The blog shares a striking angle on the effect of influencer marketing on the consumers’ minds, and definitely on the life of a market researcher!

DO I ACTUALLY LIKE BLOGGING?
OR AM I JUST GETTING INFLUENCED BY THE RIGHT PEOPLE!

We left our last blog post with an introduction on the importance of influencer marketing; but am not going to focus my blog on how influencer marketing is an important tool for brands today, but instead I will be covering how the influencer market works on the psychology of the consumer. Just to re-iterate the fundamental concept of Influencer Marketing, it is a type of social media marketing which involves individuals, known as ‘influencers’, who have a dedicated social media following and are viewed as experts in their niche segments. As per AdLift, a digital marketing agency, in 2021, India’s influencer market is estimated at $75-150 million a year, wherein globally, influencer marketing is expected to grow at a worth of $13.8 billion.

Businesses today are making $5.78 ROI for every $1 spent on this kind of marketing; according to Influencer Marketing Hub, Fashion & Beauty (25%), Health & Fitness (13%), Travel & Lifestyle (10%), Gaming (9%), Family, parenting & home (7%), and Sports (6%) are some of the most critical industries for the influencer marketing community today. Now coming onto the consumer psyche of it all, usually while we do such social media researches, 90% of our survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be the most effective form of marketing – meaning the products and services (and thereby brands) endorsed by the consumers’ favourite influencers – hold a special place in their mind & heart. And although a lot of traction also happens with fraudulent influencers nowadays, the Corona situation did pave way for sensible influencer marketing as well, such as an influencer sharing the requirement of a much needed oxygen cylinder at a given location resulted in getting genuine leads for the patient, and so much more.
So, celebrities and renowned personalities have always been used by businesses to market their products and develop that required connection with their target audience. However, as companies realize how much people value other people’s opinions over everything else (which is a topic to be discussed differently altogether trust me!), this new pool of influencers has emerged. But my point is, the research now we do for the social media has become somewhat limited – One of the consumer mentioned that he likes an apparel brand which we were researching for, because an Influencer X is humorous and makes him laugh while promoting this brands’ products, and another one stated that she wants to download and pay for this particular sports App because an Influencer Y which she follows closely uses the
same App…

…Buttt, this is so wrong on so many levels! Hey, I completely agree to the fact that it is important for the brands and its consumers to make that connection and map it to their audience through the thought process of a neutral entity (influencer) paving the way, and I also agree that there are many more facets to influencer marketing than what I have mentioned here, but then what is the reality of it all?? The consumer likes a certain product for an entirely different reason – not the quality of the actual product, packaging, after sales services, operability & functioning – but because the consumer is influenced by a certain individual!

This is the most widening gap to me as a market researcher. How are we and the brands themselves supposed to understand where the actual gaps lie in the product or service – trust me, this leads to the development of redundant products in the market, alternatives and substitutes not living up to the expectations, demand-supply swaying curve, unavailability of certain products/ services etc. – different brands tweaking some features of the product/service and handing it over to their ‘Messiah’ for a spike in their bottom line sales, and also to make everyone believe in their brand story.

Our client wanted to understand their product’s – hair oil’s – usage pattern for its consumers in metro cities. So we conducted an Ethnography Research – Ethnography is a branch of Anthropology (Study of the human biological and physiological characteristics and their evolution) and the systematic study of individual cultures (human societies and their development). Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study – i.e. the consumers. So, sometimes researchers visit their consumer’s household, to see how they use a particular product or sometimes we ask the consumers to make a video and share it with us, so that we can study the process thereafter.

The research patterns were to be based on the sources of information on purchase and usage application of the hair care product. So, around 67% of the consumers got all the information on – how to apply the oil, quantity to be applied, duration of oil application before hair wash and so much more – from the social media beauty influencers, which is inspiring; but what excited me the most was that the influencers had tapped around 40% of these consumers to enable their Top of Mind brands and products to change as well. I mean wow, what power, eh!

For the client’s sake, we then had to recommend them to target and strategize for those influencers who mapped their brand’s target audience well and also matched with their brand image, because the nature of their product does depend upon the kind of influencers their target audience follow and learn from, among other factors.

What I want you all to think is – Do you actually like the products and services you use/ consume/ recommend because of the operability they provide, or because someone is influencing you? There is nothing wrong in getting influenced, but the priority has to be your interest first, and then maybe you can align your goals with an industry influencer who levels with your actual choices!