ADWEEK 5
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| AUGUST 26, 2019 5TRENDING
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what influencers can bring in terms of content
creation, said Zablow. It’s cheaper, he noted, to
pay an influencer to create an ad for you versus
hiring a creative agency.
“Every campaign ... should be boosted with
paid media any way,” he continued. “Once that
happens, the follower count starts to be of less
value.”
Scotti argued that to fix the issues,
collaboration is necessary, rather than shying
away from partnering with these massive social
platforms and the potential marketing reach
they bring.
“We can’t shut the doors on these media
companies,” he said, adding that solutions
will come faster when working directly with
platforms.
Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer for
Procter & Gamble, said many of these platforms
have stepped up to take part in the fight against
influencer fraud. Instagram, for its part, has
cleared out several bot accounts over the past
year.
“I really give the different platforms credit
for stepping up and essentially having to retrofit
their platforms because they weren’t built for
the media world,” said Pritchard. “And we work
together with them to monetize those platforms
through advertising.”
Cooperating with the platforms is also
essential because, ultimately, they know which
influencers have authentic followings.
“Instagram, Snapchat Facebook—they really
are the only ones who can provide true data,”
said Zablow. “A lot of the third-party platforms,
unfortunately, can’t provide the data as direct as
they can.”
To be proactive about tackling influencer
fraud, it takes more than looking out for the
standard warning signs, said Zablow.
“The only way to have a foolproof plan is to
have a direct relationship with the influencers,”
he said. “When you start a relationship with the
influencer, you start to learn more about what’s
actually true.”
Brands, as well as platforms, are becoming
active players in this fight, too. Biggar said that
it’s a top concern for Visa, and they are working
“very closely with our partners to ensure that
our brand is safe and it’s appearing only in the
best context.”
It’s that sort of vetting and tangible action
that will be important going forward, according
to Anderson, particularly as spending on
influencer marketing shows no sign of slowing
down.
She said, “Don’t be the victim to it. Act
on it.”T
he marketing industry has a big
problem—a $1.3 billion problem, to
be exact.
That’s the amount marketers
are expected to waste on
fraudulent influencer marketing
this year, according to a July 2019 global study
from cybersecurity company Cheq and the
University of Baltimore. This means that
nearly 18% of the overall amount marketers are
spending on influencer marketing, which is $8.
billion, according to Mediakix, is wasted.
Influencer fraud comes when an influencer
falsifies his or her impact, whether through
purchased followers or inauthentic engagement.
Diego Scotti, CMO of Verizon, called influencer
fraud “one of the biggest issues in the industrytoday,” while Lynne Biggar, chief marketing and
communications officer for Visa, acknowledged
that “we’re all grappling with it.”
“The amount of fraud and potential for harm
in the sector is already highly significant,”
Roberto Cavazos, professor at the University
of Baltimore’s Merrick School of Business and
author of the Cheq report, said in a statement.
It’s part of the larger conversation around
brand safety that’s dominated the marketing
industry for years. But when that spend is
wasted, those outside the marketing department
will start to question the overall purpose and
intent.
“If marketers don’t insist on the veracity
of either what they’re buying or what they’re
selling, then the people who control money, like
the CFOs, are not going to look well on the huge
amounts of money that are spent on marketing,”
Dana Anderson, CMO of MediaLink, said.
A big reason why influencer fraud is so
difficult to control is the ever-changing,
constantly evolving nature of the social media
landscape.
“Anything that you can do to solve for today,
somehow tomorrow there’s going to be some
software or another way that somebody’s going
to find in order to create a loophole,” said Scotti.
Mark Zablow, founder and CEO of marketing
agency Cogent Entertainment Marketing, said
that the major reason the problem arose in the
first place is that marketers used follower count
as the primary metric when selecting influencers
to work with.
“A lot of marketers have gone ahead and
created an economy based on followers,” he
said. “As long as the industry uses followers as a
threshold, fraud will be rampant.”
Rather than regarding influencers as a way
to solely drive sales and conversion, look atFighting
Influencer
Fraud
WHAT BRANDS DO TO AVOID A
BILLION-DOLLAR HEADACHE.
BY DIANA PEARLSOCIAL
DIANA PEARL IS A STAFF WRITER AT
ADWEEK, WHERE SHE COVERS BRAND
MARKETING. PREVIOUSLY, SHE WAS A WRITER
AND REPORTER AT PEOPLE MAGAZINE.
@DIANAPEARL_