Influence - Photographed by Kibwe Brathwaite
I have been thinking about influencers. It’s a term that we’ve heard a lot recently in marketing, PR and Branding. There was a movie released earlier this year called The Influencers featuring creative trendsetters in the US. Branding mogul Steve Stoute has also published a book called The Tanning of America that looks at how Hip Hop culture and its most recognizable icons are influencing brands, tastes and culture in America.
But what really is an Influencer? I thought this was a good definition:
“Influencers are the few that lead the many. Alternatively known as early adopters, thought purveyors or trendsetters, they are the creators of the styles and movements that others adopt. Their actions have been harnessed to create affinity between key audiences and brands and products and services. Their culture exists outside the purview of most traditional marketing channels, therefore accessing them in any substantive way has proven almost impossible. They create and shape a unique worldview within their chosen disciplines and in turn speak to their individual networks at a much deeper and richer level. They move forward linearly forging new archetypes within technology, music, art, fashion, film, philanthropy and communication. (via Influencer 10)”
In light of the buzz I could not help but wonder: Who are our influencers in the Caribbean? Does it even work the same way? Have we really examined our culture and values to see what and who resonates with the changing consumer?
Marketers in Trinidad seem to have an awareness that some people hold a level of influence over the consumer but this awareness seems to be limited to hiring spokespersons and attractive/popular local celebrities to appear in print and television advertising with the hope of leveraging their following to bring attention to the brand. It is a hit or miss situation and we don’t always get it right when choosing spokespersons. Often there is no real fit with the brand. For years Digicel and Bmobile played “catch the celebrity” as their principal marketing strategy, pushing near identical products with little real resonance between the celebrity chosen and their product. With Bunji and Machel on one side and Destra and Kes on the other what’s the difference really? How does that differentiate one brand from the other? Digicel has now moved ahead of Bmobile by creating characters and narratives that inject a freshness and sense of fun to their brand but this is relatively recent. Every Carnival we still hear countless jingles set to the tune of popular Soca songs with a few words changed and the product name clumsily dumped in the middle. No thought, no resonance and no sophistication.
Anya’s recent Fan Favourite win in the Project Runway competition revealed something very interesting happening in the Caribbean digital landscape that may be going unnoticed by local and regional brands. For those who were not following the competition, Project Runway’s Fan Favourite winner was determined by the number of times the contestant was voted for or spoken about on Twitter. In order for a vote to be counted, the tweet had to contain each competitors’ unique hashtag. In the last few days before the winner was announced, Anya’s competitor surged ahead and his win seemed certain.
With only two days remaining, a few Trinidadians with a significant online presence began lobbying their networks to vote for Anya. They even got non-users to join to Twitter and those who were not compulsive tweeters to use Hootsuite in order to vote regularly. While Trinidadians had been in support of our contestant from the beginning, the voting momentum just was not there outside of the hardcore tweeters and fans of the show. With alarming speed, people started to heed the call from traditional avenues such as Machel, Bunji, Fay Ann and KestheBand. These Soca stars have been long considered by brands to be clear local influencers but people in large numbers also responded to Carnival bandleaders, website owners, party promoters, bloggers, young creatives, entrepreneurs and ordinary folks with extraordinary personalities and large Twitter followings. In two days, a combination of the curfew, the Divali public holiday and the lobbying of these people made the difference and placed Anya in winners row. While factors such as popularity of the show and of Anya herself had a lot to do with encouraging people to vote, the ability of a few people to galvanize such support in a short space of time says something. Who were these people? What is the size of their network? How did they get people to respond? Did people respond because of their influence or did their reach simply give them the ability to spread the word? Do brands need to start looking further afield than the traditional methods of influencing customer and gaining recognition? Are these our new influencers?
Advertisers need to pay attention to this. Trinidad may be a bit further behind but in the US the golden 16-34 demographic is watching less and less TV and interacting with brands online. Soon we’ll be buying fewer local print newspapers. The consumer is already learning to be more discerning and to trust traditional modes of advertising less. Trotting out Soca stars and using the same strategies is soon enough not going to work. People want to communicate and share, not to be marketed to and we have to recognize and tap into a changing cultural landscape and consumer sensibility in order to create relevance and resonance.
I’d love your comments. Who do you think are the new influencers? Were you influenced by someone else to vote for Anya in the Fan Favourite competition? To whom do you look for changing trends, creative ideas and interesting perspectives on issues? Do you think advertisers are not being sophisticated enough in tapping into our changing cultural landscape?
I myself would love to know who all the people are that had the most effect, encouraging people to vote for Anya on twitter in the Caribbean region. Mainly because I’m told so much that the Trinidadians and the Caribbean isn’t so ‘twitter savy’ as yet but then I felt so bombarded by #PR9Anya tags and people talking about it. Far Far more than I would have expected.
I also don’t think that the local advertisers are even aware of this new influential group.
I’ve never bought anything because a soca artist advertised it and most jingles irritate the crap out of me however I am very intrigued when I see Trinidad Lookbook tweet about a product or a store and even though I don’t generally read Outlish Magazine much I do pay attention to if there’s more talk than usual about a topic.
I myself am a avid twitter user and 90% of the people I follow are in my related fields of interest.
It would be very interesting to know who the existing and possible Caribbean Influencers are, what makes an influencer in our region and to see the possibilities of their use in branding and advertising. I assume just starting with particular interest groups would be very, very effective!
You are right! I don’t think a Soca star or any other star (the way they are used locally) has ever made me buy a product either.
A few of the names that came up all the time, either because people retweeted them or actively said they were encouraged by them to vote were YUMA (and by extension Danielle Jones), TrinidadCarnival Diary, TrinidadLookBook and a guy called Haydn Dunn. I’m still reviewing the hash tags and looking for more patterns. There is overlap with Facebook as well where people were encouraged from there to come over to Twitter. It’s all very interesting
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In my opinion, the issue is that our brands are in a perpetual phase of painting a specific brand image for themselves. There’s a point when brands must stop screaming at you about who they are, and brands here in T&T haven’t figured out when that is. It’s like that bourgeois person at a party who is posing all night and barely dances. Why are they on the dancefloor if they do not intend to dance?
A lot of advertising is very straightforward; brands are not willing to take the risk of being misunderstood, so messages are spoon-fed to us. The common argument is that people in T&T won’t understand a message that needs be deciphered, yet so Caiso, Calypso and Soca are genres based on double entendre and subtle hints that point to an underlying theme.
In order for a brand to resonate, brands need to stop talking about themselves to consumers and give the consumers a chance to talk. That way brands in T&T can become more socially & culturally relevant, and more distinctive.
It is funny that you mentioned Kaiso, Calypso etc as evidence that Trinidadians have an innate sophisticated sense of wit and double entendre. We certainly have not looked at those artforms to see their value in developing the mental faculties of Trinidadians. It scares me to think of the effect of the possible death of the Calypso tent given dwindling attendance.
I wonder whether this idea in advertising that Trinidadians are not bright enough to understand or respond to more subtle, narrative based advertising has to do with the fact that many of the early advertising firms were foreign? Have we been inheriting that biased idea of the ‘simple native’?
I give Digicel kudos for at least trying to build humour and popular culture (albiet foreign) into their brand. They are still on the “buy us! we’re better” train but at least they are trying something
Brands here have not changed their approach simply because they lack the insight and belief that would allow them to tell stories, when Machel or Kes are used as the face of some brands there is no story being told. They are just relying on the surface of their personalities and not the dept of the character that differentiates Machel from Kes. In a way brands need to become people, because people have lives, lives that are dynamic and in most cases unpredictable. It is the stories of people that fascinate us and influencers are most often not very engaging.
So because Anya had a story long before project runway the traction was ripe for the killing and all who tweeted or shared via facebook were basically retelling the story over and over, just like hundreds of years ago people from village to village, town to town would share. Twitter and facebook is a kind of modern day word of mouth and once the access is there the rate of the stories being shared is crazy.
So Brands need to start asking themselves what is their story.
“Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values.”
This is an excellent point. The irony of it is that we are a storytelling people! We are the progeny of cultures build on oral traditions. Many of our brands have wonderful stories about the origins that should be defining their culture and how they relate to consumers. The story of the development of Charles Chocolate is one of tenacity, humble beginnings and the triumph of local but nowhere is that reflected in their brand story
With regard to influencers and opionion leaders, I have to say, I was not one of those Marketers who fully believed in the power of one or a few having the ability to influence Trinbagonians and popular culture. We are a culture of people who are chronic sharers, and regardless of the legitimacy of the source, if it strikes an emotional chord or taps the ‘bacchanal’ button in our minds, we Trinis are inherently quick to pass it on. (Kidnapped children in a Port container anyone?)
I suspect that in the case of the #PR9Anyah voting, it was a combination of Anyah’s story (overcoming a serious and public fall from grace), “the underdog”, “David and Goliath” element of her lack of experience with sewing on the show, and the fact that, as Benjai endorses, “she a cheenee, a cheenee”. Finally, the most important factor… Bandwagonism. Rather than the *source* of influence, I think it is more the influence of the story or news being told.
I also agree that advertisers will definitely have to increase the level of sophistication of advertsing messages, aside from the one-up-manship on commodity product and service offerings. It’s got to be more than just performance, but *must* now include brand engagement either on an emotional or attitudinal level. More than just “how big” is the brand (a la Machel, Kes, et al) I think there is a definite trend toward what is the “brand story” and “how does the brand make me feel”? Some companies have already begun to do this. And it will be those companies who continue to engage customers in this way who will definitely be creating a new kind of conversation and following in the local market.
It will not be because of the source of the influence, but the power of the story being told.
A well written and thought provoking article. In my instance i had been on Twitter since 2009. Up till PR Season 9 my tweets stayed at a handfull – deliberately. My use of Twitter was for gathering info that intersted me – not – ‘putting myself out there’. Something motivated me though, and by my standards – I ‘tweeted like there was no tomorrow’. I think it was identifying with Anya, and wanted the best for her, to inspite of all…overcome all.
I think we all can identify moments within ourselves when we would want good things to happen for us – whenever we face up hill climbs. For me the influencer was Miss Ayong Chee herself. But i like to think of myself as an anomoly