In 1932, Lester Gaba set out to create the ideal woman. His aim was simple: she would be beautiful but attainable, a figure that the everyday person could see themselves in. Gaba named his creation Cynthia. Though Cynthia was technically a mannequin—one commissioned by Saks Fifth Avenue—Gaba started bringing her out into the world, treating her like a real person at all times.
Cynthia quickly became a quasi celebrity. She was a regular sight at parties and events and was even photographed for a Life magazine feature. Companies, sensing an opportunity to capitalize on the attention, started sending her their products. “She received free dresses from Saks, diamonds from Tiffany’s, tickets to the Metropolitan Opera,” said journalist Roman Mars on an episode of the design podcast 99% Invisible. “When she showed up in tabloids, she was wearing designer clothes.” Cynthia may not have been sentient, but she was a trendsetter; her brief time as a socialite-cum-advertiser also foreshadowed the world of social media influencers who dominate Instagram feeds and marketing campaigns today.
Like Cynthia, social media influencers aren’t usually celebrities, at least not in the traditional sense. They tend to be regular people—often young, often attractive—who have turned posting pictures or videos to YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok into jobs. For just about any niche or hobby, whether it’s travel, fashion, video games, or fishing, there’s an influencer posting about it on a daily (or hourly) basis, amassing a large and loyal following. Companies have taken note, and they are buying access to these audiences in exchange for merchandise and cash.
This new realm of influencer marketing is less than ten years old, but it’s become a central strategy for certain sales departments because, unlike more traditional formats, such as television spots and billboards, influencer posts are advertisements that don’t feel like ads. Up until the past couple of years, most paid-for posts weren’t even labelled as such. Still, despite the new best practice of noting “#ad” or “#sponsored” in captions, the intimacy of social media means that, for the audience, it can still feel like the influencer just had to let everyone know that they love a particular makeup brand, or a pricey pair of headphones, or, in the case of Kim Kardashian West, a new appetite-suppressing weight-loss product. Canon, Starbucks, Volvo, H&M, the tourism board of Nova Scotia: all have used influencer marketing in recent campaigns. According to Business Insider’s 2019 Influencer Market Report, companies are projected to spend $15 billion on the field by 2022.
Still, influencer marketing on social media is a new business model, and the tactic of throwing money at young personalities and hoping it translates into sales has led to some not-so-surprising results. In 2018, megainfluencer Luka Sabbat (then with 1.4 million followers) was sued for failing to fulfill a $60,000 deal that required him to wear Snapchat’s new product, Snap Spectacles, at high-end fashion shows. (Sabbat had agreed to a minimum of four Instagram posts that included the product; he uploaded only two.) The effectiveness of influencers was further questioned last May, when Instagram star @Arii (then with 2.5 million followers) launched her own clothing line and sold fewer than thirty-six shirts.
It’s failures like these that Bryan Gold is trying to prevent. Gold, a twenty-seven-year-old entrepreneur, is the co-founder and CEO of #Paid, a pioneering Toronto-based software company that deals in influencers. #Paid exists somewhere between talent agency and ad agency—it doesn’t directly manage influencers, but it’s positioning itself as a professional middleman that can work with big businesses to develop and oversee social media campaigns while wrangling the thousands of young social media users who have the desired captive audiences.
Gold knows that influencers have a checkered reputation: despite the value they offer brands, they can be inexperienced and unpredictable, making them potential threats to companies’ images. But the roster that works for #Paid, he explains, is different from the rest. For one, his nearly 22,000 social media stars aren’t mere influencers, he insists—they’re creators.
I trip on this bit of semantics again and again over the few days I spend at the #Paid office—a contemporary open space complete with the requisite startup perks of LaCroix sparkling water and a Ping-Pong table. Each time “influencers” leaves my mouth, I earn a stern look. The difference between the two, various staff members explain to me, is that, unlike typical influencers, #Paid creators care about what they do. They are discerning about whom they’ll work with. (Gold tells me that, when his company received a shipment of a weight-loss product, they sent it right back.) I’m told that, whenever a #Paid creator embarks on a campaign—with, say, Coca-Cola or Uber Eats—the result is an authentic expression of how they feel about the product; the relationship is about more than just making money. “A lot of the creators I spoke with wanted to use their influence for good,” Gold tells me. “They were genuinely passionate about making a difference in the world and making the world a better place.”
While soda endorsements and food-on-demand probably won’t change society for the better, recent trends seem to show that influencer marketing is the future that’s coming for us all: one where social media becomes work, the work never stops, and all online identities are commodities to be constantly managed.
Cynthia quickly became a quasi celebrity. She was a regular sight at parties and events and was even photographed for a Life magazine feature. Companies, sensing an opportunity to capitalize on the attention, started sending her their products. “She received free dresses from Saks, diamonds from Tiffany’s, tickets to the Metropolitan Opera,” said journalist Roman Mars on an episode of the design podcast 99% Invisible. “When she showed up in tabloids, she was wearing designer clothes.” Cynthia may not have been sentient, but she was a trendsetter; her brief time as a socialite-cum-advertiser also foreshadowed the world of social media influencers who dominate Instagram feeds and marketing campaigns today.
Like Cynthia, social media influencers aren’t usually celebrities, at least not in the traditional sense. They tend to be regular people—often young, often attractive—who have turned posting pictures or videos to YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok into jobs. For just about any niche or hobby, whether it’s travel, fashion, video games, or fishing, there’s an influencer posting about it on a daily (or hourly) basis, amassing a large and loyal following. Companies have taken note, and they are buying access to these audiences in exchange for merchandise and cash.This new realm of influencer marketing is less than ten years old, but it’s become a central strategy for certain sales departments because, unlike more traditional formats, such as television spots and billboards, influencer posts are advertisements that don’t feel like ads. Up until the past couple of years, most paid-for posts weren’t even labelled as such. Still, despite the new best practice of noting “#ad” or “#sponsored” in captions, the intimacy of social media means that, for the audience, it can still feel like the influencer just had to let everyone know that they love a particular makeup brand, or a pricey pair of headphones, or, in the case of Kim Kardashian West, a new appetite-suppressing weight-loss product. Canon, Starbucks, Volvo, H&M, the tourism board of Nova Scotia: all have used influencer marketing in recent campaigns. According to Business Insider’s 2019 Influencer Market Report, companies are projected to spend $15 billion on the field by 2022.
Still, influencer marketing on social media is a new business model, and the tactic of throwing money at young personalities and hoping it translates into sales has led to some not-so-surprising results. In 2018, megainfluencer Luka Sabbat (then with 1.4 million followers) was sued for failing to fulfill a $60,000 deal that required him to wear Snapchat’s new product, Snap Spectacles, at high-end fashion shows. (Sabbat had agreed to a minimum of four Instagram posts that included the product; he uploaded only two.) The effectiveness of influencers was further questioned last May, when Instagram star @Arii (then with 2.5 million followers) launched her own clothing line and sold fewer than thirty-six shirts.
It’s failures like these that Bryan Gold is trying to prevent. Gold, a twenty-seven-year-old entrepreneur, is the co-founder and CEO of #Paid, a pioneering Toronto-based software company that deals in influencers. #Paid exists somewhere between talent agency and ad agency—it doesn’t directly manage influencers, but it’s positioning itself as a professional middleman that can work with big businesses to develop and oversee social media campaigns while wrangling the thousands of young social media users who have the desired captive audiences.
Gold knows that influencers have a checkered reputation: despite the value they offer brands, they can be inexperienced and unpredictable, making them potential threats to companies’ images. But the roster that works for #Paid, he explains, is different from the rest. For one, his nearly 22,000 social media stars aren’t mere influencers, he insists—they’re creators.
I trip on this bit of semantics again and again over the few days I spend at the #Paid office—a contemporary open space complete with the requisite startup perks of LaCroix sparkling water and a Ping-Pong table. Each time “influencers” leaves my mouth, I earn a stern look. The difference between the two, various staff members explain to me, is that, unlike typical influencers, #Paid creators care about what they do. They are discerning about whom they’ll work with. (Gold tells me that, when his company received a shipment of a weight-loss product, they sent it right back.) I’m told that, whenever a #Paid creator embarks on a campaign—with, say, Coca-Cola or Uber Eats—the result is an authentic expression of how they feel about the product; the relationship is about more than just making money. “A lot of the creators I spoke with wanted to use their influence for good,” Gold tells me. “They were genuinely passionate about making a difference in the world and making the world a better place.”
While soda endorsements and food-on-demand probably won’t change society for the better, recent trends seem to show that influencer marketing is the future that’s coming for us all: one where social media becomes work, the work never stops, and all online identities are commodities to be constantly managed.
by Tatum Dooley, The Walrus | Read more:
Image: Vivian Rosas
