A Brief History of Influencer Marketing

According to experts, influencer marketing is currently the fastest growing channel of customer acquisition. Marketers are increasingly willing to decide on long-term and high-quality cooperation with web creators. 2020 was a breakthrough for the Internet advertising market. Despite the decline associated with the outbreak of the pandemic, spending on online advertising exceeded PLN 5 billion for the first time in history. The largest investments came primarily from the SEM and video area. The share of social media in advertising is 17.2% (with an increase of 2% compared to 2020). In 2020, 75% of advertisers increased their budgets for influencer marketing. According to a report by TAKUMI Agency Influencer marketing is projected to be worth $15 billion in 2022. Before we move on to assessing potential, building strategies to measure outcomes, let's figure out who they really are Influencers and where they came from.

Why Collaborate with Influencers?

Latest IQS research They clearly show that 96% of Poles follow at least one influencer. Every 3 Poles visit places recommended by influencers, and every 4 take pro-social activities under their influence. The moment a popular person decides to brand a product with their name, the brand receives credibility, additional value. The effectiveness of such treatments is influenced, among others, by the halo effect. It is a psychological tendency to automatically (unconscious), ascribe consistent, positive qualities to a given object or objects accompanying it based on the first impression. What does that mean? That our brain is lazy and often works automatically. It shifts the “first” impression to other co-occurring features and objects. If someone is beautiful, then we assume that they are most likely also good. If he is popular, he is probably smart and chooses wisely. If it is accompanied by a product, we have the impression that he had to choose it wisely. Moreover, the product acquires in our consciousness the characteristics of the person who presents it. The positive image of the star involved is therefore automatically translated into the perception of the brand.

Who is an influencer?

What has changed in recent years is the group of people we call influencers. It is on them that modern consumers rely, trust them and seek advice from them.

It all started with the blossoming of the blogosphere, which was a big milestone in the history of online opinion leaders. It was around blogs that communities of faithful readers began to gather, who shared the views of their favorite authors and shared passions with them. The rapid development of social media opened bloggers to new channels of communication, and also gave life to another group of creators — the so-called social media influencers. Popular platforms have given them the opportunity to reach a wide range of audiences. One of the platforms that began to attract their attention was YouTube. It quickly became clear that video formats are definitely more engaging than the material published on blogs. Although they require more labor input — they are much more efficient. This is how the boom in video began, which continues uninterruptedly to this day. Founded in 2005, YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world, after Google. In Poland alone, its audience is more than 25 million people. The most famous influencers “grew up” on this platform — the most influential ones, with huge reach and most importantly, watched by choice.

What sets them apart from the traditionally understood celebrities is certainly their resemblance to their audience. Celebrities as inaccessible, created on the beautiful and rich have an aspirational image that the audience can dream of (“I would like to be like”). Influencers, on the other hand, are much closer to their viewers. The recipient can identify with them, interact with them, peer into their real world. The key is that it is not so different from their own (“I am like”). Influencers do not build barriers, on the contrary — they are constantly looking for contact with their viewers. They appear more in the role of a buddy, rather than an inaccessible character, a distant role model. The term digital influencer also suggests that in addition to YouTube, we will also meet them on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Each of these platforms, due to its specificity, forces interaction with its audience — two-way communication.

How does influencer marketing work?

Today it is digital influencers, much stronger than traditional celebrities, who set trends, influence people's opinions and their consumer decisions. Brands that choose to collaborate with online opinion leaders receive authentic, tailored, engaging content, and wide reach. For 3/4 of the regular viewers youtuber is the first source of information in the buying process. The audience of content on YouTube today is almost everyone. The average YouTube viewership is over 40 minutes per day (YouTube Brandcast 2020) and this time is steadily increasing.

With each passing year, we observe the increasing professionalization of the digital influencer market. In Poland, proof of this is, among others, the development of our LifeTube network, which only 7 years ago functioned as a 6-person startup. Today we are part of Mediacap SA holding listed on the stock exchange. At the same time, we are the largest partner network for youtubers in CEE and we are responsible for 12% of YouTube viewership and 62% of the industry in Poland. Influencer marketing is no longer just an additional channel of reach — it has been incorporated into the long-term strategies of the biggest brands.

How can brands collaborate with web creators?

The first collaborations of brands with influencers were based solely on simple product placements. Brands are still happy to use this form because it is easy to implement and does not require additional budgets beyond the salary of the influencer. The key to success is matching the creator with the brand image so that the collaboration looks natural and credible. The development of this form of cooperation is the use of the Creator for wider communication on many channels. This is so beneficial that the audience begins to intuitively associate the influencer with a particular product or brand. He becomes its ambassador, and therefore even after the end of the activities, the company can benefit from the reach of the influencer. Another, equally eagerly used form of brand activity with the creator, is the use of the influencer's image in many communication channels, or even co-branding and placing his image on the packaging. Thanks to this, the product gains a completely new added value, credibility and, above all, stands out from the competition, definitely supporting consumer decisions at the shopping shelf. Such a strategy makes sense if the creator really enjoys authority in his field or generates strong emotions and affection from his fans. The success of influencer marketing has caused producers to also decide to create entire collections signed by a specific creator.

The newest and most advanced (but increasingly popular) form of collaboration is the joint creation of a product by a brand and an influencer and jointly defined business goals. Increasingly wide activity of creators provides producers with access to their skills to “move” in digital, knowledge of the market and, above all, their audience. In this way, they can jointly create a product that combines the ideas and experience of both parties. An example is the Koral brand, which has undertaken cooperation with the Team. Influencers, in addition to influencing the promotion and placing the logo on the packaging, also had an influence on the creation of a new taste. Such a decision made it possible to personalize the product even more, and the new taste could be another reason to buy. A wide circle of Friz fans reacted very enthusiastically to the new collaboration. The low availability of the product in stores made them even more in demand.

Interesting influencer marketing strategies

The phenomenon of the Ekipa ice cream made influencer marketing start to be talked about in all the media. However, it is not the only example of a successful collaboration between a brand and an influencer. They also deserve attention Other collaborations , which stood out on the market with an innovative idea or an exceptionally well-thought-out strategy:

ERBUD is the largest independent construction group in Poland. She carried out an employer branding campaign based on YouTube and cooperation with the largest exploration channel in Poland — Urbex History. With a 7-episode video series, the brand reached hundreds of thousands of viewers, including potential talents who would like to develop their careers at ERBUD.

The Play network came up with the idea of putting images of gamers on their starters. Each creator had to give out 5,000 of them to his audience. The record holder took 24 hours to hand out the pot, and the others joined him a day later. The effect of freshness and naturalness made the whole campaign have a positive reception on the network, and all the starters spread out on the trunk. Thanks to such actions, everyone knew that, “The whole Internet has gone to Play”.

Alexxis Ola and the Dreskod brand have used the influencer's passion for travel to create a beach collection together. Alexxis is happy to travel to exotic places where the temperature makes a swimsuit a definite must have. Her collection was based on costumes and beach fashion, the colors and names of which were inspired by the author's favorite directions. The interest was so great that during the launch the website became overloaded. In order to hunt for their dream costume, fans often had to spend close to an hour refreshing the site.

Effectiveness, multiple advertising opportunities and reaching a variety of target groups are just a few of the advantages of influencer marketing. Want to learn more about how to collaborate with creators or start using influencer marketing in your advertising activities? Write to us! We are the undisputed leader in the influencer marketing industry in Poland and we are happy to help you with this.

kontakt@lifetube.pl