Questions? +1 (202) 335-3939 Login
Trusted News Since 1995
A service for beverage industry professionals · Friday, March 29, 2024 · 699,732,711 Articles · 3+ Million Readers

Digital Relationship Forge Engagement with Shoppers

By Heather Garlich, Vice President Media and Public Relations, Food Marketing Institute Johnson Fam SmartLabel Video

I recently read about a border collie that has 800,000 followers on social media and a $500,000 pet mansion. I immediately looked at my dog and silently judged him for not giving me a better life. While I quickly forgave my sweet Lionel, there’s no doubt that social media influencers are offering brand managers aspirational, inspirational and educational ways to engage with consumers and create value. Living vicariously through the lives of these influencers, we learn and discover – but there are differing viewpoints among major brands about the sustainability of this advocacy public relations model.

Influencers – humans and animals –live in a digital world where they have a strong consumer following based on lifestyle, humor, advice or even culinary skills. There are tiers among influencers; celebrities hold their own, but they can also embody everyday heroes who might give us a simple idea for how to make my avocado toast not so “basic,” for instance. They impart tangible skills or even encourage social or political movements. Like or dislike the concept, PR professionals have found a way to leverage influencers in campaigns that align with their clients’ brand values and create virtual experiences for their potential customers. At the heart of it, these influencers are lifestyle coaches.

FMI and its partners at Grocery Manufacturers Association recently worked together on a consumer-awareness campaign to demonstrate how to use SmartLabel®, a digital tool that helps grocery shoppers go beyond the traditional label of their food and personal care products, and we engaged an influencer to help tell our story. We chose “The Johnson Fam” because we targeted a millennial mom and felt it was important to represent the co-shopping that’s taking place among U.S. households. In the scripted and professionally produced video , both Natalia and Jeff Johnson and their two girls embraced the use of SmartLabel as they planned a get-together, cognizant that one of their guests had a food allergy. SmartLabel became the tool to help the family decipher products in the aisle of their local Stater Bros store. It was important that the content encourage an authentic at-home and in-store shopping experience using SmartLabel as a digital solution that this influencer family’s near-900,000 followers on YouTube would engage with and accept.

With the video serving as the centerpiece of our campaign, we tracked more than 270,000 views and 367 comments across the nation via a mix of earned and paid media. The video’s audience was representatively made up of mobile users and 100 percent female, bridging millennial and Gen X demographics. While the Johnson Fam is native to Southern California, they garnered the most YouTube views in Chicago, Charlotte, Boston and San Francisco, demonstrating their vast network. The Johnson Fam is also active on Instagram, and we witnessed engagement spike after they posted their SmartLabel video to their Instagram account.

While Facebook and YouTube remain strong social media platforms, PEW found that Instagram is the only social media channel in recent years that experienced a significant increase among consumers: “35% of U.S. adults now say they use this platform, an increase of seven percentage points from the 28% who said they did in 2016.” Indicative of the PEW trends, influencers are no longer channel agnostic and they create different experiences for their followers via video, photos, stories, blogs and vlogs.

Leveraging an influencer in a public relations campaign is not without risk, so it’s imperative to think through the audience, messaging and how your respective brands can interact and complement each other. While our experience was favorable and yielded positive engagement, strong sessions with Smartlabel.org and increased downloads of the SmartLabel app, vetting an influencer becomes especially important because we all know that consumers can spot a phony and they will call it out. In recent months, brands have expressed vigilance about their allegiances in influencer marketing strategies and they are proactively putting in place stronger parameters.

So how long will this influencer trend last? One of the nation’s most popular Instagrammers recently reflected on his unexpected rise to fame and suggested it’s only a matter of time before influencers will need to “get a real job” due to social media fatigue. Still, the age of influence hasn’t sunsetted just yet if we begin to reposition these engagements from ‘influencers’ to ‘content-creation partnerships.’ Then, we can truly cultivate these digital relationships and accept them as fundamental to our engagement with the shopper.

Powered by EIN Presswire
Distribution channels: Food & Beverage Industry


EIN Presswire does not exercise editorial control over third-party content provided, uploaded, published, or distributed by users of EIN Presswire. We are a distributor, not a publisher, of 3rd party content. Such content may contain the views, opinions, statements, offers, and other material of the respective users, suppliers, participants, or authors.

Submit your press release