The United Kingdom find out the influence of influencers on brand strategy and marketing rules. It is the first decisive step to establish new rules from the point of view of business in this new era, and the approach to marketing plans is already changing. Marketing with famous people and marketing with influencers offers brands with different advantages. However, not all brands are prepared to maintain complex collaborations. In the case of certain objectives and categories, the easiest and most effective way for brands to take advantage of the influencers’ power is to publish their own ads on YouTube creator’s content.
Marketing with influencers is not the same as marketing with famous people
YouTube influencers, however broad their coverage, are not among the so-called “famous celebrities.” In addition, marketing with famous people and marketing with influencers offers brands of different advantages.
For example, we discovered that famous people are more effective than creators when it comes to generating memories of the ad (84% vs. 73%). Since its top priority is to remain famous and memorable, it is logical.
However, YouTube creators begin to win the game in the field of involvement with the brand. The degree of familiarity with the brand is a good example of this. If we want a certain audience to really understand what our brand concept means, what we do, or our values or products, when it comes to increasing familiarity with the brand, collaborations with YouTube creators are four times as effective as collaborations. With famous people. On the other hand, when it comes to buying intent, there is a tie: according to our study, influencers were equally likely to generate buying decisions as famous people.
It is not just a matter of aesthetics
The brands of beauty products were among the first to collaborate with influencers and the creators have consolidated a great presence among the user community of these products on YouTube. Almost 86% of the two hundred most popular beauty videos on YouTube were not from professionals or brands but from creators. However, the interesting thing about our findings is that the achievements of YouTube influencers go far beyond the category of beauty products.
We analyze nine more categories, such as automotive, alcoholic beverages, snacks, and toys. In all of them, collaboration with influencers increases brand metrics, from familiarity and affinity to recommendations.
In some categories, such as snacks and alcoholic beverages, they can still have more impact, since they manage to increase the purchase intention well above the average. Thus, the idea that marketing with influencers only serves to address young people interested in beauty and fashion brands is clearly false.
Collaborations are as important as their protagonists
Marketing with collaborators has always focused on recommendations, sponsorship and product placement. On the other hand, in marketing with influencers, many more options have been explored, and it is important to know which of them works best and for which marketing objectives they are most appropriate.
Our study demonstrates that the best brand results are achieved through complex thematic integrations with creators. They are integrations that generate greater involvement and in which the influencer is key to creating a certain content in collaboration with a brand, such as in a demonstration. These integrations allow to establish much deeper links than those created with the product placement, so they are more effective.
Marketing with influencers is not a passing fad, but a form of effective and scaled communication:
The sense of humor is also interesting since it reflects belonging to a community. YouTube allows forging a special relationship between followers and influencers that reflects a feeling of co-ownership. This familiarity creates a certain intimacy that makes humor much more natural than if it were used in collaborations with famous people.
