Change of accents – Style – Kommersant

Kommersant Style talks about how companies work with influential people today and how their influence on the audience has changed.

It seems that today influencers have become ahead of the stars in influence and even “celebrity”. Who is more needed and more important today – this question appears for a reason: ways to find a new audience, mechanisms for interacting with the one that has already been developed, companies are constantly looking for the best channels to promote their products. A few years ago, this process shifted very strongly to the zone of unknown girls and boys, whose moment of fame was videos on TikTok or provocative shootings on Instagram this kind of career plays a key role – they began to subscribe to millions, they began to earn millions, and today they are invited to the front rows of fashion shows, they are trusted to launch new products, they actively distribute interviews. Why not celebrities? The statistics only confirm their demand – by the end of 2023, the global influencer market is expected to reach $17.4 billion.

However, today there is also a parallel process, which is called de-influence, de-influencership: that is, the activities of opinion leaders are being questioned. Why?

Many of the beauty products or services recommended by influencers often don’t live up to the ads. And therefore, those who bought this or that “wow” remedy and did not see the effect after its application feel deceived – they, unlike influencers, paid for this cream or lipstick from their hard-earned money. The campaign against influencers began just because of misleading reviews, because of excessively photoshopped images, which are essentially the same ad, only placed not on the brand’s resource, but sort of like a trusted, your own person, just like you. Yes, and encouragement of excessive consumption is also a stone in the garden of bloggers. Who really needs a lot of mascara just because the brand has released a new makeup collection and needs to sell it urgently? However, influencers, opinion-makers, remain in business, and their complete disappearance from the radar is hardly possible – times have changed a lot. Below are the comments of several heads of Russian cosmetics companies who continue to work with influencers, despite changes both in the sphere itself and in the economic situation. Why do they do it and what difficulties do they face?

Marina Lebedeva, representative of the Dots & Dashes agency: “Today, a large number of influencers with quality audiences are not based in the country, and this affects the work, because physical familiarity with products is important if we want to be trusted. When the market was just starting to take shape, there were not many tools that now help us track performance, so the focus was more on quantitative indicators (subscribers, likes, views, etc.). With the development of the market, they faded into the background, and sales indicators came to the fore.

According to our observations, the number of followers on Instagram* of some bloggers decreased from 20 to 30%, but this did not affect the activity – a motivated audience remained, they are really interested in the life of a blogger and they are ready to follow his advice. For others, it even grew – this is due to the fact that the audience trusts them and no processes prevented this. The base of effective bloggers has decreased by about 30-40%, but we are in constant search, so others are replacing some. There hasn’t been a big shift in the platform selection as we’re looking at the quality of the content and its impact on the audience we need. At the moment, we have suspended work only with influencers who actively developed their blogs on TikTok, due to the suspension of the platform itself in Russia.”

Victor Dimitrov, CEO of Leading Consulting Group (Anne Semonin representative office and Jumeirah Group PR agency): “We work with opinion leaders pointwise: we try to choose personalities depending on the goal – a big pop star, a niche authority, a fashionable girl with 15,000 subscribers or a telegram blogger. In our high-end segment, beauty bloggers are not effective, so we prefer to work with real people who use our products and sincerely love them. In the suite for sale, only this works, in my opinion. With people who distinguish our values, they really live the life that they broadcast. In general, this strategy has not changed, but today we are increasingly faced with bought subscribers, paid comments and simulated blog activity.”

Sasha Petrosyan, PR director of the network of salons “Fingers” and beauty spaces Faceology: “In working with influencers, we have always adhered to the wishes that they show real results and share their impressions about us. The situation changed a lot when Instagram* was outlawed – before the main flow of new customers came from there, and now this tool is no longer working as well as it used to be. Now it is impossible to support native placements of bloggers with advertising. Therefore, now we are considering influencers on both Instagram* and telegram channels in order to understand exactly how good the return will be. The part of our target audience that prefers texts is now actively switching to Telegram, and those remaining on Instagram* respond better to photos. By the way, Telegram better implements the ability to evaluate a blogger’s channel, before posting it, as well as by the quality of texts, and by the audience, as well as by ER, you can understand what effect is expected from this or that influencer. In VK, we have an established community, however, we know that this site in Moscow does not work very well. We are still working on its possibilities.”

Vadim Makarov, Director of Brand Communications and Influencer Marketing, Global Dent: “There has been a change in priorities, platforms and strategies. In the past, it was possible to achieve a result, for example, coverage and visibility, using three resources, thanks to the transparency of statistics and understanding the presence of the target audience in a particular site. Now you take a blogger and think on which resource or in what way he will work better – a kind of Russian roulette. Therefore, before interaction, a clear briefing, qualitative and quantitative indicators of the hero, his audience are important. Its effectiveness can be high with the right choice of hero and an interesting creative concept. The reputation of the blogger, his behavior, the image of the campaigns he did are very important.”

Irina Kirienko