Influencer Marketing Has Become Meta
Being born in the 90’s and watching a lot of mainstream television in the early 2000’s, I remember seeing countless advertisements on Nickelodeon for the newest show, toy, or something I would bug my parents about. But in the new digital age of media, a lot of advertisers are switching to platforms that control a huge section of the market, social media.
Based on this graph from Statista, people in the US are spending more time on “digital” media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube and Twitch as opposed to traditional competitors in recent years.
The one thing that has also come to digital media, is marketers. Especially with the use of influencer marketing. It is something that has been around since the dawn of advertising but is a staple in today’s culture. From the days of getting a big celebrity to wear a certain pair of sunglasses on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, to now, influencer marketing is almost a must for upcoming brands that want to connect with a large audience fast.
Something interesting is happening within influencer marketing though. In a way that is almost, meta. Recently creator and well-known influencer, David Dobrik, launched a product contest. The contest was quite simple. Dobrik sold a puzzle that once put together, would reveal a QR code. That QR code could be scanned and 1 out of the all the puzzles sold would be a grand prize winner. The prize? $100,000. The puzzle sold 17,000 units in 1 hour netting Dobrik $510,000 (Source: DavidDobrik on Twitter).
Now why is this meta influencer marketing? Well David is no stranger to brands using his influence to their advantage. One of his more recent campaigns was for the Borat sequel. But with this new puzzle product, Dobrik is using his own influence to create profit as well as more influence, for, himself. This is using the existing idea of influencer marketing but for your own product as opposed to another brands. It is something that has been a hot trend this year, with Dobrik doing other projects like this, as well as other creators utilizing “paywalled” content (content that is only available after a consumer pays a fee or subscribes to a service).
Creators are understanding how their influence on their audience has been successful for brands that they get paid to promote and are utilizing that audience to promote their own products. With the trend becoming more and more digital, this tactic could and honestly should be used by all influencers to develop more monetization opportunities for their brand.
