Brands dump big influencers and turn to niche creators

Far be it from the rambunctious influencers with millions of followers oozing perfection from every pixel of the screen. The real revolution lies in simplicity, in authenticity, in everyday family life. This is what a young dad with a book in his hand is telling his daughter a bedtime story. A journey from a room of just a few square metres that nevertheless reaches out to embrace the whole world. This is the new campaign of Air New Zeland, a New Zealand carrier with almost nine thousand employees.

Relationships are no longer enough. Brands need to increase the perception of value with the consumer, i.e. an increasingly close two-way relationship. It is customer intimacy, that area that measures awareness and alignment with needs and values that goes beyond simply posting, talking, chatting. "You cannot be customer-centric without cultivating customer intimacy," wrote the Harvard Business Review, calling customer intimacy a valuable discipline. This is also what Branding e-volution 2024, a research project promoted by the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano and Upa (Utenti Pubblicità Associati), is about. A strategic vision on customer intimacy. "The construction of competitive advantage for a company has always passed through the design of an effective system of interactions with the market and a careful monitoring of the quality of these interactions and relationships. The real challenge becomes to acquire, satisfy and retain today's customers over time. These are changing their ways of interacting and approaching the brand and are transferring their expectations indistinctly with respect to the product or service offered by the brand across sectors. The pursuit of customer intimacy is the strategic approach to building lasting and profitable relationships with the market, as it is deeply rooted in understanding and aligning with customers' needs, desires, values and expectations,' says Giuliano Noci, professor of strategy and marketing at the Politecnico di Milano.

The research presented as a preview in Il Sole24Ore - the sample consisted of 120 big spenders in advertising - does indeed reveal an active role of the brand with respect to the challenges of contemporary marketing, but also the difficulty of making a qualitative leap on performance monitoring. In short, there is interest in the new frontiers of the creator economy, even more targeted investments in the adoption of models driven by artificial intelligence, but on the Advanced TV front and the related monitoring of transmedia strategies, we remain partially anchored to the pole for various reasons.

For 79% of cases, companies represent a bulwark on social issues and a reference point for brand purpose actions. 64% talk about it in a dedicated area on the company website, while for 47% of respondents it is conveyed in commercial campaigns with the choice of raw materials, the origin of the product, the adoption of packaging. To make the relationship between brand and consumer even stronger, the role of companies as activators and promoters of change in society has become central. The research conducted shows that, with respect to specific social issues and in a context where levels of trust in institutions are decreasing, brands are increasingly seen as an effective new point of reference for the activation of more incisive actions.

Even the latest influencer-related news stories for more than half of the brands surveyed have shifted budgets away from the big figures with tens of millions of followers towards micro and nano creators. A focus on those influencers next door who are more vertical, more thematic, more authentic and even cheaper. This shift in the centre of gravity concerned 58% of the sample who said they agreed fairly or totally. "Compared to the past, influencer marketing is used more for middle funnel objectives such as improving engagement and reaching new consumer segments. A picture therefore emerges in which brands favour a creator quality theme over quantity," says Noci. "Marketing and communication strategies are moving towards the hybridisation of branding and performance. In the meantime, influencers, like television and social, are not going extinct, but rather transforming and adapting to communication and business models.