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I have an unpopular opinion on the use of influencers in advertising campaigns; they are overrated and often killers of creativity. Give me a moment, I can explain.

Influencer marketing has been around for as long as there’ve been influencers, probably dating back to Biblical times when Mordecai asked Esther to leverage her influence in the campaign to reverse a genocide plan. It’s undergone great evolution up till now when it faces it’s greatest challenge yet; saturation.

In The Case Of Rubbish Influencers…

True influencers of times past will scoff at how the title is being prostituted these days. Thanks to the internet and social media, you could wake up unknown and go to bed an internet sensation. A ludicrous prank, a scandal, some controversial rants, a nude or two, a few thousand Instagram followers later (bots or organic, who cares?) and viola, you’ve arrived!

The desperation of brands to make quality connections with their audience means that anyone who claims to have significant audience appeal could easily be in business. Like anything that flows too much too quickly, it’s very easy to get correct usage wrong. There are brands with a comprehensive influencer strategy in place, something that’s possible when you’re clear about your brand’s identity, vision, your plan to become more relevant to your consumers and the authentic symmetry between brand essence/vision/strategy and the influencer in question. Most brands go chasing popular people before figuring this out perfectly.

The general assumption is that if he’s popular enough, we can’t go wrong. That’s like grabbing a megaphone believing that just because it’s loud, you’re making meaningful connections. Truth is you could easily be making noise for a host of reasons, not least of which is the bad sound quality of the megaphone itself. More than a threat, this bunch is an insult to creativity.

In the case of Great Influencers…

Great, legitimate influencers are like calculators…over time, you become so dependent on them that simple mental calculations become an issue. Don’t take my word for it, check with best-selling author of ‘Influence’ Dr. Robert Caldini. According to his research, people cant even commit 6 digit numbers to memory anymore compared to pre-mobile phone days when it was almost normal to commit the 10 most important numbers in your phone book to memory.

I worry that most agencies across the region subconsciously or inadvertently bench their creativity when they make the success of a campaign dependent on a celebrity. Not enough work goes into crafting an idea that’s powerful on its own because with a great influencer aboard you could get away with it. A campaign headlined by WizKid or Sarkodie will get thousands raving more because of their individual brands than because of the power of the idea, but who cares? Every time I see a billboard or print ad of an influencer holding a product or pointing at it and smiling, I cringe. I can’t help but think he’s smiling more because of the signing fee than a genuine excitement about the product he’s advertising.

Sometimes it’s even that he’s a great celebrity who is so unrelated to the product or campaign…but Marketing Manager happens to be a massive fan or his manager happens to be good friends with the agency media planner so why overthink it? When we become over enamored with having a celebrity aboard our campaign, it’s very easy to not ask enough of ourselves, to become creatively lazy. We become reliant on them to bring us results our creativity should be getting us.

Celebrities have become a quick fix for problems long-term strategic thinking impactful creativity should solve.

In Ghana where brands are waiting for the next hit song so they substitute a few words for their next promo, the situation is dire. Celebrities have become a quick fix for problems long-term strategic thinking impactful creativity should solve. This is partly why many SMEs don’t see the need to invest in agency support, because if it’s about finding a celeb, striking a deal and having him say he loves XYZ soap or chips, what do you need an agency for?

I love ideas that are so powerful that great influencers want to throw their weight behind it. P. Diddy shared an Instagram post from the SKY Girls Instagram page. Sky Girls is a campaign to strip the aspiration of smoking from teens by demonstrating how easy it is to be cool and have fun without compromising on your values or doing anything (like smoking) to impress your friends. I poured my all into it during the pitch because it had such a powerful aim and the great execution is a tale of amazing teamwork. We couldn’t have afforded P. Diddy, but he couldn’t resist our idea.

I admit, it’s very easy to be complicit of this quagmire, where instead of putting the spotlight on creativity or forming a co-creative relationship with an influencer on the foundation of a solid idea, we just settle for their social currency to do our work, but we must be relentless in our commitment to powerful ideas. That’s the surest way to sustained relevance.