Drawing on the largest ever study of influencer posts on Instagram to identify: • how influencers have disrupted the media landscape • the brands using influencers • the impact of different influencers • new ways of working to combat growing challenges

1. INFLUENCER MARKETING,
A JOURNEY TO A NEW WORLD

2. 1) THE LARGEST ANALYSIS OF INSTAGRAM #AD POSTS EVER
• JAN-DEC 2017
• 100,000+ POSTS
• 182,000,000+ INTERACTIONS
2) BESPOKE SURVEY TO UNDERSTAND ATTITUDES TOWARDS INFLUENCERS
• 2,123 RESPONDENTS
• SURVEYED OVER TWO WAVES, 2016 AND 2017
THE INFLUENCER PROJECT CONSISTS OF TWO DATA SETS:
• Global data, English language

3. I. THE COLLISION
MEDIA'S FRAGMENTATION
OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH INFLUENCERS
II. AN EXPLOSION
BRANDS AND INFLUENCERS
AUTHENTICITY AS A COMMODITY
INFLUENCE AS A CURRENCY
III. A NEW WORLD
A NEW WORLD THAT NEEDS NEW RULES

4. I. THE COLLISION

5. Fuelled by media’s fragmentation and people’s
relationship with influencers, the advertising eco-
system as we know it is changing.

6. MEDIA FRAGMENTATION
BRANDS
AUDIENCE
• More advertising
options
• More avenues to
produce content
• More selective
about the content
we see
• More distrust
around the
information we
receive

7. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
UK AD SPEND SHARE
TV Radio spot Newsbrands Magazine brands
Cinema Outdoor Paid search Pure-play digital display
Pure-play digital classified Digital other
MORE ADVERTISING OPTIONS
The proliferation of platforms has eaten away at
traditional advertising as we spend more time on
mobiles, laptops and tablets.
Where there was once clarity and simplicity,
there’s now confusion and complexity.

8. MORE CONTENT
More platforms have meant more content and
more advertising:
• 4.6 billion pieces of content are produced daily
• Every day there are around 92,000 new articles
posted on the internet.
• There are 83,000 blog posts published every
hour
• 400 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every
minute
• Instagram users post 80m+ photos every day
From being exposed to about 500 ads a day in the
1970s, it’s now as many as 5,000 a day today.

9. SELECTIVITY
More advertising has led to more audience selectivity.
By 2016, 615m devices had an adblocker:
• Mobile adblocking reached 380m active devices
• Desktop adblocking reached 236m active devices
The main reasons listed for adblocking:
• Too many ads are annoying or irrelevant (51%)
• There are too many ads on the internet (50%)
• Ads are too intrusive (47%)

10. A WORLD OF DISTRUST
More choice has fuelled more distrust.
Media is the least trusted institution in a world of distrust.
Fragmentation has produced contradiction. 80% of
people across the world believe that "there is so much
contradictory information it’s hard to know who to trust".
People are overwhelmed by the choices – big and small –
that are facing them every day.

11. IN A WORLD OF DISTRUST, INFLUENCERS ARE A
RELATIONSHIP BUILT ON TRUST.
IN A MEDIA LANDSCAPE WHERE WE’RE
BOMBARDED BY UNWANTED CONTENT,
INFLUENCERS PROVIDE A DESIRED CONTENT FIX.

12. A GROWING FORCE, NEARLY HALF OF MILLENIALS NOW FOLLOW INFLUENCERS
48%
% OF MILLENNIALS (18-34) WHO FOLLOW A
SOCIAL INFLUENCER
35%
2016
THE NUMBER OF MILLENNIALS FOLLOWING A SOCIAL
INFLUENCER HAS INCREASED FROM 2016
21%
34%
46%
55+
35-54
18-34
SOCIAL INFLUENCER FOLLOWERS
BY AGE
2017
• YouGov Social Media Influencers research paper

13. INFLUENCERS ARE SEEN AS AUTHENTIC AND HONEST
66%
OF MILLENNIALS WHO FOLLOW SOCIAL
INFLUENCERS FIND THEM
AUTHENTIC AND HONEST
• YouGov Social Media Influencers research paper
68%
OF MILLENNIALS WHO FOLLOW SOCIAL
INFLUENCERS FIND THEM MORE
AUTHENTIC AND HONEST THAN TRADITIONAL
CELEBRITIES

14. OF MILLENIALS WHO FOLLOW AN
INFLUENCER TALK ABOUT A SOCIAL
INFLUENCER TO THEIR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK
84%
OF MILLENIALS WHO FOLLOW AN
INFLUENCER READ, WATCH OR LISTEN TO
SOCIAL INFLUENCER CONTENT ONCE A
WEEK OR MORE
PROVIDING FOLLOWERS WITH CONTENT THAT THEY REGULARLY ENGAGE WITH
36%
• YouGov Social Media Influencers research paper

15. INFLUENCERS LEAVE FOLLOWERS INSPIRED, ENTERTAINED, UNDERSTOOD AND
READY TO ACT
77% 68% 58%
THEY ARE A FORM OF
ENTERTAINMENT
76%
THEY AREN’T AFRAID OF TALKING
ABOUT DIFFICULT SUBJECTS
THEY INSPIRE ME TO TRY
NEW THINGS
WE SHARE SIMILAR
INTERESTS
Millennial attitudes towards influencers
% AGREE
• YouGov Social Media Influencers research paper

16. OF MILLENIALS WHO FOLLOW AN
INFLUENCER FEEL MORE POSITIVE
ABOUT THE BRAND
INFLUENCERS LEAVE FOLLOWERS FEELING MORE POSITIVE ABOUT THE BRAND
50%
WHEN A BRAND IS ASSOCIATED WITH A SOCIAL INFLUENCER:
40%
• YouGov Social Media Influencers research paper
OF MILLENIALS WHO FOLLOW AN
INFLUENCER ARE MORE LIKELY TO BUY
THE PRODUCT

17. Faced with media fragmentation, a
selective audience and growing
distrust, brands are co-opting a
medium that the audience
engages with:
influencers
BRANDS
AUDIENCE
Bombarded with content, a
mistrust in the media, the
audience are finding and
being inspired by people
that are authentic to them:
influencers

18. II. THE EXPLOSION

19. The explosion…
Globally $1bn* (£776.7m) has been
spent by brands this past year on
Instagram influencers and is expected to
double by 2019.
Influencer marketing is big business.
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Searches for ‘Influencer marketing’
Google Trends

20. BRANDS FROM PEPSI TO AMERICAN EXPRESS ARE EMBRACING INFLUENCERS
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW. JAN-OCT ALL POSTS IDENTIFIED AS AD IN POST
NUMBER OF BRANDS
NUMBEROFPOSTS
Please Note: the size of a brand’s bubble is dictated by the total number of influencer posts from the brand
FASHION ACCESORIES BEAUTY STORES CARS FMCG FAST FOOD
RESTAURANTS
ALCOHOL FINANCE

21. 58% OF THE 115
BRANDS TRACKED
HAVE USED
INFLUENCERS EVERY
MONTH SINCE
FEBRUARY
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW

22. HELPED BY AN ADVERTISING FORM WHERE CATEGORY TYPE IS NOT A CHALLENGE TO
ENGAGEMENT
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
AverageEngagement
Example of ad post
Finance
Alcohol
Cars
FMCG
Fast food restaurants
Stores
Accessories
Beauty
Fashion
1.0%
2.0%
3.0%
4.0%
5.0%
Average Engagement for #ad posts by category for selected brands
Please Note: the size of a brand’s bubble is dictated by the total number of influencer posts from the brand

23. FUELLED BY A COST EFFECTIVE CPE
CPE:14p
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
£- £0.20 £0.40 £0.60 £0.80 £1.00 £1.20
Celeb
Reality TV Star
Publication/Ent. channel
Social Media Superstar
Social Influencer
Mid-Tier
Micro
COST PER ENGAGEMENT

24. TWO CLEAR BRAND TACTICS ARE BEING USED
Macro
NIKE making a broad statement
Micro
ADIDAS building credibility with a niche target audience
Macro influencers
1m+ followers
Micro influencers
<100,000 followers
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW

25. coach
uniqlo
dorothyperkins
timberland
lancomeofficial
jackwills
Guess
tommyhilfiger
karllagerfeld
primark
adidas
Reebok
nordstrom
topshop
riverisland
newlookfashion
forever21
hm
PrettyLittleThing
crocs
puma
gucci
underarmour
zara
urbanoutfitters
kswiss
danielwellington
cluse
cartier
theofficialpandora
jordwatches
paul_hewitt
kaptenandson
swatch
TIMEX
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
- 200,000 400,000 600,000 800,000 1,000,000 1,200,000 1,400,000
Engagement vs. Reach
Fashion and accessory brands
MACRO MEANS BROAD REACH, BUT LOWER ENGAGEMENT. MICRO MEANS LOWER
REACH, BUT HIGHER ENGAGEMENT AND MORE POSTS
HIGH ENGAGEMENT
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW.PLEASE NOTE REACH HERE IS THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS FROM THE INFLUENCERS USED
HIGH REACH
LOW REACH
MICRO
TACTICS
MACRO TACTICS

26. SEEKING AUTHENTIC ENGAGEMENT BRANDS ARE OPTING TO GO MICRO
“…while you can give a piece of content to one global influencer with a million followers, the message is far more authentic if you give it to 500 kids, each with 2,000 followers.”
– Florian Alt, Director global brand communications, Adidas
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Fashion
Accessories
Beauty
Stores
Fast Food Restaurants
FMCG
Cars
Alcohol
Finance
Share of Influencer type by category
Micro Middle Social Influencer Publication Mass Social Influencer Celeb
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
0.0% 1.0% 2.0% 3.0% 4.0%
Celeb
Reality TV Star
Publication/Ent. channel
Social Media Superstar
Social Influencer
Mid-Tier
Micro
Average Post engagement by
Influencer type

27. The explosion in influencers and influencer marketing is
built on trust.
For the audience it’s that the people they follow are
honest and authentic.
For brands it’s that the engagement and followers that
the influencer has are authentic.
TRUST IS THE DARK ENERGY EXPANDING INFLUENCER MARKETING

28. High profile influencers have gone from
authenticity to a commodity.
Followers have gone from being part of a
community to being potential customers.
THE CHALLENGE TO AUDIENCE TRUST
“I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man”

29. 0.0%
1.0%
2.0%
3.0%
4.0%
5.0%
6.0%
7.0%
8.0%
9.0%
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Average Engagement for
Social media superstars and social media influencers
HIGH PROFILE INFLUENCERS AREN’T A SILVER BULLET TO ENGAGEMENT. MANY HAVE
BECOME NEWS FEED WALLPAPER. IN THE NEWS FEED, BUT NOT ENGAGED WITH
NEWS FEED WALLPAPER
65% OF INFLUENCERS
WITH FOLLOWERS OF
MORE THAN 1M HAVE
AN ENGAGEMENT OF
LESS THAN 2%
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
AverageEngagement
Number of Influencers

30. AS A COMMODITY THE AUTHENTICITY THAT THE AUDIENCE FIRST IDENTIFIED WITH
HAS BEEN SHED. THE RESULT IS A DECLINE IN ENGAGEMENT
JIM CHAPMAN: 2.8m
FOLLOWERS
AVG AD ENG:2%
TANYA BURR: 3.2m
FOLLOWERS
AVG AD ENG:2%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
-
5
10
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20
25
30
35
2014
2015
2016
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2015
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Marcus Butler Joe Sugg Jim Chapman Tanya Burr Alfie Deyes Zoella
Avg. Interactions and Avg. Engagement
(leading influencers)
AVG #AD ENG #AD POSTS
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW/CAPTIV8
Adposts
Avg.Engagement
The story of Jim Chapman and Tanya Burr: declining interactions- despite increasing followers- and
engagement. From social media darlings in 2015 to news feed wallpaper in 2017.

31. Influence as a currency for advertising has
increased the need to be seen as
influential.
You no longer have to build it, you can buy
it- people are buying followers to look
influential to society and brands alike.
The more followers influencers have the
more reach influencers can claim and the
more money influencers can earn.
THE CHALLENGE TO BRAND TRUST
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Searches for ‘how to buy followers’
Google Trends

32. Influence as a currency has helped build “The Follower
Factory”
48 million of Twitter’s reported active users — nearly 15
percent — are automated accounts designed to simulate
real people
Facebook disclosed to investors that it had at least twice as
many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that
up to 60 million automated accounts may roam the world’s
largest social media platform.
Instagram was reported in 2015 to have up 24m Bot
accounts
THE GROWTH OF THE FOLLOWER FACTORY

33. TRANSFORMING ENGAGEMENT FROM AN AUTHENTIC AUDIENCE ACTION TO AN
INAUTHENTIC ONE
• ALL STATS CAPTIV8
A single day’s worth of posts tagged #sponsored or #ad
on Instagram contained over 50 percent fake
engagements, according to data from anti-fraud
company Sway Ops. Out of 118,007 comments, only
20,942 were not made by bot followers.
Bot comments are responsible for over 40 percent of
total comments for over 500 of 2,000 sponsored posts
made each day, per Sway.
Pods remain a problem as well: Sway’s recent research
found that out of 2,000 posts, an average of only 36
sponsored posts made per day contained no Instagram
pod activity, fake comments, fake likes or uneven ratios
of bot followers to engagements.

34. III. A NEW WORLD

35. A NEW WORLD THAT NEEDS NEW RULES
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
In the film Alien: Covenant an expedition team
discovered a new planet that had everything they
could want for colonisation. A perfect world with
a perfect eco-system.
The land was infested by aliens.
Brands arrived to influencer marketing enticed by
the perfect ingredients of authentic engagement
and audience interest.
It’s being destroyed.
We need new rules to save this new world.
New rules for influencer marketing to survive and
thrive.

36. THE NEW RULES
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
FROM LOOKING AT THE SIZE OF THE COMMUNITY TO LOOKING
AT THE COMMUNITY
FROM SHORT TERM SATURATION TO LONG TERM ASSOCIATION
FROM USING AN INFLUENCER’S PROFILE TO CELEBRATING THE
CREATIVE ROLE THEY CAN PLAY
FROM SEEKING VANITY TO FINDING VALUE
FROM INFLUENCER MARKETING BEING AN ADDED EXTRA TO
ADVERTISING INTEGRATION

37. FROM LOOKING AT THE SIZE OF THE
COMMUNITY TO LOOKING AT THE
COMMUNITY
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
Intoxicated by the size of an influencer’s community, many
marketers never look beyond the number of followers an influencer
has and ask whether this audience is actually relevant to the brand’s
objectives.
If we instead begin by looking at the prospective influencer’s
community, we prevent a number of challenges besetting the
industry.
We can:
• Identify if the partnership will reach the audience desired
• Detect fake followers & boosted bot engagement
• Understand if the influencer is on a historical
upward/downward trajectory of engagement
By looking at the community and not the size of the community,
we’re treating influencer marketing by the same standard we would
any other advertising channel. It should be a prerequisite, not an
afterthought.
0
5
10
15
20
25
0-17 18-20 21-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55 and older
% Audience. Jim Chapman
Male Female
Promoting Hugo Boss watches to a follower base mainly under 24 and female

38. FROM SHORT TERM SATURATION TO
LONG TERM ASSOCIATION
Short term partnerships between influencers and brands have built
a post today, forgotten tomorrow industry. The result: influencers
are saturating the landscape with endorsement. One product after
another is endorsed, often with directly competing interests.
This short term mindset- from brands and influencers- dilutes the
power of any recommendation from the influencer and any hoped
for residual association by the brand.
Eschewing the post today, forgotten tomorrow philosophy and
focusing on building long lasting partnerships gives the credibility
needed to build association and drive salience. Making the
partnership a natural experience to the audience, instead of
disruptive one.
Building distinction through micro-influencers
Adidas created Tango Squad for customers identified as micro-influencers. These members have ongoing access to
exclusive content via a bespoke messenger group that can subsequently be shared with friends and followers on
social media. The added profile of being part of ATL and brand social media communications has in turn helped fuel
the popularity of Tango Squad members.
Brand examples
Ongoing association with a leading influencer
Fashion influencer Kristina Bazan has been a brand ambassador for L'Oréal since 20151. L'Oréal’s Yann Joffredo
described Bazan as ”a bridge between classical advertising and the consumer”

39. Influencer partnerships need to feel natural to the audience, but also
deliver on brand objectives. It’s a fine line to tread.
The most adept way of doing this is working with an influencer who
has a creative and unique output, or where the brand is aligned to a
community clearly built from the influencer’s passion. In return this
fuels a creative and emotive recommendation relevant to the
community.
Ignoring this and shoehorning a product into an influencer’s news
feed because of the followers that they have, dismisses the challenge
of the Instagram algorithm- and more widely algorithms in general-
has on the success of content. Where content is rewarded with
reaching more followers and unengaging content is a trigger to limit
the number of followers exposed to the post.
Endorsement irrelevancy, built from short termism, has resulted in
many of the commoditised influencers stuck in a repeated algorithm
hell of sponsored content being seen by fewer people because of
previous unengaging sponsored ad content.
FROM USING THE CREATOR TO
CELEBRATING CREATIVITY
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
1)YOUNG &
FUN
Smoothsmith8
1.7m FOLLOWERS
3 AD POSTS
7.2% ER
CREATIVE
AUTHENTIC
LIFESTYLE
Annasaccone
1.5m FOLLOWERS
18 AD POSTS
6.7% AVG ER
Ohhcouture
1.5m FOLLOWERS
76 AD POSTS
4.1% AVG ENG

40. In a landscape challenged by bots and pods providing artificial
engagement, influencer marketing must move beyond vanity
metrics.
Instagram has introduced a Paid Partnership tag giving the brand-
and influencer- access to the suite of Instagram analytics and
metrics- such as reach and clicks- for a more granular understanding
of value.
Even better, employing a third party validated brand lift, or sales
studies can give a better understanding of the value of a partnership
than any like, or comment would ever do.
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
FROM SEEKING VANITY TO FINDING
VALUE

41. Partnerships compliment advertising by bringing to life the creative
themes of a brand campaign. It’s not a substitute for advertising.
adidas #heretocreate, or Nike’s recent Nothing Beats A Londoner
campaign, are ATL campaigns featuring and supported by ongoing
influencer partnerships that add a human lens to the creative.
Instead of supporting advertising creatively, however, influencers are
often used for the most basic product promotion, creating the short-
term endorsement saturation currently challenging the industry.
By investing in and transforming the role of influencers, from
product mannequins, to part of the wider communications mix, we
are giving due deference to the impactful role that influencers have
on their audience and aligning them to the wider marketing goals of
salience and awareness.
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
FROM INFLUENCER MARKETING BEING
AN ADDED EXTRA TO ADVERTISING
INTEGRATION

42. THE NEW RULES
• ALL STATS FROM INSTAVIEW
THE NEW WORLD
SELECTING INFLUENCERS BECAUSE OF THEIR AUDIENCE,
NOT BY HOW MANY FOLLOWERS THEY HAVE
REPLACING SHORT TERM SPONSORED SATURATION WITH
LONG TERM INFLUENCER ASSOCIATION
AN INTEGRATED PART OF THE ADVERTISING MIX, NOT AN
AFTERTHOUGHT
MOVING BEYOND LIKES AND COMMENTS TO LOOK AT THE
VALUE FOR THE BUSINESS
PARTNERSHIPS BUILT ON EMOTION FROM THE CREATIVITY
OF THE INFLUENCER AND PASSION OF THE AUDIENCE
FROM LOOKING AT THE SIZE OF THE COMMUNITY TO
LOOKING AT THE COMMUNITY
FROM SHORT TERM SATURATION TO LONG TERM
ASSOCIATION
FROM USING AN INFLUENCER’S PROFILE TO CELEBRATING
THE CREATIVE ROLE THEY CAN PLAY
FROM SEEKING VANITY TO FINDING VALUE
FROM INFLUENCER MARKETING BEING AN ADDED EXTRA
TO ADVERTISING INTEGRATION

43. THANKS