Faced with the collapse of digital advertising, which is less and less impactful and effective, more and more customers are considering digital marketing as a remedy.
INfluencia: can you describe your agency in a few words?
Edward Fillias: Jin has existed for just ten years and employs 120 people. Our goal is to understand the communities and their respective ecosystems to activate them in order to serve the brand managers who use our services. Among our clients, we count in particular Bouygues, Ferrero, Large Optical, Allianz, Casino, Samsung and recently Happn. We have a very corporate and marketing culture.
IN: When did you get into influencer marketing?
EF: very quickly. Our first customer in this market was Europcar. For them, we called on an Instagrammer who took a whole series of photos on the most beautiful roads in Europe. The idea on this project was not to take advantage of its community but to use its influence to spread this campaign in 20 countries. We then did influencer marketing campaigns for many other clients including Ricoh And Geodis. For Bouygues, we developed a BtoB operation using drone pilots to shoot images in tunnels. This sector has always fascinated me. In 2019, I even co-wrote the Influencer’s Handbook to editions Ellipses.
I apply the principle of Jacques Seguela when he called Dalí for an advertisement of Citroen.
IN: How has this sector evolved over the years?
EF: it all started with the emergence of bloggers in the early 2000s. These people who were good at writing were mostly journalists. From 2010 began to appear videographers like squeeze. Since 2015, we have witnessed the explosion of new talent online. With the collapse of video access costs linked to the arrival of new smartphones, everyone is starting to post content on the web. It’s an incredible cultural revolution. Influencers specialize in increasingly specific niches. Youtube is and remains at the forefront of influencer marketing. I myself spend two hours a day on this platform because it is so rich.
IN: Faced with this explosion in the number of influencers, how does a brand choose one over another?
EF: Faced with the collapse of digital advertising, which is less and less impactful and effective, more and more customers are considering digital marketing as a remedy. While a lot of agencies sell volume or make it look like there’s a wand to find the right influencers, I favor a more traditional approach that some might even call corny. I apply the principle of Jacques Seguela when he called Dalí for an advertisement of Citroen. The creator and his messages must be in line with the brand. The meeting between the client and the influencer is a work of public relations. It takes time and has to be done face-to-face. The technological tools we use are used to detect talent, but ultimately, the link must be forged between the creator and the company’s managers. This is even more true today because brands now want to develop long-term relationships with the influencer who becomes, in a way, their muse. Most of them have become much more professional in recent years. They almost all have agents or agencies representing them.
You can count on the fingers of one hand the global influencers
IN: Who are the most relevant influencers for a brand? The big world stars, the national stars or the nano-influencers?
EF: it all depends on the budget, the ambitions and the number of countries targeted by the client. We know that the larger the community of an influencer, the less he is a prescriber. However, there is no universal answer to this problem. You can count the global influencers on the fingers of one hand. To have very strong and rapid visibility, using major national influencers is often the most effective option. To trigger a wave of membership from below, from customer to customer, calling on nano-influencers can make sense. Another option for brands would be to create their own influencer but nobody dares to do it yet and cross this Rubicon.
2021 was a very good year and 2022 marked a return to reality. Influencers are still asking for prices during the pandemic, but the market has evolved
IN: How much does an influencer cost these days?
EF: we are currently going through a turning point. 2021 was a very good year and 2022 marked a return to reality. Influencers are still asking for the prices charged during the pandemic, but the market has since evolved and prices have dropped significantly and this trend should be confirmed in the months to come.
IN: Is influencer marketing becoming cheap?
EF: we can’t say that… To launch an effective influence marketing campaign, you must pay an influencer but you must also free up a budget to activate content, organize events and pay the fees of the agency that will manage this project. . The entry ticket for a serious project is between 150,000 and 200,000 euros. 40% to 50% of this sum will be paid to the influencer, 30% to 40% to the agency and 10% to 20% to the activation fee. However, this envelope can be very variable. A campaign with a single nano-influencer can be done with a budget of 10,000 euros. However, I am delighted to see some brands investing between 500,000 and 1 million euros for ambitious campaigns.
Today if you have a million subscribers, you are already an SME because you employ two or three people
IN: Will influencer marketing continue to grow in the future?
EF: I am sure of it. Influencer marketing will quadruple in size by 2025. This sector will progress to the detriment of SEA and advertising on social networks and in particular on Facebook. TV advertising, which is a medium on borrowed time, will also decline, but I think that radio and the magazine press will hold up better. The media landscape will change a lot in the years to come. The success at UNITED STATES of Dailywire which was launched by an influencer close to the Republican Party and which is a paid platform on which influencers replace journalists calls others. We can very well imagine seeing in the future media created by influencers specializing in politics, beauty or travel. This development is inevitable. Today if you have a million subscribers, you are already an SME because you employ two or three people to help you like an editor and an assistant. You are also already a content producer. The logical continuation of your development is to found your own media and brands will have a role to play in this market.
#Influencer #marketing #quadruple #Edouard #Fillias #Jin