Influencer Marketing: Leveraging Relationships between Influencers and Their Followers
Harnessing the power of mom-to-mom influence: Each year, Disney invites Disney Social Media Moms and their families to its Disney Creator Day Celebration in Florida, an affair that’s a mix of public relations event, educational conference, and family vacation with plenty of Disney magic for these important mom influencers.
Handout/Getty Images
and she fills her blog with advice for planning Disney park visits, tips for holding Disney-themed parties, and reviews of Disney movies.
Disney Social Media Moms aren’t paid; they participate because of their passion and enthusiasm for all things Disney.
However, they do receive special educational attention from Disney, inside information, and occasional perks. For example, every year, Disney invites some of its influencer moms and their families to Disney Creator Day Celebrations, one-week all-expense paid land and sea conferences celebrating and edu- cating Disney influencers and their families. The celebrations are a mix of public relations event, educational conference, and family vacation with plenty of Disney magic for these impor- tant mom influencers.
The Disney Social Media Moms are under no obligation to post anything about Disney, and the company doesn’t tell them what to say when they do post. However, Disney knows that these moms are well connected to large audiences of regular followers. A sin- gle Creator Day Celebration event generates thousands of tweets, Instagram photos, and blog posts full of ride reviews, videos of families meeting Disney characters, and a host of overwhelmingly positive comments. These posts are ultimately viewed by millions of Disney lovers and their families as they dream about their own Disney vacations. The mom influencer effort costs the company rela- tively little but effectively taps the power of mom-to-mom influence to help sprinkle Disney’s magical pixie dust on an important group of buyers.
Still other marketers have put together influencer cam- paigns using opinion leaders with very few followers but very
authentic voices. Although these influencers have smaller audi- ences, they boast closer relationships, higher levels of trust, and higher engagement rates. So they are often more cost effective than mega-influencers with millions of followers.
For example, a recent campaign by Johnson & Johnson fea- tured teens with only 500 to 1,500 Instagram followers as stars in videos for its Clean & Clear skincare products. The campaign began with six teens, selected from a larger group of 300 identi- fied through searches of the social media and local press. An example is 18-year-old Dillon Eisman, who runs a nonprofit in Southern California that restores damaged apparel for homeless teens. People magazine named Eisman a “Hometown Hero”
last year, but Eisman had never considered himself an “influ- encer.” His Instagram following stands at a modest 1,471. But his Clean & Clear video grabbed 3.2 million YouTube views in only nine months. In addition to the J&J videos, the teens post their own self-created content.
In the Clean & Clear campaign, instead of using mega-ce- lebrities as influencers, J&J opted for “influencers who weren’t famous per se but [are] doing things that other kids responded to authentically, letting them tell their story and building the prod- ucts and brands from there,” says a J&J marketer. In the nine months following launch, the influencer campaign helped boost Clean & Clear’s sales by 19 percent. One product in particular—
Clean & Clear oil-absorbing sheets—saw a 50 percent sales lift after years of stagnant growth. “When we gave the teens this product, it was one they really loved, and they created great con- tent,” says the J&J marketer. “They were using it all the time.
Then we put it into paid media . . . and it really took off.”14
Family. Family members can strongly influence buyer behavior. The family is the most important membership reference group and consumer buying organization in society. It has been researched extensively. Marketers are interested in the roles and influence of the various family members on the purchase of different products and services.
Family member involvement varies widely by product category and by stage in the buying process. Buying roles change with evolving consumer lifestyles. For example, in the United States, in families composed of a husband, a wife, and some number of children, the wife traditionally has been considered the main family purchasing agent for food, household products, and clothing. But with more than 70 percent of all mothers now working outside the home and the willingness of husbands to do more of the family’s purchasing, all this has changed in recent years. Recent surveys show that one-third of men do the majority of the house cleaning and 43 percent of men perform food preparation and cleanup activities. At the same time, women today purchase more than 50 percent of products traditionally con- sidered in the male domain, including cars, electronics, and home-improvement products.15 Such shifting roles signal a new marketing reality. Marketers in industries that have tra- ditionally sold their products to only women or only men in husband-and-wife-with-children households—from groceries and personal care products to cars and consumer electronics and toys—are now carefully targeting the opposite sex. For example, a recent Tide ad shows a dad with kids in a busy household doing laundry and lauding the benefits of Tide with Ultra Oxi for Stains. And a 90-second ad for Barbie, shown during an NFL playoff game, shows heartwarming scenes of dads and daughters playing together with Barbies.
The ad concludes, “Time spent in her imaginary world is an investment in her real world.”16 In addition, marketers are broadening their definitions of “family” to include many differ- ent types of households, including single-parent families, same-sex households, multigen- erational families, childless households, and others.
Family buying influences: Children may weigh heavily on family purchases for everything from restaurants and vacation destinations to mobile devices and even car purchases.
Frame Stock Footage/Shutterstock
Children may also have a strong influence on family buying decisions. One recent survey found that 93 percent of parents today admit their children influence family and house- hold purchases. In another survey, parents with teens reported that their children weigh in heavily on everything from where they eat out (95 percent) and take vacations (82 percent) to what mobile devices they use (63 percent) and cars they buy (45 percent).17
Marketers across a wide range of industries recognize such family influences in their marketing programs. For example, one ad for Honda’s Odyssey minivan, titled “Keep the Peace,”
touts innovative features that satisfy the entire family. “When kids are happy, parents are happy, so the goal of this new cam- paign is to communicate that the all-new Honda Odyssey has the connectivity, functionality, flexibility, and fun-to-drive handling to keep everyone in the family happy,” says a Honda marketer.18
Roles and Status. A person belongs to many groups—family, clubs, organizations, online communities. The person’s position in each group can be defined in terms of both role and status. A role consists of the activities people are expected to perform according to the people around them. Each role carries a status reflecting the general esteem given to it by society.
People usually choose products appropriate to their roles and status. Consider the vari- ous roles a working mother plays. In her company, she may play the role of a brand man- ager; in her family, she plays the role of wife and mother; at her favorite sporting events, she plays the role of avid fan. As a brand manager, she will buy the kind of clothing that reflects her role and status in her company. At the game, she may wear clothing supporting her favorite team.
Personal Factors
A buyer’s decisions also are influenced by personal characteristics such as the buyer’s occupation, age and life stage, economic situation, lifestyle, and personalit y and self-concept.
Occupation. A person’s occupation affects the goods and services bought. Blue-collar workers tend to buy more rugged work clothes, whereas executives buy more business suits. Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have an above-average interest in their products and services. A company can even spe- cialize in making products needed by a given occu- pational group. For example, Caterpillar/CAT, the world’s leading manufacturer of construction machinery, offers rugged mobile phones made for tough and challenging work environments.
In demanding surroundings like the construction and heavy industry, normal smartphones are not durable, robust, or reliable enough. According to the device maker, consequential damage of handsets is a common problem for tradesmen in these professions, leaving them unnecessarily burdened with out-of-pocket expenses. The CAT S61, for example, withstands extreme drops, is dust and waterproof, can be controlled with dry or wet gloves, and offers additional features for the trade, like thermal imaging or an indoor air quality monitor.19
Appealing to occupation segments: CAT makes rugged, durable phones for the construction and heavy industries.
B Christopher/Alamy Stock Photo
Age and Life Stage. People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes.
Tastes in food, clothes, furniture, and recreation are often age related. Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family life cycle—the stages through which families might pass as they mature over time. Life-stage changes usually result from demographics and life-changing events—marriage, having children, purchasing a home, divorce, children going to college, changes in personal income, moving out of the house, and retirement. Marketers often define their target markets in terms of life-cycle stage and develop appropriate products and market- ing plans for each stage.
One of the leading life-stage segmentation systems is the Claritas PRIZM Lifestage Groups system. PRIZM classifies every American household into one of 68 distinct life-stage segments, which are organized into 11 major life-stage groups based on afflu- ence, age, and family characteristics. The classifications consider a host of demographic factors such as age, education, income, occupation, family composition, ethnicity, and housing; and behavioral and lifestyle factors such as purchases, free-time activities, and media preferences.
The major PRIZM Lifestage groups carry names such as “Striving Singles,”
“Midlife Success,” “Young Achievers,” “Sustaining Families,” “Affluent Empty Nests,”
and “Conservative Classics,” which in turn contain subgroups such as “Bright Lights, Li’l City,” “Kids & Cul-de-Sacs,” “Gray Power,” and “Big City Blues.” The “Young Achievers” group consists of hip, single 20-somethings who rent apartments in or close to metropolitan neighborhoods. Their incomes range from working class to well-to-do, but the entire group tends to be politically liberal, listen to alternative music, and enjoy lively nightlife.20
Life-stage segmentation provides a powerful marketing tool for marketers in all industries to better find, understand, and engage consumers. Armed with data about the makeup of consumer life stages, marketers can create targeted, actionable, per- sonalized campaigns based on how people consume and interact with brands and the world around them.
Economic Situation. People’s economic situations affect their store and product choices. Marketers watch trends in spending, personal income, savings, and interest rates.
In today’s value-conscious times, most companies have taken steps to create more cus- tomer value by redesigning, repositioning, and repricing their products and services. For example, over the past decade, upscale discounter Target has put more emphasis on the
“Pay Less” side of its “Expect More. Pay Less.” positioning promise. And soon after Amazon purchased Whole Foods, the online giant took a knife to the upscale grocery chain’s high prices. To help blunt the chain’s “Whole Foods. Whole Paycheck.” image, Amazon promised that the chain would offer “high-quality natural and organic food affordable for everyone.”21
Environmental Situation. Environmental circumstances can affect consumer attitudes and buying behaviors. People’s physical, technological, and health circumstances will impact what products they buy, where and how they shop, and much more. Thus, d.light Solar has developed affordable solar-powered home lighting systems for the hundreds of millions of people in developing economies who don’t have access to reliable power. And P&G developed a waterless line of shampoos and other hair care products that required no water for South African consumers facing severe water shortages.
The coronavirus pandemic caused major changes in many areas of consumer behavior. For example, brand loyalty dropped in many product categories as product shortages boosted the importance of availability and convenience over brand names.
The pandemic sped up the shift toward online shopping across all age and demographic groups, supported by contactless pickup and delivery. More generally, consumers ate in and stayed in rather than eating out and going out, turning the world upside down for the restaurant, retailing, entertainment, and travel industries. Many such changes will be permanent. Marketers must be prepared to adjust quickly to major environmen- tal disruptions.
Lifestyle. People coming from the same subculture, social class, and occupation may have quite different lifestyles. Lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her psychographics. It involves measuring consumers’ major AIO dimensions—ac- tivities (work, hobbies, shopping, sports, social events), interests (food, fashion, family, recreation), and opinions (about themselves, social issues, business, products). Lifestyle captures something more than the person’s social class or personality. It profiles a person’s whole pattern of acting and interacting in the world.
When used carefully, the lifestyle concept can help marketers understand changing consumer values and how they affect buyer behavior. Consumers don’t just buy products; they buy the values and lifestyles those products represent. For example, The Body Shop markets much more than just beauty products:22
The Body Shop’s founder, Anita Roddick, had always been a strong advo- cate of ethical consumerism, human and animal rights issues, and environ- mental protection. When she made her first beauty products in 1976, she maintained this philosophy by using natural and non-animal-tested ingre- dients to make the products ethical and ecological statement pieces. As she grew her business, she continued to use her products as a platform for com- municating more of her beliefs, like raising self-esteem in women. Although The Body Shop was bought by Brazilian cosmetics group Natura in 2017, its social and environmental commitment remains in its marketing DNA today.
For example, in 2019, the company started its “Community Trade recycled plastic” scheme which involved the purchase of 250 tons of recycled plastic from India to use in its production of bottles. In addition to counteracting plastic pollution, this initiative also supports Indian waste pickers.
Marketers look for lifestyle segments with needs that can be served through special products or marketing approaches. Such segments might be defined by anything from fam- ily characteristics or outdoor interests to the foods people eat.
Personality and Self-Concept. Each person’s distinct personality influences her or his buying behavior. Personality refers to the unique psychological characteristics that distinguish a person or group. Personality is usually described in terms of traits such as self-confidence, dominance, sociability, autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability, and aggressiveness. Personality can be useful in analyzing consumer behavior for certain product or brand choices.
The idea is that brands also have personalities, and consumers are likely to choose brands with personalities that match their own. A brand personality is the specific mix of human traits that may be attributed to a particular brand. One researcher identified five brand personality traits: sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful), excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-to-date), competence (reliable, intelligent, and successful), sophistication (glamorous, upper class, charming), and ruggedness(outdoorsy and tough). “Your personality determines what you consume, what TV shows you watch, what products you buy, and [most] other decisions you make,” says one consumer behavior expert.23
Most well-known brands are strongly associated with a particular trait: the Ford F150 with “ruggedness,” Apple with “excitement,” the Washington Post with “competence,”
Method with “sincerity,” and Gucci with “class and sophistication.” Many brands build their positioning and brand stories around such traits. For example, Ford’s market-leading F-series pickup truck brand has long been positioned as “Built Ford Tough.” Since 1979, the long-running tagline has conveyed quality, durability, and resilience, helping to make the Ford F-series the best-selling truck or car in America.24
Many marketers use a concept related to personality—a person’s self-concept (also called self-image). The idea is that people’s possessions contribute to and reflect their identi- ties—that is, “we are what we consume.” Thus, to understand consumer behavior, marketers must first understand the relationship between consumer self-concept and possessions.
Hence, brands will attract people who are high on the same personality traits. For exam- ple, the MINI automobile has an instantly recognizable personality as a clever and sassy but powerful little car. MINI owners—who sometimes call themselves “MINIacs”—have a strong and emotional connection with their cars. More than targeting specific demographic segments, MINI appeals to personality segments—to people who are “adventurous, individualistic, open- minded, creative, tech-savvy, and young at heart,”—anything but normal—just like the car.25 Lifestyle
A person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests, and opinions.
Personality
The unique psychological characteristics that distinguish a person or group.
Lifestyles: The Body Shop markets much more than just beauty products; its cosmetics seek to embody the ethical consumerism lifestyle.
uk retail Alan King/Alamy Stock Photo
Psychological Factors
A person’s buying choices are further influenced by four major psychological factors: motivation, perception, learning , and beliefs and attitudes .
Motivation. A person has many needs at any given time. Some are bio- logical, arising from states of tension such as hunger, thirst, or discomfort.
Others are psychological, arising from the need for recognition, esteem, or belonging. A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity. A motive (or drive ) is a need that is sufficiently press- ing to direct the person to seek satisfaction. Psychologists have developed theories of human motivation. Two of the most popular—the theories of Sigmund Freud and Abraham Maslow—carry quite different meanings for consumer analysis and marketing.
Sigmund Freud assumed that people are largely unconscious about the real psychological forces shaping their behavior. His theory suggests that a person’s buying decisions are affected by subconscious motives that even the buyer may not fully understand. Thus, an aging baby boomer who buys a sporty BMW convertible might explain that he simply likes the feel of the wind in his thinning hair. At a deeper level, he may be try- ing to impress others with his success. At a still deeper level, he may be buying the car to feel young and independent again.
Consumers often don’t know or can’t describe why they act as they do. Thus, many companies employ teams of psychologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists to carry out motivation research that probes the subconscious motivations underlying consumers’ emotions and behaviors toward brands. One ad agency routinely conducts one-on-one, therapy-like interviews to delve the inner workings of consumers. Another company asks consumers to describe their favorite brands as animals or cars (say, a Mercedes versus a Chevy) to assess the prestige associated with various brands. Still others rely on hypnosis, dream therapy, or soft lights and mood music to plumb the murky depths of consumer psyches.
Such projective techniques might seem pretty goofy, and some marketers dismiss such motivation research as mumbo jumbo. But many marketers use such touchy-feely approaches, now sometimes called interpretive consumer research , to dig deeper into con- sumer psyches and develop better marketing strategies.
Abraham Maslow sought to explain why people are driven by particular needs at particular times. Why does one person spend a lot of time and energy on personal safety and another on gaining the esteem of others? Maslow’s answer is that human needs are arranged in a hier- archy, as shown in Figure 5. 3 , from the most pressing at the bottom to the least pressing at the top. 26 They include physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualiza- tion needs.
A person tries to satisfy the most important need first. When that need is sat- isfied, it will stop being a motivator, and the person will then try to satisfy the next most important need. For example, starv- ing people (physiological need) will not take an interest in the latest happenings in the art world (self-actualization needs) nor in how they are seen or esteemed by others Motive (drive)
A need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction of the need.
Brand personality: MINI markets to personality segments of people who are “adventurous, individualistic, open-minded, creative, tech-savvy, and young at heart”—
anything but “normal”—just like the car.
Used with permission of MINI Division of BMW of North America, LLC
Self- actualization
needs Self-development
and realization Esteem needs Self-esteem, recognition, status
Safety needs Security, protection Physiological needs
Hunger, thirst Social needs Sense of belonging, love According to Maslow, human
needs are arranged in a hierarchy.
Starving people will take little interest in the latest happenings in the art world.
Figure 5. 3