Many marketers think this is an influencer marketing campaign run by experts, but in reality, it is simply the endorsement of celebrities in the packaging paper of the NHS.
It is easy to confuse one method with another and, as an observer, it doesnt hurt. But if you want your influencer marketing strategy to be effective, you really need to make a difference.
What is influencer marketing?
If you look at the superficial definitions of celebrity endorsement and influence marketing, you can see why the strategies seem to overlap.
Celebrity approval assigns celebrity to a brand or product. With this strategy, you idolize people to associate with your product, so that people want to buy it.
Influencer marketing creates word of mouth advertising with trusted people in certain circles. With this strategy, influencers build their image in the minds of their followers.
Both strategies use people you know to influence your target market. But the way of operating and the influence on the target market are very different.
Influencers are experts
Michael Jordan does not need to be a fashion expert to recommend Hanes, and Oprah does not need to be a technology expert to recommend Windows surface. They are so well known that it doesnt matter if the product is completely outside of their area of ??expertise. They are expensive that companies target markets recognize and associate with their brand.
Influencers are experts. They built communities around them in a very specific space. When a brand sends its new breast pump to its blogging mother for review as part of an influencing campaign, the goal is not notoriety, but the generation of real recommendations in the target community.
Influencers are involved in a community
Celebrity endorsements must be seen, heard, but not interacted with. Communication with celebrities is a medium, like a single message operated on a platform, like a television program, designed to reach as many people as possible. Again, reach is a big problem.
On the other hand, the influencer is in permanent dialogue with his followers. They answer questions and detail points of interest with community members. This group is ready to receive messages from the influencer well before the brand comes on the scene. When the influencer produces sponsored content, he is part of an ongoing conversation in which the community is heavily involved.
Influencers wear many hats
In celebrity recognition, celebrities are the face of a brand message. The brand writes, produces and distributes the content, and the celebrity helps deliver it. From the point of view of the target market, it is a brand message for them, using the celebrity as a messenger.
In influencer marketing, the influencer is seen as the creator of the entire message. If they are bloggers, they are the ones who write the post; if theyre YouTuber, theyre the ones who write and edit the video. From start to finish, the message is seen as his, which gives it credibility and authenticity that celebrity endorsements rarely imitate.