Witness the Twitter storm caused by the fake billboards in London last week.

They struck a chord because there is an underlying cognitive dissonance between the value consumers perceive they get from Facebook and the value they are increasingly aware Facebook gets from them. GenZ is already replacing it, including on college campuses, with new “facebooks” coming online, also reported in Media Trends this week.

I have been following the digital privacy conversation for more than 20 years, sometimes closely, sometimes less so but I am convinced we are finally at the inflection point where it matters as much to consumers as it does to advocates and geeks, and it is an increasingly informed consumer who understands that there are 3 issues: privacy security and integrity. Being willing to give up a little personal data in exchange for access is a fair trade but we are no less concerned about the protection of that data.

So. The truth is Americans may be less worried about privacy in general, but it is because they have become more informed. And we are very likely still very worried about how our information is used, whether information is true and whether bad actors can breach the walls. We just are more willing to accept the risk.

Two Truths and a Lie: The FTC Disclosure Guidelines

July 25, 2018 by Susan Getgood

Tom Chernaik, the CEO of CMPLY, Inc. joined me as our guest on Two Truths and a Lie this week. Greg Narain was traveling and could not join the conversation. We dropped some truth about the FTC disclosure requirements and hopefully dispelled a few myths.

Please forgive some of the technical difficulties at the beginning of the episode. It was our first program “on location,” I got a little lost on my way to Tom’s office downtown (I ALWAYS GET LOST BELOW WALL STREET) and in my rush to start on time, I forgot to plug in the Blue Yeti mic. Hey, it’s live, right??

About Tom
For more than 20 years, Tom Chernaik has worked with leading brands focusing on innovation and insight in marketing, law, social media, privacy and big data.

With a vision for addressing marketer concerns regarding compliance, Tom launched CMP.LY in 2009. He grew the company – rebranded as CommandPost – into the world’s leading social media disclosure solution and expanded the offering to include cross-platform social media measurement of audience and engagement. CommandPost was named a Gartner “Cool Vendor in Social Marketing” for 2015.

Tom holds multiple patents for his work developing innovative solutions for monitoring social network content for compliance, measurement and activation of offline processes. His work in the areas of disclosure and privacy has bridged the gaps between policy and practice with practical technology solutions.

Prior to launching his company, Tom spent more than 15 years in leadership and marketing roles for leading entertainment and media brands including XM Satellite Radio, All Indie (which he co-founded) and Gotham Records. He holds a BA in Liberal Arts from NYU and a JD from Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. Tom was also the Co-Chair of the Ethics Committee at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association from 2011-2017.

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For more posts about the FTC Guidelines, please review the FTC Category and the Ethics Category in the archives.

From BOTS to BOUGHT: The “crisis” in influencer marketing

June 29, 2018 by Susan Getgood

Today, Digiday published the confessions of a former influencer describing widespread fraud in the influencer marketing space, focusing largely on bought followers on Instagram, where influencers regularly amassed followers literally overnight in order to compete for coveted fashion and beauty deals. All to meet the demand of advertisers and their agencies for scale. Reach was the de facto result. This is absolutely 100% true, I have no doubt.

It’s also not influencer marketing. We have to be REALLY careful to not throw the baby out with this admittedly nasty AF bath water.

As I wrote last week, this fraud — and it is fraud — stems from the ad industry’s relentless pursuit of scale without a similar commitment to authenticity and performance metrics.

Influencer marketing works because it is human-centered, and humans beings don’t scale neatly with algorithmic and predictable precision.

In the 90s, anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorized that humans can only sustain a limited number of stable social relationships; 150 is commonly cited as the upper limit. While modern communication has changed how this dynamic works, as we are able to move more fluidly from group to group, online and off, and may participate in multiple networks of people with whom we share common interests, we should always keep Dunbar’s number in mind when thinking about how influence works. The ripple effect of a recommendation matters just as much as the initial impact. Much harder to measure of course, but just because something is hard doesn’t mean we should not strive to do it.

Influencer marketing done right is building relationships with customers over time, who serve as the advocates for your brand to their friends, fans and followers. You know and trust them. Their audience knows and trusts them. You work together to achieve a common goal. Kumbaya and all.

Influencer marketing works because we do move in and out of different groups online, and when we share a recommendation from one into another, we form a ripple on the pond. What’s been missing is way to independently assess the audience of influencers to verify that they do have the right audience. Independent of and across the platforms, independent of the agencies. It’s challenging, and even more so if you respect individual privacy rights. I’m working on some things in this space. More to come.

In the meantime, the best approach is to understand that the best results from influencer marketing don’t come from scale. They come from trusted relationships over time.

The other issue exposed in the Digiday Confession is poor measurement practices.

Reach is a delivery metric. It tells us whether we executed our social tactic successfully. It is not a performance metric. Performance is engagement with content, and your objectives dictate whether you are working toward likes, shares and comments, or driving all the way down the funnel to conversion. Reach is not a result.

The Digiday piece also shared that boosting posts, at least in this confessor’s situation, was just as fraudulent, reaching folks not even remotely in the audience target purely to shore up the numbers. This is just straight up bad practice. Boosting posts simply to increase the reach is a waste of money. You should ONLY boost your best-performing content, the content that is getting verified engagement, to expose it to a larger or different audience. Do not boost your turkeys. Let them fade away.

What about the BOTS?
The other article that caught my attention this morning was a piece on CNN about Lil Miquela, an influential CGI (computer generated image) that amassed quite a following before it was revealed that she was a CGI.

My opinion? If CGIs advocate for brands and someone is compensated for the endorsement, it is advertising, straight up, and should be disclosed. Ethically, I think it should be disclosed even if they are not doing brand or cause related work, because they are a construct, and consumers should know.

Personally, I’m not sure I love the idea of people modeling themselves after, being influenced by, robots, but as long as it is fully disclosed as CGI advertising, I don’t see why brands shouldn’t have the option to use CGI tools to deliver their message. They can dictate the message and don’t have to worry about the opinion of the CGI. Likewise if they use BOT accounts to manage message flow or respond for the brand in place of human CSRs. It’s okay as long as you tell people they are engaging with a BOT.

But CGIs and BOTs are not influencer marketing. They are simply innovations in advertising.