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My name is Caspar Lee I'm CVO and co-founder of Influencer.com re wearing our logo right here we also have a stand just back there there's a team hi guys My name is Ben Jeffries I'm the CEO and co-founder founder of Influencer.com and as Casper said, we're challenging the new year of creativity, we're an influencer marketing company working with our technology to offer both a self-service solution and a managed solution. We were just on the stage talking about the difference between micro and macro influencers and creators and it was really fun. What was interesting though is the audience, they were listening to us with headphones on so I felt like a silent disco. I hope my voice came across nicely to the areas. Yeah, I mean it was really interesting, we were not just discussing just the micro and macro element, we were basically helping advertisers understand what scale is in influencer marketing. Is it about just using a small number of micros? Is it about using a small number of macros? So we were just diving that into, I guess, answers around that actually. Yeah, it was really, really fun though. So for us, it's about using both micro and macro in order to achieve scale in influencer marketing and the reason why is because the micro influencers are fantastic about building conversation on social media but in order to actually start that conversation, you really need the macro ones giving that initial message to deliver that brand awareness and then the micros following up and they said add that conversational aspect where you're getting multiple different people talking about that same brand. But then we also got into some more specifics that also depends on the size of the company, the brand, the ROI's, all of those sorts of things. So it is very customizable as well. So in terms of creating scale in terms of the micro element of influencer marketing, it's really important to use a technology to be able to help manage it because there are so many micro influencers actually out there that you need to be able to identify the right ones and not necessarily by who the actual creator is themselves but actually what their audience is because the beauty about using micro influencers is that they tend to have niche audiences who are interested in certain elements and are from certain regions. So you need a technology to be able to pick them and then you can be using them at scale. You can use tens, hundreds of micros all talking about the product and what you tend to find is when you're using these micro influencers at scale is that the audiences see the content multiple different times from various different micro influencers and that's when the real weight actually comes in because they're being retargeted about the same brand. So what's really interesting now in our industry is that brands aren't necessarily only using the creators as a place to reach a new audience. They're also using the content that the creators are creating for them and they can repurpose that either through retargeting ads maybe on Instagram, they could even do pre-roll ads on YouTube and sometimes they've even gone further like when we worked with Otto Water and PepsiCo we were able to use the content that was created and do out of home advertising with it as well. So it's really fascinating how we are now viewing influencers as almost a creative team building the content for your brand and not only providing the audience. As Casper was saying obviously the influencer content can be used for other sort of advertising streams as well. What I'd like to say with the advertisers who purchase the influencer content is that it's about 60% a media spend and 40% a content creation spend because there's this whole element that this content can be reused. So as Casper was saying with PepsiCo and Otto Water it was all around London on billboards and out of home advertising but we're also seeing the demand for this content to be put on websites and to be used as creative assets even you know our stand here we've got three pieces of influencer content showcasing ourselves as a company which is really exciting. I think influencer marketing is a hot topic because anyone can become a creator these days and I feel like back in the old days if you wanted to become an actor or a singer you had to do an audition and then you were picked by a select group of producers and now we live in a world where fame has almost been democratised and that's a fascinating thing to talk about that anyone from anywhere in the world can now pick up a camera or a phone or now a microphone and build an audience from that which really does fascinate the world and it's completely changing the landscape completely changing the advertising industry and I guess especially like somewhere like Madfest you're seeing a lot of companies involved with influencer marketing cropping up because there are just so many because the market is growing and it's just amazing to be one of the sponsors here. I think influencer marketing is becoming as Unicastle is saying such a hot topic because of these creators out there right so when I was younger the main job which everyone really wants to be was a football star now the main job amongst young people is to actually become a YouTube creator and so what you're seeing is more and more people entering that field you're seeing more money actually pumped into the industry itself as well and so you were at the Logan Paul and KSI fight over in LA in the weekend and it's just showing the power of what these influencers are actually capable of actually doing. They sold out Staples Centre they had millions and tens and maybe hundreds of millions of hundreds of millions. The last fight was actually viewed more than the FA Cup final which is mad this is two influencers actually fighting right so I think people are understanding the power of influencers and then you know what return of investment can actually be achieved for brands it's immense it's huge it's really exciting. I think brands especially with the rise of social media they understand that authenticity is key to reaching consumers and to be a part of the conversation is really important online. We spend I mean if you guys take out your phones if you're watching at home or if you probably are watching on your phone but if you're not on your phone take out your phone and look at how much time you spend on your phone right and you'll see that your eyeballs are there for maybe four hours a day maybe three hours a day some people have seven hours a day which is insane and it's important for brands to be visible and to be part of that conversation and it's still also new and they're able to to efficiently buy advertising and that's really really obviously fascinating when brands can can do it at a really cost effective price. Yeah you know brands must go where consumers are as Castlewood was saying I think when we live in a digital age where people are getting fed adverts all around them like you walk around lunch you see ads on the bus stops on billboards everywhere that people have to understand where a consumer is currently giving their attention to and as Castlewood saying we're giving about four hours a day to our phones on social media so brands need to be using that and actually trying to push their messages through and then the reason why influencers is such an attractive proposition for them is consumers are actually giving much more attention to influencers than they are say traditional advert so that's why they're able to get such a good return of investment when the influencers are actually talking about a brand. And I think it's also important to add on that the only way a lot of these creators can fund the content they're creating is through product placement they can maybe on YouTube they can do AdSense which is pre-roll ads they can also sell merchandise but to be able to fund their content they also work with brands and we're able to give them a good choice because we have a company that can connect thousands of creators with hundreds of brands whereas when I just started out there weren't too many people to pick from and that allows for also a more authentic collaboration. I guess the rise in video helps create a more personal touch as such right a photo you know is it still nobody knows what's going on I think when you're seeing more and more content platforms such as Instagram stories and IGTV they're giving a more I guess 360 degree view on what an actual influencer's lifestyle is right and that means the consumers are feeling that I guess that lifestyle is a little bit more attainable because they're seeing all this video content because video content brings things to life and always with you know influencer adverts we've always encouraged that some parts of the campaign include some elements of video content it does create that more authentic touch as well. Yeah I guess I mean videos are more engaging obviously it's lovely to read and I want more people to read but in terms of capturing someone's attention online a piece of video content does that I think the fact that Instagram gives kind of four times more space to a video on their explore page than a photo is testament to that so you are seeing video becoming the dominant medium online. Other trends aside from just the standard form of influencer marketing what you're seeing is brands you know talking about what we were mentioning earlier about that 40% content creation element is that brands are repurposing this content to actually deliver the harder sales messages so we're seeing that social ads rather than brands paying creative agencies to produce all of these assets they're using the influencer content to actually target them and brands are seeing a much higher response as well on their conversions on that so I think that's a really growing trend and I think on TikTok as well looking at it from a trends perspective they actually have a hashtag trending page which is quite cool and you're seeing more and more brands actually imitate what these trends are on TikTok and actually do challenges connected to their brand which is fantastic again to see because it's living in the moment living with what's relevant. That's a trend about a trend. A trend about a trend love it. I think we're going to also see more and more big live events I think after the boxing fights and how they sold out the Staples Centre it's not necessarily just going to be boxing going forward but if there's a way to get two creators or a team of creators involved in a sport that's entertaining to watch or even you know a performance that they're capable of doing you're going to see more and more of that now going forward. I think what Casper's just highlighted there is that influencer marketing shouldn't be necessarily seen as a marketing form on its own. Influencer marketing is one of the perfect like collaborator or collaboration should I say to other marketing forms because of the reuse of content and using these creators perhaps in TV adverts using these creators in other forms of advertising so it's really exciting. So influencer marketing in terms of a B2B sense is a really interesting topic because it's deemed as a very B2C type of marketing form. What we often say to people who actually come to us about B2B influencer marketing is that they should be seeing their employees as almost the best advocates and the best influencers to actually support them and have your employees consistently sharing content around what the company does, the company core values all across social media. That's one element to the B2B element. Another element to the B2B is also you know you can use influencers but just not necessarily in the traditional sense so it's not necessarily them putting it through their own channels and that's when they're promoting it. It's them getting involved in your existing B2B marketing strategy such as maybe a podcast or you know a webinar, an event. You know I think what you're seeing more and more is these influencers being invited as the hosts to become podcasts or even being invited along to actually talk about with the host to make it more appealing to because I think with a lot of B2B influencer marketing what's needed is education because they're not necessarily trying to get direct sales off the back of it, it's to educate the market so then eventually the other businesses almost want to then move into the space.
