The size of the global influencer marketing market has grown dramatically in recent years. In 2023, the market is estimated at a record figure of $21.1 billion, more than double the 2019 data. Content creators are preferred over advertising by 51% compared to 46%, that's more than 10 points in 4 years for the entire population according to a study by Odoxa for Fevad. However, major upheavals are coming in this influence market.
While traditionally, influencer marketing has made it possible to reach a wide audience through paid partnerships with influencers, consumers' growing skepticism towards sponsored content calls for a re-evaluation of this approach.
While the sector has seen a structuring of regulations regarding it, in order to stem certain excesses and behaviors bordering on legality, brands are becoming more and more cautious in their approach to influence and are diversifying their systems. They thus take into account a form of consumer weariness with regard to purely commercial content produced by influencers on behalf of brands, but also their lower ROI. This refusal of “promobesity” is particularly marked among young consumers (13-30 years old) who demand more authenticity. A sign of the times, Instagram recently revealed, following numerous complaints, the functioning of its algorithm concerning commercial advertisements in order to demonstrate that these are the audiences who no longer have the desire to watch and be united around campaigns . A way to wake up advertisers and encourage them to change their practices. Finally, another point of irritation: AI disrupts influence with content that does not exist. Audiences are becoming more and more skeptical of campaigns with influencers.
Building a relationship of trust through advocacy
Asked to respond to new market expectations, brands are required to offer more authentic and transparent systems. Increasingly, they are seeing the need to integrate an advocacy strategy, aimed at engaging loyal employees and customers as ambassadors for their brand. This strategy, which uses an approach that takes into account the different stakeholders of a company, offers numerous benefits: on the one hand it allows us to enrich our offer by providing a credible message and strengthening the trust of our target audiences . On the other hand, it allows you to establish medium or long-term relationships with your entire ecosystem, proof of commitment and a form of responsibility in the type of content offered to your audience.
This is notably the choice made by L'Oréal with its “community lab” which certainly aims to rationalize its costs, while influence has become the fifth media in which the group invests in the words of the brand, but also to having to guarantee the consistency of a global approach while different brands of the company may have to collaborate with the same content creators.
Advocacy promotes medium and long-term partnerships with internal or external communities and ambassadors. This is the case with Orange Jobs, which uses internal ambassadors to promote vacancies through immersive campaigns and make future recruits want to apply. To go further, it is possible to detect the best “bridges”, these links to be built, in order to unite audiences around HR subjects. Internally, this can not only support the visibility of the employer brand, but also help to strengthen the company's connection with its employees and promote better talent retention. Externally, this shows a lasting commitment of the company with its partners, a responsible signal demonstrating the concern to choose its partners carefully. This approach is useful for players in all sectors. Ceva Santé animal, a pioneering laboratory in the field, understood very early on how to identify partners and actors/ambassadors in order to unite and create lasting links with the communities linked to its activity.
Dynamics that will be reversed
The idea is not to bury influencer marketing, but to be aware that if the two types of devices should continue to coexist in the future, with a hierarchy which will be reversed in the marketing plans communication. Companies will tend to favor advocacy over influence, depending on the campaigns and objectives of the brand or its products. This, for a simple reason: advocacy is an approach that offers soft power, when influencer marketing can seem more direct and visible. While transparency must remain the norm, the level of acceptability of influence is increasingly low. Advocacy thus constitutes a relevant tool for companies, provided that they respect a form of ethics and transparency in the implementation of communication systems.
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