RISE OF INSTAGRAM FAKERS
Companies and social media users are wising up to the unrealistic world of Instagram influencers, writes Alanah Eriksen.
The All Black star poses at the juice bar with a drink and lunch wrap. The orange logo recognisable in the background. “Just picked up lunch from @tankjuicenz and didn’t even have to queue up!” he writes beneath the photo.
But some of his 375,000 followers are catching on. And they’re over it.
“Didn’t que up because his name is Beauden Barrett best 10 in the world and/or sponsored by Tank perhaps,” writes one.
“How much did you get paid for this?” another asks.
If you look close enough you’ll see the words “Paid partnership with tankjuicenz” below the second fiveeighth’s name.
Meanwhile fiancee Hannah Laity this week shared her love of Countdown’s reusable bags: “When bae goes off to play in a golf tournament, I go to yoga. These @countdown_nz reusable plastic bags are not only good for grocery shopping, I can fit a change of clothes, a drink bottle and my mat in here!! . . . #lovecountdown #plasticbagfree #sponsored.”
Social media is a constant stream of ads disguised as real life, otherwise known as influencing. Food delivery services, skincare clinics, cafes, hotels — it seems everything is being plugged.
Nine times out of 10, if the person has thousands of followers, they’re invited to the place or to try the product because they’ve been paid, either in cash (one-off posts can earn up to $50,000 depending on reach) or they’ve blagged a freebie. Sometimes companies send out hundreds of products, hoping for screen time.
It’s left social media users asking what’s real.
“Brands and audiences are essentially being played for fools through fake, unrealistic and unattainable displays of everyday life,” says Amanda McConchie, owner of The Business of Influence.
“These influencers were made famous because of their audiences who rely on them as friends for recommendations — now it is plain bombardment of constant consumerism that has everyday people battling to keep up.”
Launched in 2010 as a peer-topeer photo-sharing network, Instagram — arguably the biggest home of influencers — now has 800 million monthly active users, 1.5m of them in New Zealand.
The influencer industry began about three years ago. Major companies started to dedicate a significant proportion of their advertising spend to influencers, shunning traditional and expensive ad campaigns in magazines and TV.
Like Barrett, many Kiwi Instagram stars are known for their talents outside the platform. Riverdale star KJ Apa has 10.8m followers. Lorde has 6.2m, Dan Carter 883,000, model Georgia Fowler 638,000 and Taika Waititi 595,000.
But others started as hobbyists, fitness or travel bloggers (also known as micro-influencers) — and capitalised as their followings grew. The non-celebrity Kiwi influencer with the biggest following is probably (Instagram wouldn’t provide a list) beauty vlogger Shannon Harris (Shaaanxo), who has 1.5m followers.
Others include bodybuilding model Amy Lee Summers and Simone Anderson, who is known for documenting her 92kg weight-loss experience. Both have more followers than Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s 258,000.
Some brands prefer regular people over celebrities to flog goods. Scrolling through pictures of an All Black, with the weight of major sponsors linked to the team behind him, most will think it’s a life unattainable. If it’s someone who looks a bit more like you, however, consumers might feel more inclined to pay attention.
It is difficult to know how many commercial influencers are out there says Bodo Lang, an Auckland University senior lecturer in marketing, whose expertise includes word-ofmouth communication through social media.
“In some cases it is fairly obvious whether there is a commercial arrangement between a brand and an influencer. Celebrities are a good example of this. However, it is difficult to know how many micro-influencers are out there.”
There is strong evidence the practice has impacts on brand awareness, product liking, purchase intentions, sales and companies’ share price.
More primary schoolchildren now want to be influencers than they do doctors, scientists or artists, according to a survey backed by University College London and the OECD.
Influencing has created spin-off jobs, like their managers, or dedicated influencer PR agencies.
McConchie says she started The Business of Influence after becoming frustrated with “dirty tactics around misleading engagement, essentially fraud, and other dishonest practices that are often ignored or not properly investigated”.
“Influencers don’t love the image of selling out and audiences don’t appreciate unwanted ads in their feeds, so the PRs, agents and the influencer find creative but clear ways to disclose all partnerships.”
Newspaper journalists now find themselves next to influencers on travel junkets or at events, and are sometimes targeted as influencers themselves. A Herald journalist says he was once offered a TV by a major electronic company in exchange for 20 social media mentions a month for three months across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He laughed and sent their TV back.
Even the police have used influencers — The Bachelor NZ stars Art Green and Matilda Rice recently took over the Auckland police Instagram account during a ridealong, although police insist they weren’t paid for the partnership.
And William Waiirua — known for his futuristic eyewear and catchy dance moves — starred in a police recruitment video last year.
Last year, McDonald’s teamed up with Auckland dad Jordan Watson, behind the “How To Dad” parenting videos, to collaborate on a video explaining how to take kids to a restaurant.
While some have been accused of not being genuine with what products they endorse — and endorsing too many — Barrett’s manager Greg Dyer says the sportsman is more of an ambassador than an influencer and is loyal to four brands: Tank, Adidas, Tudor and Panasonic.
“We want his four partners to feel special and not be one of hundreds of brands he is promoting. You will not see Beauden on any talent agency website where he is on offer to brands to use his social network. This is unlike the many influencers we see flooding today’s social channels and, yes, most not declaring whether their posts are paid or not. Like you, I sometimes ask myself the same question, are these Bachelor-type influencers getting paid to promote that?”
But brands could be going back to traditional. The front row at New Zealand Fashion Week has previously been filled with influencers, who have no experience, expertise or relevant job, according to Caitlan Mitchell, editor of New Zealand fashion magazine Apparel.
But this year’s show saw a drop to about 10 per cent influencers at shows. The rest were stylists, retailers, buyers and media.
“It was disheartening to see the few influencers that did attend, laugh at garments as they came down the runway or not even pick up their phone at all,” says Mitchell. “Do they not know why they were invited? It wasn’t their shining personality, it was for their followers.”
Influencing doesn’t necessarily translate to sales, says Mitchell. If someone is sharing content from a show, it is immediately seen by consumers who want the product now but fashion week showcases collections for an upcoming season — items which aren’t yet available.
“You would be better off treating loyal customers who buy your clothing to a show, at least you would get some sales out of it.”
Holden became one of the first big brands to publicly distance itself from influencers, with the Australian branch reportedly ripping up some of the free car contracts it had with professional Instagrammers. It has worked with model and Kylie Minogue’s ex Kris Smith.
Swiss watch brand Longines recently suddenly split with “friend of the brand” Shaun Birley, who turned a forklift-driving job into a career as a globetrotting Instagram star.
And one of the world’s biggest advertisers, Unilever, which owns Lynx, Dermalogica, Dove and Rexona, has taken a stand against influencers who buy followers.
A survey by UK digital marketing agency Zazzle Media of 10,000 British marketers said none planned to focus
Audiences are essentially being played for fools through fake displays of everyday life. Amanda McConchie
on influencer marketing over the next year.
“I think that brands are very slowly seeing that the consumer is reacting somewhat negatively to influencer marketing in the broader sense,” says Laura Haden, senior partnerships manager at NZME, owner of the Herald on Sunday. “The general feeling is that there is no authenticity with a lot of the influencer marketing.”
She is leading a Marketing Association discussion on Wednesday for industry leaders, titled “Digital Conversations: Influencers — Silver Bullet or Unethically Leveraging their Status?”
“There is almost no thought going in to these campaigns beyond unboxing [literally taking the product out of its box on video] or seeing an influencer in their bathroom applying — insert brand here — and declaring that this is their favourite product despite using it for all of 30 seconds. It is all very transparent to me.”
Influencers lately were disclosing a genuine love for a product as “not paid”.
“That alone tells me that even they are aware that there is some pretty disingenuous content that is being put out.”
Her major worries are wasteful packaging, and the effect on young people.
“You are literally taking people from as young as, say, 10 years old, on a path to purchase . . . There is a huge amount of responsibility in that. Should you really be giving your impressionable followers a swipe-up link to purchase something in the bat of an eye.” Haden often shares commentary on her own Instagram, when she notices brands saturating her feed, in what she calls “Unfluencing”.
“It started when I was being influenced to go and purchase a bag of frozen peas. I couldn’t help but laugh that that was where we had finally come to and thought a majority of people would enjoy the light-hearted take I had on it . . . I get people sending me eye-rolling influencer unboxing stories every day.”
Even influencers themselves predict the online phenomenon, may soon run its course. Josh Ostrovsky, aka the Fat Jewish, who has 10m followers, said recently the end is nigh and people should have more of an entrepreneurial spirit. He has launched his own brand of wine.
“Everybody just wants to be an influencer now. Nobody wants to get a job,” he told CNNMoney. “People are starting to experience a little bit of social media burnout. How many times can I look at your baby? How many times can I look at a blazing, pink LA sunset, or your ac¸a´ı bowl . . . So we wanna give people real things.
“Eventually there will be too many influencers, the market will be too saturated and the value of influencer posts will continue to plummet.”
Instagram success hasn’t translated into enough money to buy a house in Auckland for one of New Zealand’s biggest influencers, Matilda Rice. The 27-year-old last year quit her TVNZ advertising sales job to be an online brand but told Next magazine she and fiance Art Green were still renting because they couldn’t afford to buy.
Kiwi influencers for the first time have guidelines to follow under the Advertising Standards Authority. In February it outlined transparency for social media advertising and states that the advertiser of the brand has the primary responsibility for complying with the ASA.
But it is yet to be tested — ASA chief executive Hilary Souter says it has not yet received any complaints.
Barrett’s agent says he had discussions with the ASA around the new guidelines but in Barrett’s case as an ambassador (he also features in TV, radio, digital, bus-back and billboards advertising) the advice is that there is no real need to put #spon, #paid or #ad on social media posts.
Instagram has its own rules. Last year, it introduced its paidpartnership tool, which allows a creator to tag a business they are working with.
When Instagram detects branded content is not using the tag, creators are sent notifications with an option to edit the post to add the tag, a spokesman says.
Facebook, owner of Instagram, has the same policy.
Instagram has a staff of about 10,000 working on safety and security, which it is planning to double in the next year. Across Facebook and Instagram, millions of fake, inauthentic or automated accounts are removed each day. Lang says the only surefire way to curb the use of influencers would be to legislate against it.
Do they not know why they were invited? It wasn’t their shining personality, it was for their followers. Caitlin Mitchell