Marketers are yet to realise the full potential of influencer marketing, believes Tribe founder Jules Lund, with the ability to repurpose content for traditional channels currently being underutilised.
Of the hundreds of brands using the Tribe influencer platform, Lund says only a handful have begun to turn influencer social content into bold print ads or outdoor campaigns.
“Marketers are overlooking the most valuable proposition of influencer marketing and that is the content,” Lund says.
“User-generated content (UCG) has never been good enough for additional marketing but now it is.”
One of the brand’s that are getting more “bang for their buck”, as Jules describes it, is Bacardi.
Bacardi turned its Tribe collaboration into an outdoor campaign for the summer period this year sharing images of #MojitoMoments across Australia.
Bacardi marketing director Jonathan Sully says the activation “smashed sales” and led to the brand serving 1.5 million mojitos over summer.
Liquorland repurposed its influencer content into how-to videos for its site and washing powder brand OMO created six-second social ads.
Travel company Busabout took its influencer content and made it into print ads, which Lund says costs a fraction of the price when you consider the cost of a photographer and setting up a shoot overseas.
Lund says crowdsourcing content for traditional channels, like outdoor and TV, as well as social channels, is the “holy grail” for marketers.
“We are in an explosive new category where the world’s advertising can be created by the very consumers it's designed to engage and that is a very real possibility happening with influencer marketing,” Lund says.
Lund predicts that creative agencies will start to recognise the power of crowd sourced content and the endless possibilities to use UCG in other ways, like merchandise, whitepapers and websites.
But he doesn’t believe the role of creative agencies will become redundant if marketers move towards UCG. He says agencies will always have a role in “starting the beat” and influencers will simply amplify the volume.
“The greatest growth in influencer marketing is still to come,” Lund says.
Jules Lund is speaking at the Media + Marketing Summit on 4 May. Get your tickets here.
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