Brief Buzz: Real influencers in the online marketplace - Prashant Puri

In this article of Brief Buzz, Prashant Puri, Co-founder & CEO, AdLift, what is trending now in trending in the digital marketing space and the implications for the industry. 

As per the recent studies, brands seem to be losing the trust of more and more online consumers and about 32 per cent of the respondents trust strangers more than brands when it comes to online promotions. If you look at the influence of ‘brand presence’ in the online space, the research suggests that approximately 73 per cent of online consumers do not care if these brands disappeared tomorrow. In fact, people with enormous fan following in the online space, like celebrities, have more power to influence online consumers. These celebrities are called “real influencers” in the online marketplace, and this is the marketing channel that is trending in digital marketing space now. 

This opinion is further supported by a research by Emarketer. It shows that 81 per cent of marketers have found the “real influencer” channel to be effective. As for the earnings ratio, brands have made an average of $6.85 for each dollar spent on influencer marketing. 

Although, the impact is already creating a storm in the digital market place, there are some obstacles for the brands to use this strategy. For example, most celebrity endorsements happen as an afterthought of the larger sponsorship deals with high order values. As of now, these big-ticket celebrity endorsements follow 80-20 rule; that is, 80 per cent of the endorsements are driven by 20 per cent of the celebrities. 

In such scenario, Yral, a joint venture between cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan ventures and AdLift, a global digital marketing agency, seamlessly connects advertisers with celebrities to leverage their social media platforms.