Are brands and bloggers are losing their claims to authenticity?
What links a bank, a smartphone and paint with avocado on toast? The answer is absolutely nothing whatsoever. However, it is this bizarre array of objects that appear to have – very unsubtly – made their way onto the Instagram account of one of Dubai’s most famous social media stars Karen McLean, also known as ‘Secret Squirrel’.
A quick scroll down the food blogger’s Instagram and you will find promotions for Standard Chartered, Samsung Galaxy, Jotun paint and, more recently, Olay. Admittedly, they are all very cunningly and beautifully blended into the plethora of avocado ‘roses’, but are McLean’s 190,000 followers really buying into it?
Of course McLean is not the only one. Across the board of the Middle East and the worlds’ biggest social media influencers, you will find posts so jarringly off their own carefully cultivated brands that the only explanations can be a fat wad of cash and/or a nice freebie. And frankly who can blame them? But in doing so do they ultimately nullify any claim to that much-loved word ‘authenticity’?
It’s a thorny issue, agrees Manoj Ammanath, brand partner at Rain, and one that poses an ethical dilemma. “Knowingly or unknowingly, we live our lives under influence,” he says. “Nothing new here. We’ve been this gullible since we were cave men and will probably be when we settle down on Mars. It’s just that the onslaught of social media has taken this ‘art of influencing’ to a level where it’s almost impossible to tell when this naïve human trait is being exploited without consideration. Paying someone to pretend to do something you want, in order to get someone else to do the same thing for real is killing the credibility of brands. Especially when the influencer is doing it not because he or she genuinely believes in the product, but it is just a lucrative commercial arrangement. Worse still, a temporary arrangement with no strings attached.”
“I think people are smart enough to see through this,” he adds. “After a point the whole thing begins to look made up and forced, not just to the audience but to the influencer as well. Which explains why someone like Essena O’Neill gave up the whole thing – a whole lot of freebies, a lot of fame (half a million followers) and loads of money. How long can one live a lie?”
Mazher Abidi, regional head of social media at Initiative, likewise agrees that the issue calls into question the influencers’ authenticity. “Partnering with social influencers has become no different to splashing the face of a global football or movie star on a billboard to shift apartments in a new property development,” he says. “Authentic delivery, the essence of what makes influencer marketing unique, is the very thing we have stopped taking advantage of.
“It’s the mentality of mass billboard-style exploitation of influencers that led them to ask for money, and more of it. If we treat them as media, they’ll ask for currency. Social influence is big business, and even if an argument can be made that influencers devalued their own personality by accepting these approaches, we should also accept that most of us would probably do the same with the sums that are changing hands for a few Instagram posts and a Snapchat story to support a campaign.
“Yet, there’s a difference between, for example, an electronics giant teaming up with a fitness fanatic to promote shavers because he shaves, and a healthy eating brand partnering with that same fitness guru to promote healthy meals. The first message is irrelevant to the influencer and doesn’t resonate with his audience. The influencer didn’t get famous because he shaves and his followers do not follow him because he has a nice beard. “Brands have ignored what connected the influencer to their audience in the first place. Full-blown commercialism has given influencer marketing a bad name and the brands who have engaged in these practices have ruined it for the rest of us.”
Nevertheless, Abidi remains hopeful that for the present ‘niche’ influencers – those famous for something specific they do or produce – will help the industry and the bloggers maintain some veneer of credibility. Like with any brand partnership, the key is in the relevancy, he says: “The ‘lifestyle’ influencer – those who are famous for being famous – may have had their day. While their reach remains enormous, the very fact we’re asking these questions is evidence that the authenticity of their messages just isn’t coming through anymore.
“However, niche influencers have retained their authenticity. Brands partnering with these influencers to deliver a relevant message that resonates with audiences can still bask in the glory of the positive affinity and deep engagement they crave from this type of activity. Whereas the brands who continue to push irrelevant messages through irrelevant channels will be no better than the annoying banners that our thumbs accidentally push on mobile screens because they get in the way. In 2016, we can do better than that.”
Such is the seemingly unstoppable force of influencer marketing that the United States’ Federal Trade Commission recently enforced regulations obliging anyone being paid to endorse a brand to disclose it. Meanwhile, just two months ago the United Kingdom’s Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) warned both social media bloggers and advertisers to “make sure” that “paid promotions are clearly labelled or identifiable as paid-for content”. No such regulations currently exist in the United Arab Emirates, leaving the onus very much on the bloggers themselves to decide how honest they are willing to be, alongside their discerning followers.
Nick Clements, chief executive officer at BPG | Bates, believes such regulation would not be forthcoming here any time soon. “Brands have been using this ‘borrowed interest’ ever since, with payment and ‘authenticity’ certainly not mutually exclusive,” he says. “Traditional advertising and promotions featuring influencers or celebrities have never required a payment disclaimer and there is no likelihood of that changing in the digital age.”
However, for Ammanath at least, influencers and celebrity brand endorsers alike should at least be made more accountable for the products they promote, especially when they are doing so for “pure commercial reasons”. He adds: “All this is not to say that social media influencers don’t work. They have worked well for a lot of brands and a lot of influencers are regarded quite highly around the world for how they help brands get their messages across. It depends on finding the right person with great brand fit – by that I mean, someone who genuinely believes in the product and is willing to promote it. And take responsibility for it too.”
