Influence Buying Comes Under Fire

[FrgMstr]

After riding "influencers" advertising into the ground, and decided it has been abused as much as possible, one of the world's largest advertiser is getting out of the buying influence business, or so they say. At least we are safe from this kind of a abuse in the computer hardware enthusiast category. You will never find any products being "covered" by Youtube talking heads, without ever being tested in any way, even if they are using these components to put in their own personal computers. Thanks cageymaru.


LONDON (Reuters) - Consumer goods giant Unilever (ULVR.L) (UNc.AS), the world’s second-biggest advertiser, is cutting ties with digital media “influencers” that buy followers, saying it wants to help make advertising more transparent.

The practice of buying followers risks eroding trust and therefore damaging one of the fastest-growing areas of advertising - the billion-dollar-a-year market now known as “influencer marketing” - and Unilever says it wants it to stop.

 

[copy_run_start]

idk, I can imagine some cute woman on Instagram taking artsy photos of herself camping in a VW bus at sunrise, in the desert, with a post like:

Roughing it out here in the beautiful Southwest. Sometimes all you need is a desire for nature and beauty, and the will to go off on your own adventure. Thankfully I have my ASUS G870-M-AC mitx motherboard in my backpack. With built-in AC1750 and USB-C headers, I never have to be without, even in the most remote places. #SimpleLife #EmbraceBeauty #Wilderness #USB-CThroughput #BeamformingAntenna

 

[magictoaster]

Where I live 'influencers' have almost become minor celebrities. Some of them have been paraded on the most popular 'talk-show' on national TV, and given their own show on a private network owned by the largest mass media subsidiary of the largest communications network. This trend can't die fast enough...

 

[Nallexi]

cutting ties with digital media "influencers" that buy followers, saying it wants to help make advertising more transparent

Translation: our analysts think it no longer makes sense for profits, so we're putting our money elsewhere ahead of the game

 

[GlacierNine]

Did...some of you miss the actual words of the article or something?

They're not cutting their ties with influencers.

They're cutting their ties with any influencers that *buy* their followers - IE, people who pay money to shady characters on twitter and twitch in order to have a bunch of robots follow their account or idle in their stream chat.

In other words, they have no intention of moving away from influencer marketing, they've just made a public statement about doing it in a less obviously morally indefensible way.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

It is prolly cheaper to make websites with semi supporting facts for their products

 

[sfsuphysics]

Wait you're telling me all those sellers on eBay with 9000+ good reviews might not necessarily have that many real ones? Damn my world has crumbled!

 

[Spidey329]

I think the message is in the signal on this one, when they say:

with digital media "influencers" that buy followers

I think they mean they don't wish to back influencers who are buying followers as those are usually not a good return on marketing capital. They're likely going to put that money into influencers who have organic followers, like celebrities.

Think about it, if my Twitter account has 1million followers, you may say "hey, he's got influence, let's pay him." But if those followers are of low-quality (paid for), they're likely not going to be influenced at all. Compare that to someone with 1million organic followers, and they're going to get a much better return. I'd wager that an AI/algorithm has made this metric of organic vs. paid a tad more clear.

So it's not them giving up on "influence marketing," it's them giving up on digital marketers that are inflating their numbers. Now, they may just go directly to the source.

 

[Cyraxx]

Buying influence? In what way?

If companies "buy" people to Like them on Facebook or tweet them or something, I don't really care. That doesn't influence me.

Now if companies "buy" people to post reviews on Amazon and other sites, that's completely different scenario. One is lying, the other one is social media bullshits.

 

[bildad]

I've never been influenced by any of those dolts on social media. Save your money.

 

[WheresWaldo]

Buying influence? In what way?

If companies "buy" people to Like them on Facebook or tweet them or something, I don't really care. That doesn't influence me.

Now if companies "buy" people to post reviews on Amazon and other sites, that's completely different scenario. One is lying, the other one is social media bullshits.

There were a lot of companies like this on Amazon until they scaled it back with new rules. Some more honest than others. I joined one network that either sold products at a huge discount or gave some away free in excahange for posted reviews. They did require a disclaimer at the beginning of each review stating the consideration given. But that still means I was basically a paid influencer. Regardless of what others may say, I did try to give an honest appraisal. The other issue is timeframe, if you buy something and only own it a week, you should just keep your opinion to yourself, unless you used whatever it was 24/7. That is a big problem for reviews for consideration, your timeframe is too short to do a proper evaluation.