O Mercado Livre anunciou uma integração com a Meta que conecta o seu Programa de Afiliados e Criadores ao sistema de Parcerias com Afiliados do Facebook. A iniciativa permite que criadores publiquem links de produtos diretamente em conteúdos na plataforma e recebam comissões por vendas geradas a partir dessas publicações.
Toguro, ou melhor, Thiago, começou sua jornada nas periferias de São Paulo, com uma câmera nas mãos e uma ideia clara: fazer o que ninguém acreditava ser possível.
X has had a tempestuous relationship with advertisers since Elon Musk bought the company in 2022.
Josh Edelson/Getty Images
A court dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk's X that had accused advertisers of illegally boycotting the platform.
The Texas federal judge cited a lack of jurisdiction and X's failure to state a claim.
The defendants included Mars, Lego, and Nestlé.
A court tossed out a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X that accused big advertisers like Mars, Lego, and Nestlé of illegally boycotting the platform.
A US District Court judge in Texas dismissed the case, citing a lack of jurisdiction and X's failure to state an antitrust claim.
X sued several major brands in August 2024, alleging their participation in an ad industry initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, GARM, was tantamount to a conspiracy to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising" from X after Musk's takeover of the company, then known as Twitter. It later added other brands to the suit.
X claimed the alleged boycott made it less competitive than other platforms in winning advertisers and user engagement.
Other plaintiffs named in the suit were the World Federation of Advertisers, CVS Health, Ørsted, Twitch, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate-Palmolive, Pinterest, Tyson, and Shell.
WFA shut down GARM, its initiative, after the suit was filed, citing limited resources.
The suit was partly spurred by an investigation by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, into whether advertisers were illegally banding together to demonetize conservative platforms and voices in violation of antitrust law.
The plaintiffs fought back, calling the lawsuit "an attempt to use the courthouse to win back the business X lost in the free market when it disrupted its own business and alienated many of its customers."
X's relationship with advertisers has been fraught since Musk bought the platform in 2022. Advertisers left en masse as X loosened moderation and account-verification rules and reinstated the banned accounts of some provocative figures.
EMARKETER, Business Insider's sister company, estimated its revenue would reach $2.2 billion in 2026, below its pre-acquisition level of $4.5 billion.
X has tried to win back advertisers by underscoring its commitment to brand safety and promoting its use of block lists that let advertisers avoid showing up around certain topics.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Na mesa das lideranças de marketing, há hoje um desafio claro: como operar sob pressão por resultados, cobranças internas e em um ambiente em que a atenção do consumidor é cada vez mais escassa — e disputada. É nesse cenário que o papel dos chamados chief marketing officers (CMOs) volta ao centro do debate no CMO Summit, encontro do setor que será realizado nos dias 25 e 26 de março, em São Paulo.
"Clipping" marketing, a practice where creators get paid to repost video clips, is taking off.
Top-tier clipping creators can now earn thousands of dollars a month, with guaranteed pay.
Clipping has gained popularity among podcasters, Kick streamers, and YouTubers like MrBeast.
There's a new class of creators moving from side hustlers to in-demand pros.
Dubbed "clippers," these creators are paid to post snippets of podcasts, livestreams, movies, or songs on TikTok and other social apps, creating the impression that they're trendy.
Even if you haven't heard of "clipping," you've likely seen this emerging social-media strategy in the wild.
YouTubers, podcasters, and Kick streamers are early adopters of the tactic, which is performance-based and usually only pays out if a video gets significant views.
The clipping community is filled with side hustlers who are happy to earn $200 from a viral video. However, as the category has matured and attracted larger budgets, a new professional class of high-performing clippers has emerged. These clipping all-stars can still get performance-based pay, but they're also being offered guaranteed retainers of $500 to $1,500 a month to ensure they get to work, according to one "elite clipper" application viewed by Business Insider.
"An elite clipper is someone who runs hundreds of pages, and across those hundreds of pages, multiple have millions of followers or a minimum 100,000 followers," said Evan Stanfield, cofounder of the clip-marketing agency Clipping Culture. "If we're paying a monthly retainer, we can ask them to post 20 or 30 times a month, instead of whenever they feel like it."
These "top 1% of clippers" can earn five figures a month, Stanfield said.
Clipping is gaining popularity at a moment of flux in the world of social media marketing. As algorithmic feeds become more personalized, hiring influencers to post sponsored content doesn't necessarily translate into views (unless you're a superstar). Marketers who post clipping campaigns only pay when their content performs.
YouTuber MrBeast recently launched his own clipping platform, Vyro, which he uses to promote his channel, according to the company's website.
"The clippers that we're talking about are not like influencers," said Johnny Cloherty, CEO of the marketing-agency Genni. "You're getting people that are like you and me, or maybe some college kids that are just looking for some extra dough."
Clippers can sign up for campaigns in Discord servers, side-hustle sites like Whop, or marketing platforms like Genni. While they're often paid to clip footage, at other times the task is to add a brand's logo to a viral video clip or to embed a song beneath a post.
They're typically offered between $1 and $4 per 1,000 views, marketers told Business Insider, though some agencies offer higher rates when creators reach thresholds like 100,000 or 1 million views.
To promote the launch of Beast Land, MrBeast offered creators $2 for every 1,000 views on clips they posted about the pop-up theme park, for example. A Vyro promotion for a November boxing match between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. offered the same rate. One of Clipping Culture's recent briefs asked clippers to promote footage from Sabrina Carpenter and María Becerra's Lollapalooza Argentina appearance for around $1 per 1,000 views.
"It is a little bit of a roll of the dice for the clippers, but it's a super low lift for them," Cloherty said. "These clippers have become an ecosystem and a community out there that kind of know what they're doing, and know the pros and cons of it."
AUSTIN — Com mais de cinco décadas dedicadas à análise de comportamento, consumo e sinais culturais, a futurista Faith Popcorn voltou ao SXSW 2026 defendendo uma abordagem menos deslumbrada e mais pragmática sobre o futuro. Fundadora da BrainReserve, a americana, de 79 anos, se consolidou como um dos nomes mais conhecidos da chamada futurologia de mercado ao transformar mudanças difusas no estilo de vida em conceitos que passaram a orientar marcas, produtos e estratégias de negócio.
Já dizia o ditado: o Brasil não é para amadores. Entre tropicalização cultural e desafios estruturais, como logística e aspectos fiscais, entrar no país já é um desafio para marcas globais. Transformar presença em relevância – e relevância em resultado – é um desafio ainda maior.
One morning in January, Gracie Nielson was scrolling TikTok when she discovered something that made her skin crawl.
The fashion, lifestyle, and beauty influencer with over 600,000 followers noticed a comment on one of her videos that directed her to a clip of a woman wearing low-slung blue jeans and a yellow crop top. Her face didn't resemble Nielson's, but the exact same outfit was hanging in Nielson's closet, and even the woman's body struck a familiar pose. Nielson realized it was a shot-for-shot replica of a video she'd posted months prior, down to the backdrop — a corner of Nielson's home in California. Intrigue quickly devolved into unease.
"That's so crazy. This is my house. This is my body, just with somebody else's face," Nielson recalled thinking. "It's just a really uncomfortable feeling."
The other woman in question may not be a woman at all, but a digital echo: Sienna Rose, aka @siennarosely, describes herself as a neo-soul singer who has over 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Her TikTok page is filled with uncanny videos where the star smiles and vamps — but never talks — to the camera. Though she's been plagued by accusations that she's AI-generated, Rose has never performed live; AI detection tools used by the streaming service Deezer have flagged Rose's music as AI-generated. Emails I sent to the address listed in Rose's TikTok bio went unanswered.
It's Nielson's job to make videos, so she made another TikTok to share her reaction to the discovery. "I'm so scared, you guys," she said, comparing her video to Rose's since-deleted one. The TikTok quickly went viral, amassing over 2.4 million views to date — confirmation that Nielson's shock had reverberated far beyond her usual audience.
"I even had a friend text me that day, and she was like, 'I did not know Sienna Rose was AI,'" Nielson said. "She's like, 'I have listened to her music before, completely not knowing that this is not a real person.'"
Gracie Nielson made a TikTok comparing her content to an eerily similar video from Sienna Rose.
TikTok/@gracienielson
AI influencers are here, and if Nielson's case is any indication, you may not have even noticed. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated and accessible to the average person, employers, companies, and brands have begun investing in the technology to reduce labor costs. Number-crunchers aren't the only ones who are being replaced — creatives are feeling the heat, too. Now, there's AI music on the Billboard charts, AI used in Oscar-winning movies, and, of course, AI all over our social media feeds.
Just as influencers once stormed the internet — harnessing the then-new technology of social media to draw eyeballs, score paid sponsorships, and rake in advertising dollars previously reserved for traditional celebrities — digital avatars are now poised to flood the same market.
Ally Rooker, a part-time content creator with nearly 190,000 followers on TikTok, described having AI imitate real-life influencers to hawk products as nothing short of labor-busting.
"When I see influencers promoting generative AI video tools, I'm like, 'You don't understand the reason that you have a career,'" Rooker told Business Insider. "You don't understand how fragile what you're doing is, and how fragile your revenue is. Because you're promoting your replacement."
The background and movements of Sienna Rose's TikTok have a lot in common with this video from influencer @e111esuh.TikToks: @e111esuh and @siennarosely
The multibillion-dollar creator economy was built on aspirational influencers who can promise their followers that a better life — or at least clearer skin, or a life-changing haircut, or a dream vacation — is just a swipe away. So what happens when a new crop of competitors is aspiration, personified: influencers who don't suffer from hormonal acne, bed head, or debilitating jet lag? Friendly, almost-human faces who don't need to eat, sleep, or even get paid?
AI influencers are already making money from brand deals
In a social media landscape where real people already use beauty filters and Photoshop, brands are going all in on artificiality. A 2025 survey of about 1,000 senior marketers in the UK and US from the social and influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy found that roughly 79% said they are increasing investment in AI-generated creator content. Grand View Research estimates that the global virtual influencer market will reach $48.88 billion by 2030.
Real influencers fear that could translate into a lot of lost income.
"Why would Maybelline pay a real person if they can just pay an AI person that looks essentially the same?" Rooker said, using the popular beauty brand as an example. "The person scrolling Maybelline's Instagram doesn't need to know who it is in the video. They just have to think it's a real person."
Aitana Lopez
Courtesy of The Clueless.
Right now, "think" is the operative word. Disclosure requirements for AI influencers remain murky, and lawful uses of AI vary from state to state in the US. While many AI influencers are labeled as such in their bios — Aitana Lopez, a pink-haired fitness and fashion influencer calls herself a "digital soul," while Olivia Brand, a blonde Alex Cooper knock-off who generates inspirational podcast clips on TikTok, calls herself an "AI it-girl" — casual scrollers on their FYPs can easily remain oblivious to the fact that they've encountered AI at all.
Even if someone like Nielson could make the case for a right of publicity violation — alleging that a third party has taken her name, image, or likeness and used it for a commercial purpose without permission — lawsuits are expensive, and a worthwhile payoff isn't guaranteed.
Aitana Lopez may not have a real body but she does go to the gym.
Now, Aitana has three full-time partnerships, including one with a Spanish salon chain. She was recently used in a Black Friday campaign for Amazon. The Clueless creative director Andy García estimated that Aitana's assets — including her brand deals, paid posts, and bespoke "skincare" brand, Vellum, which is actually a software program to enhance the skin texture of AI avatars — generate about $75,000 to $100,000 a month. Other AI influencers also boast thriving careers: Lil Miquela, one of the original digital avatars, has partnered with Prada and Calvin Klein; Xania Monet landed a multimillion-dollar record deal; and Shudu, marketed as "the world's first digital supermodel," has starred in campaigns for Balmain and Hyundai.
García doesn't see her company's creation and other AI influencers as job-killers, but rather hurdles real humans have the tools to overcome.
"Right now, AI influencers are really not a threat to real influencers," she said. "It's like any opportunity, to which real influencers can adapt."
Many people still prefer to follow humans over robots
While brands may enjoy the control and cost efficiency digital avatars afford, when confronted directly with the question of AI, many consumers remain unconvinced.
Comment sections online are full of backlash against AI-generated ads and digital avatars, particularly those that seem designed to blend in with real people. Sienna Rose has inspired numerous sleuths to comb through her videos for copy-and-pasted details. (Suffice it to say that Nielson isn't the only creator whose backdrops and body movements appear to have been cloned on Rose's page.) Others have gone viral for protesting AI creep in daily life, from bots replacing customer service agents to stumbling across fake influencers on their feeds. When they're not being fooled by AI, many are irritated by it.
Cameron Mackintosh, a part-time content creator based in Nashville, said she was shocked and dismayed when she was briefly duped by an AI influencer on Instagram — and, even worse, when she noticed that people she knew in real life were following the account. Her video about the revelation blew up, amassing over 1.7 million views and hundreds of passionate comments.
"I would never want to read a story written by AI. I would never want to read a book written by AI. I wouldn't want to consume a painting that was created by a computer," Mackintosh told Business Insider.
Cameron Mackintosh said sharing her life online is "very vulnerable," which distinguishes her videos from AI-generated content.Tiktoks: @cambigmack and @sacredly.savage
As Business Insider reported in October, consumer backlash to AI accounts is causing some brands to retreat from the tech. In February, The New York Times compared the AI boom unfavorably to the "dot-com boom," citing a 2025 YouGov survey in which more than a third of respondents said they were "concerned that AI would end human life on earth."
Allison Fitzpatrick, an attorney in New York with experience in advertising and influencer marketing, told me that concerns about intellectual property and copyright infringement — not to mention the demand for real-human relatability that made influencers a force in the first place — have translated to a lack of interest in AI influencers among the brands that she works with.
"I think the human audience, the followers, are smart enough to know that between an influencer who is human and can actually taste the product or go on vacation and stay at the hotel or fly in the airline," she said. "You're going to take the human influencer's endorsement far more seriously than an AI influencer who's done none of what I've just described."
Influencers are ready to fight back
Influencers like Nielson aren't giving up hope yet. They say leaning into reality, not realism, will be key to staying in business.
"A lot of content creators, people like to follow them because they are relatable — people sharing skin issues or insecurities, for example," Nielson said. "That wouldn't really happen using an AI avatar because it's not human. It's not real."
Content creator Emily Higgins has posted about the proliferation of AI influencers like Olivia Brand.TikToks: @emilyissocial and @itsoliviabrand
Emily Higgins, a North Carolina-based content creator who also runs a social media consulting business, told me that as high-production-value content becomes the norm, she expects to see a renewed embrace of scripting hiccups, grainy footage, and other deliberate imperfections.
"If something's too highly produced or too perfect-seeming, then immediately, it can be dismissed as AI," Higgins said. "We're going to see people trying to create more flaws in their content. We'll see more human, emotional, raw kinds of elements."
Some brands are already leading the charge. Dove and Aerie have vowed not to use AI in their marketing materials, using slogans like "Real People Only" and "Keep Beauty Real." Aerie, which stopped retouching its models in 2014 — putting stretch marks, blemishes, and body diversity front and center — earned its most popular Instagram post in a year thanks to its anti-AI promise. Meanwhile, Heineken and Polaroid have explicitly mocked AI and Big Tech in recent ad campaigns.
Influencing is often dismissed as a low-effort profession, but at its core, it's an act of vulnerability. To broadcast your face and feelings to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of strangers requires nerve and resilience, neither of which AI can reproduce.
As a result, Mackintosh said she expects people to begin seeking out creators and brands that put visible effort into the creative process.
"There's this novelty about human creation, and I don't think that will ever go away," she said. "I always think it will be appreciated. I just think there will be less and less of it because, economically, it will be easier to fake."
O CEO da Signal and Cipher veio ao SXSW dizer aquilo que poucos têm coragem de nomear: as empresas não têm problema de IA. Têm problema de design. E isso muda tudo. O futurista Ian Beacraft subiu ao palco do SXSW nesta segunda, 16, para aposentar uma das palestras mais aguardadas do evento.
Coca-Cola is using AI in parts of the marketing process that are invisible to consumers, such as idea generation.
Faina Gurevich/Getty Images
Coca-Cola and Svedka are using AI to enhance holiday and Super Bowl ads, speeding up content creation.
Companies like Mondelēz and Blue Chip use AI to test concepts, saving time and improving strategies.
The tech can help CPG firms work faster, but risks include AI slop in campaigns.
Coca-Cola's holiday ad and Svedka's Super Bowl commercial share more in common than promoting a beverage — both were generated with the help of AI.
The technology is catching on at consumer goods companies, with marketing leaders adding AI to their processes on both the creative and strategic sides.
As a result, assets and campaigns are coming to fruition faster than they could without AI.
Before AI, it could take Mondelēz International up to 10 weeks — from concept to production — to spin up a six- to eight-second social media video for its Chips Ahoy! character "Chip," said Jennifer Mennes, VP and global head of digital marketing and strategy at Mondelēz International.
Now, the marketing team can prompt AI and create a video in less than five minutes. After various checks by human members of the team, the total process might take days.
The biggest opportunities aren't necessarily in "big flashy campaigns," like Super Bowl spots, Mennes said. Instead, AI is helping CPGs quickly produce a greater volume of text, headlines, social content, and lifestyle imagery. As firms pump out more content, they could risk putting out AI slop and turning off consumers with AI-generated material. But so far, the efficiency gains are proving worthwhile as companies and agencies save weeks of time, especially on high-volume work and strategy.
AI can play a role in parts of the marketing process that are invisible to consumers, such as idea generation. Johnny Rohrbach, founder of global partnerships and operations at Silverside AI, said marketing teams and their partners can "come up with different directions until the cows come home." His AI lab works with several CPGs, including Coca-Cola, on its holiday campaigns.
Focus group testing is another AI use case. Sonja Evans, VP of business intelligence and strategy at Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide, said her agency partners with Waldo.fyi, an AI company, to create digital twins of a brand's target consumers, using detailed demographics and purchase history. The team then presents creative ideas to this synthetic audience.
"We can talk to them just like we would be talking to a consumer," Evans said. Based on the feedback, the agency whittles down the ideas before presenting them to real consumers. The feedback from digital and virtual consumers "is shockingly similar," she said.
Blue Chip — which has worked on campaigns for Bob's Red Mill, Emerald Nuts, and Panera Bread — also uses AI to create what's known as a boardomatic. This is essentially an animated version of a spot with voiceover, script, and motion, but without the time, costs, or hired talent needed for a shoot.
The agency can test multiple animated spots with consumers to gauge their reactions "before we even spend a dollar on production," Evans said. The agency then uses the feedback to decide which version goes into full production.
Avoiding the trap of AI slop
Today, consumers demand more content, creating a cycle in which brands must appear in their feeds more often to stay top of mind, Rohrbach said. Marketing budgets don't always expand to keep pace with consumer trends. He added that AI can help bridge the gap, allowing marketing teams to do more with the money they're allocated.
There's a fine line when it comes to volume, though.
"If the spots feel like garbage and if you're just pumping out content because you can, then you're going to turn off the consumer," Mennes said, adding that a human is always in the loop at Mondelēz. The CPG company sees AI as additive and enhancing how it already connects with consumers, not replacing workflows.
"Nothing goes into the market without rigorous approval," Mennes said.
For food brands, especially, imagery needs to look real and authentic, Evans said. "People are very quick to call out when something looks AI."
Consumers have blasted brands for AI slop, with many criticizing AI-generated Super Bowl ads as uninspired or low-quality. Rohrbach, whose AI lab partnered with Svedka parent company Sazerac to produce its AI Super Bowl spot, said brands need to ensure they're not putting out content that's irrelevant, poorly executed, or "a little bit tone deaf." His lab's Coca-Cola holiday ad was among the spots that drew criticism, but he said the ad performed "exceptionally well" according to internal and external testing.
"I'm super proud of that ad," Rohrbach said. He added that Coca-Cola is "very much on the vanguard" of AI experimentation, and CPGs as a whole are embracing the technology due to the high demand for content.
In fact, a BCG study from February found that seven in 10 CPG marketing leaders expect GenAI to help them work faster — although only 13% said the tech is fully integrated into marketing workflows. The report said the figures point to a maturity gap. Evans said bigger brands may have larger budgets to experiment with AI, while midmarket companies are contending with tariff and inflation pressures, making them more focused on business goals than on AI experimentation.
Mennes said major CPGs are "well on their journey" and "rapidly embracing this space." Plus, she's noticed a change among her CPG peers. For the first time in her career, they're cross-sharing ideas, comparing challenges related to hallucinations, and gut-checking solutions with one another.
"It's actually refreshing," Mennes said. "If we can help each other out on that, it just accelerates our ability to transform our organizations."
AUSTIN — Na Rainey Street, número 88, em Austin, quem entrar na Casa Minas durante o SXSW pode encontrar algo incomum para o Texas: café coado na hora, quitandas e pão de queijo preparados com ingredientes vindos diretamente de Minas Gerais. Para garantir a autenticidade da experiência, o governo mineiro gastou cerca de R$ 100 mil apenas no envio de alimentos e bebidas para os Estados Unidos para sua estreia no festival.
Existe algo de muito errado numa sala que discute tecnologia, inovação, humanidade e futuro sem convidar a China, o Japão e a Coreia do Sul para o debate.
Pessoas que jamais postariam um vídeo no Instagram para promover suplementos alimentares ou tiras de clareamento dental estão, cada vez mais, fechando acordos com marcas.
Só não as chame de influenciadores.
Eles são os “Influentes alternativos”, segundo a Figures, uma nova empresa de representação para pensadores públicos e formadores de gosto que exercem grande influência em seus próprios campos — apesar de terem seguidores relativamente modestos na internet, em comparação com o enorme alcance online de celebridades e grandes criadores de conteúdo.
No mundo da gestão de talentos, “você tem agentes literários ou agentes tradicionais voltados para modelos ou estrelas de cinema, e, no outro extremo, agências de criadores e influenciadores criadas para entregar escala”, disse a cofundadora da Figures, Jacqueline Kavanagh. “Essas pessoas não se veem em nenhum desses mundos.”
Entre os primeiros clientes da Figures estão Jaime Perlman, executiva de moda de luxo que publica a revista semestral sobre moda sustentável More or Less; Sari Azout, fundadora do aplicativo de ideias para criativos Sublime; a nutricionista registrada e autora de newsletter Kat Chan; e Lucy Kumara Moore, fundadora do negócio de varejo, editorial e eventos The Sensual World. Todos representam algum tipo de “bom gosto”, atributo que ganhou importância na era da inteligência artificial.
A revista More or Less, de Perlman, já publicou conteúdo patrocinado pela Microsoft e pelo site de revenda de luxo The RealReal, enquanto Chan organizou eventos ao vivo patrocinados pela rede de salões de cabelo Salt e pelo restaurante londrino Rita’s Dining. Outros, como Mindy Seu, artista, tecnóloga e acadêmica por trás da publicação Cyberfeminism Index, têm menos experiência com acordos com marcas.
“Eu realmente não me considero uma influenciadora — acontece que distribuo meu trabalho e eventos online, mas não crio coisas especificamente para redes sociais”, disse Seu, professora associada da University of California, Los Angeles. “Ter alguém na equipe para defender você em coisas meio desconfortáveis, como negociar cachês ou decidir quais parcerias fazem sentido eticamente, é muito útil.”
Na última década, Kavanagh e sua cofundadora Leila McGlew acompanharam de perto a ascensão e o declínio da mídia digital em massa. Kavanagh trabalhou no lado comercial de veículos como Vice Media e Refinery29, enquanto McGlew atuou em estratégia de marca e parcerias na revista Dazed e na empresa de pesquisa cultural Protein.
Elas decidiram focar em uma proposta mais específica após verem marcas se desgastarem tentando alcançar escala nas redes sociais enquanto algoritmos e comportamento do consumidor continuavam mudando.
A Figures se junta a um pequeno grupo de empresas que contestam a ideia de que o marketing de influência se resume a alcançar o maior número possível de pessoas.
As redes sociais ficaram lotadas de pessoas vendendo produtos, muitas vezes de maneira padronizada. Criadores profissionais e os chamados microinfluenciadores frequentemente fazem parte de verdadeiros exércitos de marcas organizados por plataformas como ShopMy, LTK e, mais recentemente, a startup Devotion.
A rede de roupas Old Navy aumentou seu portfólio de criadores para 15 mil no último trimestre, três vezes mais do que um ano antes, informou a controladora Gap. Já a fabricante do sabonete Dove, da Unilever, trabalha com dezenas de milhares de influenciadores e quer ampliar esse número em 10 a 20 vezes.
Como resultado, alguns profissionais de marketing estão buscando diversificar seus orçamentos de marketing de influência para incluir pessoas com audiências menores — mas mais propensas a prestar atenção ao que dizem — em espaços fora do barulho dos feeds das redes sociais.
Podcast e newsletter
A fintech Mercury, voltada para startups e pequenas empresas, destina a maior parte de seu orçamento publicitário a mídias tradicionais como anúncios digitais e outdoors. Mas cerca de 20% é direcionado a parcerias com clientes reais que apresentam podcasts intelectuais, canais no YouTube e newsletters no Substack, segundo a diretora de marca Heather MacKinnon.
“Nos concentramos em fundadores de empresas, e sabemos que, quando eles não estão trabalhando, geralmente estão aprendendo algo novo ou se desafiando”, disse MacKinnon. “Nossa abordagem não é ir para a maior sala possível, mas para a sala que tem as pessoas certas.”
Entre os influenciadores mais intelectuais que trabalham com a Mercury estão o podcaster de tecnologia e história Dwarkesh Patel, a jornalista científica Cleo Abram e Azout, fundadora do Sublime e agora representada pela Figures.
“Sempre haverá momentos em que as marcas precisam de alcance massivo”, disse Max Stein, fundador e CEO da empresa de gestão de talentos Brigade. “Mas às vezes elas precisam do oposto: mergulhar profundamente em uma comunidade, em vez de tentar alcançar todas.”
Stein abriu a Brigade em 2015 para representar o que chama de profissionais criativos e formadores de gosto de alto perfil. Seu portfólio se expandiu desde a primeira geração de blogueiros de moda e estilistas famosos na internet para incluir o podcaster e consultor criativo Chris Black, a bailarina Isabella Boylston e escritores do Substack como Emily Sundberg e Casey Lewis. Stein também intermediou recentemente parcerias entre a newsletter de cultura jovem “After School”, de Lewis, e marcas como Adobe e Target.
A Figures planeja se concentrar em ajudar seus clientes a desenvolver propriedade intelectual que possa ser patrocinada por marcas ou monetizada de outras formas. Isso inclui projetos como salões de debate, workshops, livros, relatórios, performances, zines e residências criativas. A estratégia é enfatizar o que torna essas pessoas influentes em primeiro lugar, promovendo seus projetos criativos em vez de suas personalidades.
“O que buscamos é um senso de originalidade, novas ideias, pessoas cujas ideias são difíceis de a IA copiar”, disse Kavanagh.
Entrar
