Pride month: avoiding tokenism

Sponsored by Fourth Floor

Issue #107 | Your reading time this week is 6 mins. 05 secs.

71% of CMOs lack the budget to fully execute their strategy in 2023 - Gartner survey. Yet more figures highlighting the gender pay gap. Will Holly Willoughby lose her lucrative brand deals? The relationship between brands, creators and AI. Plus the extraordinary story of a wannabe LinkedIn influencer looking for the positives in Adolf Hitler’s characteristics (yes, really).

71% of CMOs lack budget to execute strategy

71% of CMOs lack the budget to fully execute their strategy in 2023, according to a Gartner, Inc. survey of 410 CMOs and marketing leaders.

Elsewhere the survey shows Influencer marketing is set to receive the third largest increased investment this year behind only social advertising and digital video advertising. Just under half of survey respondents (49%) said they planned to spend more on influencer marketing this year. Just 12% said they planned to spend less.

METHODOLOGY: The Survey was conducted in March and April 2023. Survey respondents were CMOs and marketing leaders in North America and Northern and Western Europe across different industries, company sizes and revenue. Most respondents reported annual revenue of over $1 billion.

Influence is King

ASA ads earn trust in advertising

An ad campaign from the UK’s ad regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority, has increased trust in the watchdog and positively impacted public trust in UK advertising.

Those who saw or heard the ASA’s ads were over 80% more likely to trust the ad industry, and over 50% more likely to trust most ads than those who didn’t.

Pride month: avoiding tokenism

Pride month starts tomorrow (June 1st). Many brands will incorporate the rainbow flag into their logo and work with creators from the LGBTQ+ community on one-off activations. How can these firms demonstrate real allyship for the community and avoid performative tokenism?

Here are a few questions to consider:

1️⃣ REPRESENTATIVE TEAM Authentic, representative campaigns start from within. Is your marketing team truly representative of the community it is trying to engage with?

2️⃣ YEAR-ROUND STRATEGY Are you including LGBTQ+ talent in all best-fit briefs throughout the year?

3️⃣ CRISIS MANAGEMENT Bud Light was ill-prepared for negative feedback and a product boycott following their collaboration with transgender creator Dylan Mulvaney (as covered in Creator Briefing #102). Have you briefed your key stakeholders to expect challenges? Do you have a crisis management plan in place to neutralise the negativity and stand firm in your work?

4️⃣ PAY PARITY Are you paying all the creators you work with fairly?

Female influencers paid 30% less than males

Female influencers are paid 25-30% less than their male counterparts according to Kulbir Sachdev, Founder and CEO of Voxxy Media an Indian-based influencer marketing firm. Sachdev, speaking with Indian trade title Buzz in Content, went on to say “The lower tier of female creators gets paid more than men. The moment they become popular and a macro creator with over 5 lakh [100,000] followers, the pay gap increases by 30%.”

Damning figures which would have been more impactful had the methodology, date of sampling, and geographic region been referenced.

Airbnb’s social listening skills save Alix Earle trip

TikTok star Alix Earle recently jetted off to Italy with a group of - mostly creator - friends. The villa they’d rented via booking.com turned out to be a scam listing. The group, which included Alexandra Pohl, were left with nowhere to stay.

Step forward the Airbnb social media team who had been monitoring Earle’s socials. Within a day Airbnb had found the group a villa overlooking the Mediterranean.

Holiday salvaged the creators were cock-a-hoop. Earle uploaded her Airbnb love to TikTok. 2m people watched her video in the first five hours of posting. It’s since amassed over 3.8m views. That’s a lot of brand love resulting from social listening, and quick decision making from the short-stay property rental firm. It also doesn’t hurt that they were putting right a problem caused on a competitor site, either.

This story has been doing the rounds on LinkedIn. Lia Haberman has a great post on it as do Jack Appleby and Jay Richards.

56% of US creators have been asked by brands to use generative AI

Lightricks, the Israel-based video and image editing mobile apps developer, has published a new report on the creator economy and the relationship between brands, creators, and AI. The data also reveals that more than half of creators (56%) surveyed have been asked to use generative AI by brands.

It’s not all beer and skittles though for AI. Here are some other key stats from the survey:

• 74% of creators are concerned about the potential use of AI for creating deep fakes

• 58% are concerned about AI and copyright issues

• 57% are worried about AI and the decrease in the authenticity of content.

• 84% are likely to use AI if it saves time or money, while an even higher percentage

• 86% are likely to use it if it positively impacts the creative process.

METHODOLOGY YouGov surveyed 1,000+ current and aspiring content creators in March. Each participant is 18+, living in the United States.

Interview with Gigapay

Gigapay, a startup that makes it quick and easy for brands and agencies to pay creators, interviewed me this week. In the article we cover

• What the Influencer Marketing Trade Body is and why it was formed

• Examples of the positive impact the IMTB is having on the advertising industry

• Top learnings from hosting the afternoon session of Influencer360

• What I was doing before running the IMTB

The Influencer Marketing Trade Body and SUMO London have teamed up to better understand the influencer marketing sector in the UK. If you run an influencer marketing team - either at an agency or in-house, please take 4.5 minutes to complete this survey.

DECLARATION: I run the Influencer Marketing Trade Body.

Snapchat: 21m monthly active users in UK

• Snapchat now has over 21 million monthly active users in the UK. The instant messaging app has just published more UK-centric stats to celebrate the milestone.

• Snapchat currently reaches 90% of 13-24 year olds and 75% of 13-34 year olds across the UK.

• Over 45% of Snapchatters in the UK are 25 years or older.

• In the UK, Snapchatters open the app an average of 50 times per day - to chat with friends and family, catch highlights from their favourite show or share moments from their lives.

• Nearly 70% use Snapchat’s augmented reality lenses daily to help express themselves creatively, have fun and try-before-they-buy clothes.

World Influencer Awards come to Cannes

The World Influencers Association (WIBA) held its World Influencer Awards this week in Cannes. The event’s aim is to bring together influential personalities and brands from all over the world to cooperate across industries and borders and to share ideas, information, and innovations.

Check out this year’s winners here. WIBA board members include Dustin Planthold - the Count of Monte Crypto (yes, really).

💸💸 TAX NEEDN’T BE TAXING FlyFin, an AI-powered tax preparation and filing service, has launched FlyFin TaxGPT -- a new generative AI service. Creators can type in their tax-related question. FlyFin TaxGPT will ask a few basic questions before generating a tailored response to the individual's tax question(s). The service can handle most US state-related tax questions.

🚗 🚗 EASY COMMUTE Mr.Beast, who last year turned down an offer of $1 billion for his main YouTube channel and content empire, spends up to three weeks each month in a two-room apartment tucked away inside his studio.

🎺🎺 SHOW BIZ TikTok has become a de facto audition stage for musicians, dancers, comedians, and even authors according to this round-up article from Insider.

🧑🏻‍⚖️🧑🏻‍⚖️ GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION? Holly Willoughby is set to return to daytime TV next Monday to host This Morning. Will she want to continue to be associated with show though? Will brands still want to be associated with her as their brand ambassador? Since Phillip Schofield’s sacking and subsequent apology there have been allegations of toxic culture and cover-ups at the show. Willougby has co-hosted the show since 2009. Whether she knew about the concerns - or was part of them - she may be found guilty by association in the court of public opinion. What then for her other sources of revenue? Willoughby is the brand ambassador for Marks and Spencer, Dunelm and Garnier. She also owns talent agency Roxy Management and Wylde Moon - a lifestyle brand.

🤷🏻‍♂️ When employee advocacy goes wrong (spectacularly) -- A Deloitte consultant sought to find the positive in Adolf Hitler with a LinkedIn post titled: “Friday Inspiration”. The consultant, who ironically works in Deloitte’s risk advisory department, wrote that Hitler demonstrated several characteristics readers could learn. According to Vice he then gave the example of the Fascist dictator being: “extremely confident,” “very intellectual,” and a “massive action taker.” Facing a backlash for his post the consultant soon deleted it before issuing an apology. Then deleting the apology as well following up by deleting his entire LinkedIn account.

🤷🏻 Cecilee Max-Brown, A TikTok creator and graduate of Michigan State University, uploaded a brand collab with Bioré in which she talked about how February’s campus shooting had elevated her anxiety. Max-Brown’s narration ran over video that show her exercising, resting and using skin care products. The video was soon removed. Bioré issued an apology.