The past and future of brand influence | Business Brief
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Do we need to earn influence or can we buy it?
I've been thinking about influence. Do we have to earn it or can we buy it? I'm Joe. Welcome back to the Business Brief. Influenza marketing is just an extension in a way of endorsements from voices of authority, which is not anything new. We've always looked towards more influential Voices for Halo. of reputation. The very first celebrity endorsement was in the 1760s where a pottery maker used the endorsement of the royal family and Queen Charlotte to promote his products. He probably had a few different options of how to get his pottery in front of more people. The association with the royal family was really intentional in creating the right kind of reputation and association for his work. What we've seen is a growth of the voice and authority of the everyday consumer over the last few decades.
You don't necessarily need credentials, a mass media platform, an elite status to reach consumers and shepherd them towards whatever it is that you recommend. These are the people that are having higher influence for us. Over government leaders, politicians, business leaders, versus the consumer becoming the influencer versus just the recipient of the brand message. It's something that came into the foundational marketing mix a long time ago. In fact, in the 1990s, when the 4Cs framework was created, reframing the view of marketing towards consulting. Consumer needs, cost, convenience and communication. many people would know the traditional marketing mix as being the four Ps, product, price, place, promotion.
And then eventually the seven Ps, the brand experience proliferating across a variety of different platforms and mediums. But it's really the four C's that articulate this shift towards the consumer having a greater agency and a greater voice inside of that brand experience. It's a relinquishing of brand control. Which is something that we'll see evolve in a very different way as we come into this age of AI in marketing, where synthetic media and synthetic personas, synthetic brand influences perhaps become more mainstream.
How did the first celebrity endorsement shape brand authority?
And so as we now relinquish the control to algorithms, there's a very obvious risk here in brand safety, in the rights of the brand that we hold as brand owners. The assets of our brand is what stands the test of time. This is a part of the very heart of what makes businesses successful over decades and when we can protect that. It's more important now for us to be able to know exactly how those brand assets are being used or abused, as Ram explained in the latest podcast episode.
Synthetic influencers are already here and you get to a stage where you would not know whether you're actually seeing a person demo the product or if it's a synthetic avatar talking about the product anymore. And I think legislation is gonna come in where, like today, brands have to highlight that it's a sponsored post. Tomorrow I think they will need to highlight that this is an AI rather than a real person. The question then is what is the role of influencers? Or synthetic influencers in that world, right? Yeah. So then you're moving away from authenticity and credibility. And people like me use this product, and therefore I'm more likely to look at that content. I mean, that goes out the window completely because you know I'm looking at a robot talking about skin cream or whichever product it is.
A brand plan has to shift just like a business strategy has to shift towards the context of the moment. So it's important for us to consider the current context that we're in and this influencer bubble as being temporary. All of that is going to shift. It's going to look very different in the next 10 years. We'll see new social media platforms. We'll see new ways to serve consumers, the kind of voices that they will resonate with. And we'll see a different attribution towards what makes this successful. And then there's another element to all of this for me, which is around longevity. So we know that great campaigns stand the test of time. Wear out doesn't happen for years and years.
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