The 3 Timeless Principles Of Influencer Marketing

Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in. In this video, I'm going to walk through the 3 core principles of influencer marketing. Today, or 10 years, or 100 years from now, human psychology is still going to be the same, and these principles will still apply. They're timeless and applicable regardless of platforms or trends. So let's take a watch, and I want to start with a story. In March of 1966, brothers Paul van Doren and Jim van Doren moved into this, this retail space, opened for business. Their company was the Van Doren Rubber Company. They made and sold shoes in Anaheim, California, and they made them in that store, sold them there. And that very first day of business, they sold 12. What does this have to do with influencer marketing? Well, when we think about influencer marketing, I think it oftentimes conjures up images of Instagram models hawking skinny tees TikTokers, hocking products, cool talent, emerging talent, the latest platforms, the latest trends. You know, I like to think back to that original storefront because that business was the Van Doren Rubber Company that became Vans, which is worth $11.5 billion today. And they got to where they are today through influencer marketing. Vans was built upon the timeless principles of influencer marketing.. And so I'll show how they did it right and why it's still relevant today. Because platforms change, tactics change, influencers change, but principles don't. What do I mean by that? What are those principles? Well, I'm gonna break it down to the 3 Rs: relevance, reciprocity, and resonance. Relevance— what do I mean by that? Well, in the mid-'70s, skaters began adopting Vans, and the shoes were rugged, they had sticky soles, and Vans never could have afforded to go after professional baseball or football players at the time. So when they noticed this, they saw an opportunity in skateboarding. And so they signed their first of what eventually became many skate endorsements with Stacy Peralta for $300 to ride their shoes exclusively in contests. Quite a deal in hindsight. As we go out there and start looking for influencers, How do we know who's relevant, who's the right fit for our campaign? And I like to break it down to 3 elements. One is know your consumer. What specifically is their age? What specifically are their interests? Who are their favorite athletes? Where do they live? What are their hobbies? What are they reading? What are they watching? Who are they watching? Who are the creators that are then appealing to those consumers? From there, You want to cross-reference that with influencers that are relevant to their category. Are you reaching tech influencers, lifestyle influencers, dancing influencers, sports, nutrition? Within that, are you reaching a specific subcategory, sub-niche? Is there a way for this creator to speak credibly to your brand because they have some ties to the category? And then next, you need to talk to the creators. Are they passionate about this project? Do phone calls with them. Do they think that they're relevant for this project? Are they excited about it? Are they hyped and pitching ideas? Or are you having to dangle an absurd amount of money at them to get a phone call return? If it's the latter, it's, it's not worth it. So it's important to talk to them and identify whether or not they feel they're relevant, whether or not they feel passionate about the project. And it's the intersection of all those three, that's where you find relevance. That's where you can reach the consumer. It's not about getting caught up in the tactics or trends, that's for sure. Don't. Focus on your needs, your audience, your budgets, your approach. Don't worry about macro, micro, or whatever. Work on those 3 elements first and foremost. And you need to be honest with yourself about why you might be bucketing people into these different categories and approaching them. Do you want to work with that macro influencer that person with 10 million subscribers because they're relevant or because you're a starfucker? You know, maybe you saw them on a magazine cover or in a big Adweek or AdAge story and now you think they're cool. Or do you wanna work with nano-influencers because it's the hot topic in the ad trades right now? Focus on the fundamentals and you'll be fine. A great example of this was 12 years ago, we were working with EA on the launch of Spore, which was a game created by the guy who invented The Sims, Will Wright. And we came up with this concept where we were going to give a bunch of celebrities and digital influencers early access to a portion of the game so they could create a creature from it. And, uh, so we gave it all to them, and whoever would get the most votes from their fans would get $15,000 donated to the charity of their choice. Now, we had some incredible people, and mind you, this is 2008, you know, digital influencers did not have the audiences they have now. And we had Elijah Wood, we had Richard Branson, the flight of the Concorde, Carlos Santana, Mark Cuban, Katy Perry was in it. Massive, massive names. We also had influencers. We had iJustine, we had the lead editor of Kotaku, we had Phil DeFranco, Veronica Belmont, a handful of others. Kevin Rose was in there. Who do you think got the most votes? It was Phil DeFranco. At the time, he was not that big a name. I imagine most of you guys know by now, but he had the audience. He's a gamer, he had gamer audiences, I mean, casual gamers. He had the demographics, he was relevant to the category 'cause he had a background in it. On top of that, he had ties to a specific charity that he was really passionate about. His dad suffers from a specific disease and he wanted to donate to a charity that supports that. And he was passionate about it because it was personal for him. And he liked gaming. As a result, he just crushed it and he blew everyone away. I think he got 10x the second place people. That's really the power of focusing on people that are relevant versus getting caught up in, say, people with the biggest numbers or celebrity and so on. Moving on from relevance to reciprocity. What do I mean by that? Well, you want an influencer program to be a collaboration. Yes, you are paying people. That's fine, that's good, but you should focus on it being much deeper than that because everybody's paying influencers. Vans paid Peralta $300. Wasn't just about the money. Vans got valuable input from Peralta and redesigned the No. 45. They added, you know, reinforced heel, padded collar, more canvas up front. More rubber across the front so that it wasn't being just ripped to shreds from ollies. So it was a win-win on all sides. They were helping one another. You know, oftentimes when we work with creators, a lot of people think, okay, I gave you money, now just do what I want. Dance, monkey, dance. That, that's obviously wrong, or at least I would hope it would be obvious it's wrong. As you're thinking about this, one thing that comes to mind for me is I'm reminded of this This Jerry Rice quote, "Today I will do what others won't so tomorrow I can do what others can't." And everyone wants influencer marketing to be very easy. It's not. If you wanna do a great job, it's not. It's not Fiverr, it's not dollars in, product out. It's not that simple. This is a creative endeavor. It requires a personal touch to go the extra mile. So what won't others do that you should? I mean, everyone wants to do briefings over email. Email or in whatever self-service influencer marketing platform is out there. That's lame. Like, who gets excited about reading a brief? They're not really gonna have a deep understanding of it unless you, you know, immerse them in the brand. If you meet them in person, obviously with COVID that's a bit more difficult these days, but you get my point. You know, when you meet someone face to face, they want to do right by you. And you can talk, you can form a dialogue, get feedback, fill in the blanks, so then people can reinterpret the ask in their own words and it's not just regurgitating bullet points. Promote versus collaborate. Brands and advertisers are so focused on getting their message out that they, we, I often lose sight of the fact that we're dealing with people. We should collaborate with them, we should do brainstorms, we should take it a step further and get their feedback in our marketing. They've got so many great ideas, they've got so much direct access to our audiences. It's incredibly helpful. It's incredibly valuable. So hear them out, collaborate with them. And I think above all, don't do one-offs. Think about the long term. This is— I'm so fed up how many brand influencer activations are just a single post and then moving on. It seems like such a waste. It's silly. We're so transaction-oriented in the influencer space, but it doesn't make any sense. You know, think of the most successful successful endorsement deals of all time. Can you think of one that was a one-off? Nike didn't pay Jordan to wear shoes in one basketball game. Vans didn't pay Stacy Peralta to skate in one contest. You want to be partners, you want to be buddies. The whole thing just becomes bigger too at that point, you know, you get added value because it's a friendship, it's a partnership, you know, it's not all about, you know, constantly checking like, well, am I scoped for this? Because you you need to scrape every little bit out of a single project. You build up a lot of goodwill going about it this way. They'll wanna do more for you and you'll be able to call them, you know, the influencers in a pinch if you're a real partner. So many different campaigns we've done, brands have reached out last minute, hey, there's this new launch, can we get one of the influencers to, you know, do a video about this? If it's just an additional ask on top of a single project, The answer is no. If it's a partner we're doing a year-long, 2-year-long deal with, sure, yeah, they know the brand. This brand has been taking care of them for a year, giving them so many great experiences. Totally, no problem. That's the difference. And there's just countless benefits. It's great working with creators this way with the long-term deals. You can get category exclusivity. You can get economies of scale. I mean, literally, if you're gonna do a year-long deal with a YouTuber, for example, and you want a big dedicated hero video once a month on their channel, you know, 12 videos breaking it down. Odds are you can get that in the neighborhood of what it would cost to do 6 to 9 single videos because they like long-term deals too. They've got teams, they've got mouths to feed, they've got revenue goals. It also gets more efficient over time with everybody involved. Think about how hard the onboarding process is with influencers most of the time. Why just throw all that away? You did 80% of the work just getting to that first single activation. Let's keep it going because it just gets easier and easier. Yeah, and you get more added value. That process, those benefits really compound. And, um, you know, I've got a bunch of horror stories. I can't name names, but I've worked with a ton of brands that weren't willing to make that commitment They only wanted to do short-term pay-to-play one-off deals. Almost inevitably, not always, but quite often, you know, they do a deal and that creator needs to make a living. And if they're in a specific niche, it's pretty common that they may go and work with a competitor a few months down the line. That's the nature of things. They're professional. They need to make a living. Blame them at all because if the brand's not willing to invest in them, why should they invest in the brand? They can't be waiting in the wings. They need to make a living. But when that happens, it's not a good look. It just blows up in your face. So it's important to not be short-sighted when you're going about this stuff. Really think long-term. Really think about partnerships. Really think about going deep and working with these guys. And, uh, that brings me to the next principle of resonance. So how can you make sure that what you're doing is actually having an impact? The audience understands the message. It's hard. Going back to Vans, they made their team riders heroes. These guys were featured in magazines with these ads. They made signature shoes for them. They hired their friends to take amazing photos. They empowered them to be the best at what they were great at. That's that happy medium, that sweet spot. As a result, these guys got to make a living from their passion. Who doesn't want to do that? And who wouldn't be incredibly grateful to a brand that, that helped them do that? Oftentimes we look at creatives through the lens of being pitchmen, and we know that's bad. Innately, we all understand that doesn't work, even though we constantly fall into that trap. Because if the creators aren't speaking in their actual voice and you're writing lines for them, it's so easy to spot because their fans have been watching them for years. They know their nuances and language and what they say and the little tics. If you're messing that up by overproducing it, making it too polished, just let them bring it to life in their voice. I don't want to go so far as to say that you should just let them do whatever they want. I think that's bullshit. I hate hearing, "Just let the creator be authentic." That's not right either. If you're the brand and you're paying for a message to get across, I don't think you should just hand over the reins and trust the creator. And at times it can feel like you've got opposite ends of the spectrum. You've got worlds kind of like colliding. And butting heads, it's important to keep in mind that there's more than just the creator needs and the brand needs. If you're focused on those two, you're missing the point because there's a third variable that's key and I think really helps provide a solve and a lens through which to look at this stuff. And that is the audience. You've got the creator, the brand, the consumer. What does the consumer want? They want a great story. They've likely been following this creator for years. As a result, they want to see the creator celebrated. They want to see these creators tell a great story, experience something amazing. So when you look at it through that lens, the solution comes into focus. You send them on a hero's journey. You want to get them something exclusive representing the brand to celebrate and document and explore. That's the sweet spot. You know, ask yourself, what can I bring to the table? What gasoline can I add to their fire? What can I do to amplify what they're already doing? Because on the brand side or the ad agency side, oftentimes you've got tons of resources representative of the brand, whether it's some sort of access or exclusive or experience that you can bring to the table to help creators tell a great story. Some of the things we've done in the past are create amazing experience representative of brands. We've done a ton of influencer summits where we We immerse the influencers we're working with into every aspect of the brand and the campaign. They meet the marketing team, they meet us, the ad agency, they get insight to the campaign, they get to ask questions, which is incredibly important. Then we go and party with them, take them to some amazing event. That mix of education with entertainment, the candy with the medicine, that is key. It works wonders. And you always, always get a ton of added value. Can you give them products to dissect? You know, history and background on the brand, access to the staff to document. Ask yourself, what are they dreaming about? Ask them what they're dreaming about. Can you bring that dream to life? They were trying to get in the basketball space, and so what we did was had a number of creators that were actually on multi-year contracts, and we brought in The Professor, who was one of them. That got the biggest basketball channel. And we worked with him and actually created what was a VR game featuring him playing basketball. He got to be a video game character, which is incredible. His audience was pumped because they love basketball anyways. We created a whole immersive brand experience. Another angle in is help them tell their story. With Starbucks, they were trying to reach younger guys with their ready-to-drink beverages. The audience they were going after were guys in their early 20s who looked up to entrepreneurs. Obviously, the celebrities to them were YouTubers. So we did a series where we went out and had creators share their entrepreneurial stories. These guys shared their trials, tribulations, what it took to get them to succeed. Creators loved it because they basically got a nice documentary produced about them. About them. And the fans loved it because it gave them additional insight, and the brand loved it because it was perfectly in line with the message they were trying to get out there. Make influencers feel like celebrities. We've put countless creators in everything from Super Bowl ads to out-of-home print, obviously in addition to them creating their own stuff. And that stuff works wonders. Obviously it's not a great fit for every brand, it's not possible for every brand, but those that it is a fit for, it's incredible. They get to share the brand giving them this once-in-a-lifetime experience. They're documenting everything. That, that 30-second commercial gets turned into 30 minutes worth of incredibly in-depth content behind the scenes, all bringing to life the brand. And that's just such a big win. So think about what can you bring to the table to give these guys an experience and a journey so that they can document the brand and bring that to life and bring that exclusivity, that access to their fans. Principles are timeless. It doesn't matter if it's 30 years ago or 30 years in the future, these things are going to be relevant. When we're talking about relevance and identifying influencers to work with, you want to focus on that intersection of who's reaching the right consumer, who's relevant to the category, who's passionate about the space. That's a sweet spot to identify relevant partners. And in partnering with the influencers, you want to make sure that, that you're bringing something to the table, that you're also collaborating with them, that it's more than a single transaction. Develop an exclusive. With Vans, they didn't pay Stacy Peralta to do a single contest in their shoes and that was it. They formed a deep partnership As a result, it was credible, and that paid dividends over time. You get a lot of added value when you work with creators on an ongoing basis. Of course, take the creators on a journey so they can bring their fans on a journey. That's ultimately what's going to resonate with the viewers. Give them something exclusive, amazing to document. There's so many ways to do that so that they can bring like the brand, access, history around the brand, products, people, the team. So with that, I hope you enjoyed the presentation. If you'd like to see more videos, please hit subscribe and shoot me any messages, leave any comments of video suggestions, thoughts, or feedback. Thanks so much.