Influencer Marketing and Digital Signage: A Powerful Combo for Brand Growth
Andrew Tate coined a phrase saying that we live in an “Attention Economy.” What he means is that people who are able to gather up attention are able to monetize it easier than ever before. We have reached a point where being able to direct attention is not just a salable skill, it is an actual commodity. It is something you can sell and keep selling so long as you keep drawing attention. Influencers are the primary beneficiaries of this attention economy. They have the attention of masses of people, and they are able to direct that attention to you for a price. If you mix influence marketing with digital signage, you have the potential for some serious brand growth.
The Nunchucks of Marketing
If you are a medieval warrior, you can easily hamper and kill somebody using a spear if you are good at using nunchucks. However, becoming good and dangerous using nunchucks is intensely difficult. Using influencer marketing and digital signs in order to grow your brand is just like using nunchucks during a war. You can be intensely effective, but it takes a lot of work and experience, and most people fail miserably.
There are only a few occasions where branding becomes easier, such as when the influencer is somebody who is already deeply involved with the brand itself. The likes of Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Richard Branson are easy to use for a branding marketing exercise because they are the influencers. They can say more, their words have more meaning, and their promises can be taken as facts because they are deeply involved in the inner workings of the brand.
Another occasion where branding, digital signs and influencers become easy is when the brand fits with the influencer in a very big way. For example, there was a show called “Home Improvement” that had two men who ran a DIY TV show within the actual show. If these two were on digital signs promoting flower shops, it won’t help grow the brand, but if they were promoting power tools then it would have a large impact.
Why is Influencer and Digital Sign Marketing So Difficult?
The prevailing theory is that this type of marketing is so new that people are still making very random and very obvious mistakes. Elvis Presley was the first superstar on the planet because he rose to fame as the television was becoming a major household appliance. As a result, he made all the famous celebrity mistakes, from the lavish lifestyle to the drug addictions, he openly made all the mistakes that modern celebrities try to cover up. Modern marketers are seemingly doing the same thing with their influencer promotions, they are making mistakes that future college students will look back on and laugh.
There doesn’t seem to be an easy fit for the various types of brand marketing. For example, there are digital sign videos in theaters showing influential standup or TV celebrities making comments and telling people to visit, and even though they help sales, they don’t grow the brand. Yet, when social media influencers visit live outdoor events, they are splashed all over the digital signs and suddenly the venue/event’s brand is a household name (i.e. becomes very popular).
It seems like there is no easy answer and no easy fit, which means marketers are going to have to find ways to make influencer promotions fit with their own unique brand growth strategies.
Are Influencers Making Headway With Digital Signs?
When influencers are instructed and coached by professional marketers and PR people, then influencers can make an impact using digital signs. When influencers are left to their own devices, they are awful at making an impact. Even the likes of Mr Beast need to spend and use more money than they make, safe in the knowledge that their social media gains next month will pay for the many loss leaders they hosted today.
It seems that many business marketing teams are confusing typical celebrities with influencers. Usually, a celebrity is coached and managed at almost every turn. This is why it is so surprising that many of them can go onto talk shows and appear human, and then go on Twitter and say some outright dumb and ignorant stuff.
Influencers have it worse than them because they are not coached and trained. They are not managed or guided by rules and contract laws. As a result, the level of impact and quality you get from influencers on digital signs is very hit and miss. You need to be the one who controls everything, from how the influencer appears to when that influencer smiles. If you want good value for money from your influencers, then take as much control as possible.
Influencer and Digital Sign Marketing Doesn’t Backfire
Make no mistake, your marketing method may fail dramatically. It may fail to make any sort of impact on your brand. Yet, there is no way it can backfire in any meaningful way, and this is because it isn’t interactive. Unlike a social media campaign or a TV campaign, your digital signs are not interactive, and they don’t have the coverage that TV stations have. As a result, you can get influencers to do just about anything, and even the worst decisions will have a very light negative effect.
But, with that in mind, isn’t it possible that any brand growth will also be small and very light? In most cases, no it doesn’t. In most cases, if a digital sign experience is brand-positive, then it tends to be very certain and very defined.
Think of it like a cheap hotel room. If you book a cheap hotel room and it smells musty (bad/negative), then it won’t sour you on visiting the branded chain again, but you probably won’t brag about it to your friends. However, if the hotel has the whitest cleanest sheets ever, and the TV addresses you by name, then you will remember your brand interaction and it will have a very positive effect.
The same is true of digital signs. When people take notice and are impressed, then it helps the brand. If people are unimpressed, then they often simply forget what they saw (which isn’t always the worst possible outcome).
For more information on up-and-coming trends, on influencer promotions and digital sign marketing, check out the digital signage news.
