Nina Smith
The world today is largely digital. Where in the past we consumed media through TV, print and radio, the internet has torn up the rulebook and transformed the way brands are seen and heard. The traditional methods of advertising, whilst still acknowledged, are losing ground to snappy TikTok content, influencer reviews and live experiences that resonate with consumers in a much more personal way.
With consumers now more sceptical and much quicker to dismiss corporate efforts as a hard sell, memorable experiences and relatable content are how brands are now having to get themselves recognised.
This is why influencer marketing has become a powerful tool for brands. By combining with an influencer and benefiting from the talents of an experiential marketing agency, a brand can quickly reach a larger audience without spending additional funds on airtime or print media.
In this blog, we explore the power of influencer marketing and how, when combined with experiential marketing, it becomes a powerful tool at a brand’s disposal.
Talking or Speaking?
Traditional advertising talks at the consumer. It tells them how one product is better than another, how your life may change after a purchase and how the brand is at the forefront of its trade. Influencer marketing, on the other hand, speaks with the customer. Influencers build communities around shared passions. It could be gaming, lifestyle, travel, food or pretty much anything else. The followers who consume the content view the influencer and the community as friends and trustworthy, and not part of the corporate machine that they view as only after their cash.
A product review by an influencer, or a live stream, bypasses the intrusive feel that typical advertising often has. Instead, it feels like advice, like a suggestion, like a friend passing on their recommendations. This shift from advertising to advocacy is one of the main reasons businesses are now channelling more time and effort into influencer marketing.
Who Do You Trust?
Trust is a huge factor in advertising. Without trust, a brand can find itself fighting a losing battle. To garner trust in the past, brands would ensure celebrity endorsements and expensive ads hammered home a belief in the brand. Today, though, consumers may watch content from an influencer with just 20,000 followers and trust the brand they are hearing about way more than if they were force-fed a faceless ad campaign day after day.
Experiential marketing does the same. It builds real-world experiences that the consumer can be a part of. From product demos to live events, consumers are part of the product before they buy the product. In the influencer world, there are clearly similarities. An influencer hosting a live tutorial, a product review or collaborating with a brand or other influencer allows the consumer to experience the brand vicariously. What would feel like a marketing ploy through other mediums feels like storytelling through influencer and experiential marketing, therefore enhancing the levels of trust.
It’s All About the Community
When a brand spends millions of pounds, dollars, or euros on an extensive ad campaign, it can be a little like playing roulette. You might hit your number, but the odds are against you. Influencer marketing, on the other hand, is a much more targeted approach. Brands can connect niche communities, eliminating the vast numbers that have no interest in the brand or product. A fitness brand, for example, would collaborate with a workout influencer, a gaming influencer may collaborate with a game studio, and a homewares brand may work alongside a cookery influencer.
This is similar to how experiential campaigns work, where brands meet audiences where they already are, festivals, high streets or at activations designed for specific interests, for example. Influencers use this same connection, but rather than physical, they bring it to the digital world.
The Content Experience
Influencer marketing isn’t just about selling. It’s about the experience and connection. It’s about ensuring the content informs, entertains, and inspires. Compare this to traditional advertising, where the brand shouts the same message to everyone, and you can see why influencer marketing can resonate with the right people.
Think about a beauty influencer hosting a makeup tutorial; it feels like attending a product demonstration. Think about the travel vlogger showcasing a hotel; it feels like your own guided tour. Think about the tech reviewer unboxing the latest console; you both share the excitement of this new exploration.
The content becomes the experience, just like it does with events hosted by an experiential agency in London or elsewhere. The audience is immersed in an experience where they gain memorable insights into the brand’s offering in a unique and personalised way. Rather than just being told about a product, they are seeing it in action and sometimes getting to try it themselves.
Cost Benefits
Influencer marketing also does much more than deliver targeted exposure. It saves businesses vast amounts of cash. Large-scale ad campaigns cost significant sums of money. They can also be risky, as they may not only fail to resonate, but may also completely miss the target market.
Influencer partnerships, on the other hand, can provide stronger returns for considerably smaller investments. With millions of followers, influencers can reach a large audience quickly, all within the demographic the brand wants to reach. Then, with the magic of the “share” button, that reach extends even further with no extra cash being spent.
The Influencer Marketing + Experiential Marketing Hybrid
When these two forms of marketing combine, real magic starts to happen. Brands are starting to realise this. They invite influencers to events, product launches, and unique activations all put together by a specialist experiential marketing agency. The live audience may be exclusive and limited to those with an invite-only, but through the shared content, the event reaches millions and can be viewed days, weeks, and even months after the live event happened. This not only extends the life and impact of the experiential campaign but also helps influencers foster new relationships with other brands.
Influencer marketing isn’t just a trend; it’s now a viable way for brands to connect with the audiences they have always chased. It helps deliver authentic, real-life content that is relatable to the audience. It skips past the expense and gamble that more common forms of advertising present, and instead ensures content hits the right market at the right time. The result is that marketing, or advertising, doesn’t feel like marketing or advertising and instead feels like a lived-in experience.
