NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN

       

Don't Get Sucked In By Influencers

Yes, you can catch a viral wave, at least for a couple of hot minutes. But the downside for your brand can be ugly, and long lasting.  

BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN

 

In the world of wishful thinkers, there are no creatives or account managers more clearly and utterly deluded than the ad agency mavens and the CPG brand stewards who are trying to control the flood of supportive social media that they build and regularly unleash. They're assisted, aided, and abetted by the allegedly authentic behaviors of the various celebrities and social media "influencers" whom they regard as their junior partners in these fruitless and deeply flawed labors. A few of these ventures work out, most don't, and none last for more than a few fleeting moments. Ask Matt Damon about his crypto ads some time or Matthew McConaughey about his Salesforce endorsements where he's still being paid millions while the company craters and lays off hundreds of workers.Even assuming that anyone found the proclamations and protestations of these influencers to be credible, much less authentic, which doesn't actually seem to matter any longer in an artificial world where everyone's supposedly in on the joke, it's still a very precarious and unpredictable journey. Talk about taking a ride on the tiger's back. It's hard to know which aphorism is more fitting here but, for sure, the warning that "when you teach a bear to dance, you don't get to tell it when to stop" does a decent job of describing a world of arrogant, affluent, and aggressive self-promoters whose only real interest is in serving themselves.

I'm actually most impressed by the ability of all of these schlock merchants and sycophants to sell their stories and strategies with a straight face, considering how little reason anyone who would have to believe that they know what they're talking about. The ad world's continued ability to conflate notoriety with knowledge is amazing. These social promotion projects are very risky bets on projected business outcomes which - even when the volume of responses is better than expected - often come with unforeseen consequences and results that ultimately are bad for almost everyone.

The advertising and marketing world believes that social media works even if no one really understands or can actually explain how. They think they need to be in the game with their clients' brands - if for no other good reason - than simply that everyone else is doing it as well. We do know that every such undertaking has both intended and unintended consequences. The intended consequences sometimes happen. The unintended consequences always happen.

Everyone in the ad business also has their favorite cautionary examples of ads, promos and stunts that have blown up in the client's face. In fact, there are now some pretty effective and substantial tools and systems being developed to try to anticipate, identify and avoid similar mishaps in the future. Dumbstruck and Nexus A.I. are just two examples of companies trying to help their clients avoid these kinds of problems.

Most of the young ad folks who hold themselves out as next-gen experts and savants among the savages haven't a clue about the likely economic impacts of any of the campaigns, marketing blitzes, or other initiatives they sell to their unsuspecting clients and CMOs. It's also abundantly clear that they really don't care much about the final and regularly unfortunate results. They know that they can get away with whatever because, unlike direct marketing, brand marketing is rarely, if ever, measured. As a result, there are few documented successes or failures, but always consequences.

The only worst thing you can do and the thing most certain to provide an eventual embarrassment and a substantial amount of egg-on-face is when the proffered program includes a heavy bet on a single talent, influencer, or celebrity who is almost guaranteed to blow up in no time at all. The lifelong rule of the media sword is that if they've built you up, they'll be more than happy to also bring you down when the slightest opportunity arises.

What's really interesting in the midst of these ongoing circuses is how even experienced and intelligent businesspeople fail to realize the second- and third-order detrimental impacts these undertakings can have on their underlying businesses in the new reality of social shaming, cancel culture, and media manipulation and amplification. They seem to get stuck on the proposition that the most they can lose are the dollars spent on the overall creative, production, and media costs of a given campaign.

However, the smartest marketers have now learned from a parade of horrible outcomes by such major brands as Pepsi, Heineken, Gucci, H&M, and Peloton that there's also a massive additional clean-up cost in terms of reputational damage and repair once a program blows up, not to mention the serious prospect of your stock price taking a hit. The news media is always drawn to conflict, outrage, and failure. Worse yet, by design and by algorithm, social media elevates the worst, most divisive content - criticism, crisis, complaint, and competition - which are presumed to be the most shareable as well. That's not even the end of the damage control story, which is what senior managers and marketing execs looking for a quick hit, media attention and a sales bump are still missing.

When you expose your business operations and your credibility to the vagaries of the crowd and turn the world loose on your people, there's really no end to the upsets, disruptions, and damage that can be done, and quickly. We see new examples on a weekly basis and yet the message seems to continually be missed. Taco Bell was a fairly recent victim of social media excess when it paired up with a very popular musician to push and promote one of its menu items. The rush of interest and volume was so substantial and immediate that the promotion needed to be suspended because the local outlets couldn't handle the flow. Instead of delighted customers and growing sales, they ended up with disappointed fans and overwhelmed team members. As Yogi Berra, among other philosophers, noted: it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

Another recent example of a vendor needing to be very careful about what they wished for was slightly more convoluted because instead of Chipotle "working the web", the company got whipsawed and surprised when two food enthusiasts "invented" a new Chipotle offering (not on the menu or in the system) and promoted it on TikTok. This led to a rash of surprise orders that completely overwhelmed Chipotle's staff and their production system, which wasn’t designed or equipped to handle bespoke burritos. Here again, the pain and aggravation was shared both inside the company and by unhappy customers. Too much of a good thing can be just as bad as not enough, especially in the fast-food business.

But the real takeaway (no pun intended) for prudent business owners and operators is to be careful and even a little conservative before you unleash these uncertain social media storms - for better or for worse - on your business and your team members. Be sure to question the authors and architects of these undertakings and remember that the last person you want to take advice from, in most cases, is someone who doesn't have to live with the consequences.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Do You Have the Right Influencers?

Companies such as Cameo have shown the value of making genuine connections with people through its platform. But now that everyone wants to sell via social media, you've got to up your game.  

BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN

When Cameo was started at the 1871 tech incubator in Chicago, the two founders had to overcome a staggering amount of skepticism about the whole premise -- that anyone would pay any amount of money for short, customized, video messages, wishes and greetings created for their friends and family by C- and D-level celebrities and other has-beens and "never wases." It didn't happen overnight, but eventually, and with a huge boost from the pandemic lockdowns, Cameo killed it. Cameo's 2020 gross revenues were about $100 million -- four times the 2019 results -- and the company soon grew to be one of Chicago's brightest unicorns.

As with so many firms which raced to bulk up in order to meet the Covid-19 craziness, Cameo overbuilt its team and the 2021-2022 season was spent dealing with slower growth and right-sizing the business's headcount. More importantly, management was able to apply the product-market fit lessons learned to build a stronger set of offerings for the future.

As you might expect, there are many explanations of what ultimately helped Cameo turn the corner early on, and plenty of their "creators" are happy to take credit. Yet it's pretty clear that the real hook wasn't the celebrity, skill or talent of the various amateur or professional participants that the customers connected with; it was something much more basic and too often overlooked.  Interestingly enough, the fact that the first few thousand cameos were fairly crappy, done on iPhones on the fly in bad locations and circumstances and, as often as not, with only a rough approximation of the actual "script" that the customer was seeking, turned out to be not a flaw, but a compelling feature. These weren't slick Hollywood shorts (dare I say Quibies) or painstakingly produced IG user-generated fantasy flicks; they were down-to-earth, simple videos which felt like they were made by friends.

The key to these critical connections with the customers was that, even though everyone knew these weren't technically authentic, everyone was also in on the game.  Above all, what came through was the fact that the creators were sincere. The videos may have been clumsy or hokey, the performers might have stumbled along the way but what was obvious was that they were trying their best and actually putting themselves into the moment. Strangely enough, you might say that, even as they were using a cellphone to create the end product, they weren't phoning it in. Sincerity reads on the little screen just as effectively as does on the big screen at the theater. The immediacy, the simplicity, the directness, and the informality of the process combined to create a touching and convincing result that no one really anticipated.

Now, as we see the shift from the attention economy, where clicks counted most, to the influencer economy, which started as looks, but is increasingly about lucre, Cameo and others in the game are shifting their offerings from entertainment to information and economics. Cameo's "partners" are now happy to make brand and product endorsement videos for all kinds of companies.  

In the past, social didn't need to sell stuff to make ends meet - selling slices of your mindshare and attention to advertisers was enough.  Today, the business is all about ROI and every player needs to pay their own way. Social is no longer simply about seeing, it's all about shopping. Context trumps content. The central context now is less about community and far more about commerce. Novelty, notoriety, and noise are no longer enough. And not every influencer is a smart choice.

Cameo's initial experience provides some important lessons for brands and advertisers who want to use the omnipresent influencers effectively. The issue now is whether Cameo's latest attempts to translate and transfer their creators' credibility and connection to the commercial world will work or whether it will undermine the very reasons these people were accepted and appreciated in the first place. Too often, the medium gets in the way of actual communication.

There are three important ideas to keep in mind as you decide whether the risks and costs associated with employing influencers make sense and will provide a real return on your investment - not simply in terms of buzz, but in terms of bottom-line bucks. Brands and businesses need to build trust, authenticity, and benefit into their stories and the right influencers can help them do that.

(1)  Make Sure Your Influencers Know What They're Talking About

You need to take great care to ensure that the particular talent talking the talk is actually someone who consumers believe walks the walk as well. Snoop Dogg can sell Corona by the case and cannabis products all day long, but I wouldn't ask him (or Matt Damon) about crypto. Cred is extensible, just as brands can expand their coverage, but the capacity and qualifications of the endorser need to be known not simply to the industry or insiders but to the target consuming population as well. They don't have to be in the business - Snoop doesn't make the beer - but they need to know the business they're talking about. The Manning family may look silly hawking gambling apps for Caesars, but everybody truly believes that they love Lays potato chips.

(2)  Talk to Me about Me or Have a Friend Do It

Don't waste the time I don't have talking to me about you and your products or services; tell me simply and succinctly what you can do for me. How will you save me time, money, increase my productivity, or help me make better, smarter decisions about the things that matter in my life? People listen mainly to other people these days, most often at work, and the best paths are always the byways. These are lateral conversations in proper contexts from close and trusted sources -- not blasts or blatant attempts to beat me into submission. Subtle sharing sells. To be effective, influencers need to connect their own experiences to those circumstances and situations that the customers would empathize with and understand.

(3)  Make Sure the Influencers are Properly Positioned

The only content that really reaches the right audiences and effectively communicates your pitch is content that is authentically shared and passed on from trusted peers, friends, and families at the right time and place. If I'm not listening, it doesn't matter who is speaking or what you're selling. If the time's not right, even the most effective communicator will not get the job done. It's all about sharing, not selling. Given the growing swamp of competing and commoditized product offerings and the glut of ads about them, no one is looking for more choices. We want simple answers from people we trust. A finite and carefully cultivated number of credible influencers can provide those responses and directions if they're presented properly and in the right context.

Reverse mortgages may be sketchy -- and there are known scams associated with them -- but there's no better man to sell them to senior citizens than Tom Selleck. He's the right guy, right age, right persona, and a simple story. Trust me, I'm a TV Police Commissioner, a family man, and here to help.