What Does The Election Mean For Influencer Marketing?

Hello,

As we close the curtain on another election here in America, I want to offer a few thoughts. There’s a chance that speaking of “marketing” at this particular moment could seem slightly off-key, but the value I can offer you all at this time doesn’t lie in political punditry (not that anyone’s asking; there’s no shortage of experts and idiots alike contributing to the post-election political discourse). Truth is, I have no idea why or how Donald Trump won the election; my expertise is in marketing, influence, and image-making. Here is what I do know—with undeniable clarity—about what happened last week and what it means for business:    

#1—
There is no more significant marketing challenge than to win the American presidency. The scale, complexity, and responsiveness required are mind-boggling and unforgiving. Not only do these qualities make it one of the few remaining test cases for broader cultural forces, but the zero-sum nature of the challenge allows us to compare the efficacy of each side’s strategies, messages, and messengers.

#2—
Budget didn’t win. The winning campaign was outraised 3 to 1, much of it on traditional channels. Their opponents had an unprecedented sum—over a billion dollars—to spend communicating their message. They had a sophisticated ground campaign and a never-ending bench of A-list celebrity endorsements. They had SNL. They even had a $20 million concert stretched across multiple cities. It didn’t work.

#3—
It’s about trust. Messages didn’t move people—the messengers did. We have to remember marketing is a persuasion problem and persuasion is contingent on trust. What does it say that the winning candidate relied less on legacy media, ad buys, and other in-decline methodologies and more on creators that their target audiences know and trust? Institutional trust in media, celebrities, and brands is collapsing at the same time as it is rising in individual voices who have relationships with their respective audiences. Consumers are willing to hear your message, but not through you; they want the opinion of someone they know.

#4—
This is a wake-up call. Move fast. Most brands and industries still treat influencer marketing as a rounding error in their budgets, a channel that is meant to support other marketing and brand storytelling efforts. For brands, this election is a canary in a coal mine: a wake-up call to all marketers that traditional ways of communicating and persuading audiences are as good as dead. The presidency was just won by the person who embraced creators, arriving and appealing directly to audiences on the tide of good will earned by individuals, not institutions. It’s not “emergent.” It’s not a “Gen Z thing.” The old way is never coming back. If you can win the highest office in the land in part by working with creators, you can certainly sell products.

Consumer sentiment has never been less forgiving. Brands who fail to enter the flow of their audience’s consciousness do not merely lose; they evaporate and are erased. The CMOs and C-suite executives of the world who aspire to plant a flag and to win need to take note of this and make revolutionary - not evolutionary - changes in the ways that they are communicating with their customers. Marketing departments need fundamental reorganization around the discipline of influence and the deployment of influencer-first strategies. Those who adapt will thrive. Those who don't will find themselves spending more to achieve less — a perilous position to be in.

James Nord

Founder & CEO

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