5 ms·

What I don't understand is why brands throw so much money at very young influencers. Are they specifically targeting young rich kids who spend big on products/

What I don't understand is why brands throw so much money at very young influencers. Are they specifically targeting young rich kids who spend big on products/merch? Seems like a small demographic for a $15B projected market...

dylan604 5y ago
It's the ultimate in product placement. "Someone who looks just like how I want to look is using product X. I need to use my money (or my parent's money) to buy product X so all of the everyone will like me." It's an absolute no brainer for them to do this. It makes more sense to me than targeted advertising from FB/G/etc. These people have subscribers that voluntarily decided to follow them, and are guaranteed eyeballs on anything/everything they post.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  I understand the advertising part of it, what I don't understand is who is actually spending the money. The people who follow these sorts of TikTok influencers probably don't earn their own money. I guess parents are shelling out big time?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Every large corporation has an annual advertising/promotional budget. They hire ad agencies and PR firms to handle that work. These agencies would be the people I'd expect hiring/paying the influencers. I'm sure they have a group of young fresh out of college employees that do nothing but scour the web for influencers keep tabs on their followers, the type of content they produce, etc. When a campaign comes along, they fit the prodcut with the influencer and hope for success.
    - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      I meant from the customer side who is spending the money, because kids generally don't have that much discretionary income.
      - lupire 5y ago
        There are a million children in the USA whose parents are millionaires.
      - MandieD 5y ago
        Non-poor American and European kids certainly have influence over how their parents spend money on them - almost all of them have discretion over which clothes and accessories are bought for them, if not how much money will be spent. Saturday morning cartoons were invented to sell things to American kids (by way of them begging their parents).
chimen 5y ago
It's simple math. They will throw at whatever brings the highest ROI.
prostoalex 5y ago
Younger audience is more susceptible to aspirational brand messaging - just look at TV ads for youngsters from few decades ago. Old farts are no longer trying to fit in, and in their purchases bring up terms like "lasting value" and "consumer reports". A friend's son, a newly minted teenager a few years back, had a Logan Paul sweatshirt and T-shirt at the top of the birthday wishlist. Never mind that's it's a generic Old Navy casualware with the Logan Paul logo imprinted on it (and marked up accordingly).
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  Right, so it is targeted at kids whose parents will buy these things for them.
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    Realistically I think it's probably targeted at anyone who's willing to [get someone to] spend money on it. Conspicuous consumption has been a thing for ages, and it's always been about presenting an image as having enough disposable income to be able to buy these sorts of things. The fact that some kids have parents who can afford to lavish this stuff on them only adds to the mystique. I'd argue that it's also inaccurate to characterize this as just a kids thing. Plenty of people my age and older dump money into brands like Rolex and Mercedes. The main difference I personally see is that the price tags are even higher, and the brands themselves turn over at a slower pace.
    - lowdose 5y ago
      Conspicuous consumption started with the invention of Santa Claus. Rolex and Mercedes leverage the snob effect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snob_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snob_effect
      - mumblemumble 5y ago
        It's way older than that. There are ancient Greek philosophers who seemingly devoted their careers to criticizing the phenomenon. I would guess it goes even further back, but, past some point, writing down one's thoughts on the subject wouldn't have been available to anyone who might want to write down their thoughts on the subject.
flir 5y ago
Do you want to be the brand manager who said "nah, lets not bother with that" if it turns out it works?
redisman 5y ago
You don't have to be rich to buy luxury goods. In fact most of them are bought by people who can't afford them but desperately want to own them. There's credit cards, parents, using all your disposable income on them since you don't pay rent, etc.
- nradov 5y ago
  Right. The people who can actually afford $500 shoes aren't the ones buying Balenciaga sneakers that look like clown shoes. Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers.
  - lupire 5y ago
    Yes they are, but they can afford to buy everything nice, not just a few ridiculous things. Also, poor people aren't buying Lambos and crashing them.
  - RugnirViking 5y ago
    > Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers source? no, seriously. All the marketing I see for luxury products and more generally point to yes, rich people are exactly as suceptible to advertising to poor people, if not more so due to having a greater share of disposable income.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    > Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers. I think you only have to look at the truly high-end luxury market to see that that's not true. A _staggering_ amount is spent on absurd products that only multi-millionaires can afford. And they've very much doing it to one-up the other multi-millionaires. The likes of watches that cost tens of thousands and cars that cost hundreds of thousands are generally actually-wealthy-person territory, say.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I recently read that half of Ferrari owners in the UK have a net worth of less than £1M.
analog31 5y ago
In my view, children's advertising targets all children.
snowwrestler 5y ago
One of the few named brands in the story is a fried chicken place. You don’t have to be rich to afford fried chicken. But fried chicken is a multi-billion-dollar industry. And it’s an industry that is deeply dependent on advertising to maintain brand awareness and segment the market. All fried chicken tastes basically the same, so customers choose stores based on brand attributes. Are you a Popeyes, KFC, or Chick-fil-A kind of person? Influencer marketing helps you figure it out and remember which place is the most desirable for you. This sort of thing works on many people, but teenagers are especially susceptible to it.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > All fried chicken tastes basically the same How many places have you had fried chicken in?
  - whall6 5y ago
    Some palates just aren’t as refined my friend
  - efields 5y ago
    It’s an oversimplification for effect. Yes, there’s bad fried chicken and good fried chicken. But when you’re hungry cruising down the commercial strip, there may be two national brands you need to quickly choose from. One of those brands comes out on top because their millions of ad spend got you in there once or twice and now they’re you’re favorite. Source: we got chick-fil-a curbside many Saturdays last year but at least two other fried chicken places are closer and we generally eat much healthier food.
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    All mass market fried chicken tastes pretty similar.
    - kjkjadksj 5y ago
      Lets agree to strongly disagree
didibus 5y ago
I think they might have older followers as well.
amelius 5y ago
> What I don't understand is why brands throw so much money at very young influencers. What I don't understand is that we, as a society, allow it.
timdaub 5y ago
One reason can be that they want to develop their branding as a long tail distribution of fans. If you look online, you'll also find baby naming websites that e.g recommend your kid to be named like a Disney comic figure. I can't pinpoint, of course, that this their motivation, but to me it'd make sense.

dylan604 5y ago

It's the ultimate in product placement. "Someone who looks just like how I want to look is using product X. I need to use my money (or my parent's money) to buy product X so all of the everyone will like me." It's an absolute no brainer for them to do this. It makes more sense to me than targeted advertising from FB/G/etc. These people have subscribers that voluntarily decided to follow them, and are guaranteed eyeballs on anything/everything they post.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
I understand the advertising part of it, what I don't understand is who is actually spending the money. The people who follow these sorts of TikTok influencers probably don't earn their own money. I guess parents are shelling out big time?
- dylan604 5y ago
  Every large corporation has an annual advertising/promotional budget. They hire ad agencies and PR firms to handle that work. These agencies would be the people I'd expect hiring/paying the influencers. I'm sure they have a group of young fresh out of college employees that do nothing but scour the web for influencers keep tabs on their followers, the type of content they produce, etc. When a campaign comes along, they fit the prodcut with the influencer and hope for success.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    I meant from the customer side who is spending the money, because kids generally don't have that much discretionary income.
    - lupire 5y ago
      There are a million children in the USA whose parents are millionaires.
    - MandieD 5y ago
      Non-poor American and European kids certainly have influence over how their parents spend money on them - almost all of them have discretion over which clothes and accessories are bought for them, if not how much money will be spent. Saturday morning cartoons were invented to sell things to American kids (by way of them begging their parents).

chimen 5y ago

It's simple math. They will throw at whatever brings the highest ROI.

prostoalex 5y ago

Younger audience is more susceptible to aspirational brand messaging - just look at TV ads for youngsters from few decades ago. Old farts are no longer trying to fit in, and in their purchases bring up terms like "lasting value" and "consumer reports". A friend's son, a newly minted teenager a few years back, had a Logan Paul sweatshirt and T-shirt at the top of the birthday wishlist. Never mind that's it's a generic Old Navy casualware with the Logan Paul logo imprinted on it (and marked up accordingly).

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
Right, so it is targeted at kids whose parents will buy these things for them.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  Realistically I think it's probably targeted at anyone who's willing to [get someone to] spend money on it. Conspicuous consumption has been a thing for ages, and it's always been about presenting an image as having enough disposable income to be able to buy these sorts of things. The fact that some kids have parents who can afford to lavish this stuff on them only adds to the mystique. I'd argue that it's also inaccurate to characterize this as just a kids thing. Plenty of people my age and older dump money into brands like Rolex and Mercedes. The main difference I personally see is that the price tags are even higher, and the brands themselves turn over at a slower pace.
  - lowdose 5y ago
    Conspicuous consumption started with the invention of Santa Claus. Rolex and Mercedes leverage the snob effect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snob_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snob_effect
    - mumblemumble 5y ago
      It's way older than that. There are ancient Greek philosophers who seemingly devoted their careers to criticizing the phenomenon. I would guess it goes even further back, but, past some point, writing down one's thoughts on the subject wouldn't have been available to anyone who might want to write down their thoughts on the subject.

flir 5y ago

Do you want to be the brand manager who said "nah, lets not bother with that" if it turns out it works?

redisman 5y ago

You don't have to be rich to buy luxury goods. In fact most of them are bought by people who can't afford them but desperately want to own them. There's credit cards, parents, using all your disposable income on them since you don't pay rent, etc.

nradov 5y ago
Right. The people who can actually afford $500 shoes aren't the ones buying Balenciaga sneakers that look like clown shoes. Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers.
- lupire 5y ago
  Yes they are, but they can afford to buy everything nice, not just a few ridiculous things. Also, poor people aren't buying Lambos and crashing them.
- RugnirViking 5y ago
  > Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers source? no, seriously. All the marketing I see for luxury products and more generally point to yes, rich people are exactly as suceptible to advertising to poor people, if not more so due to having a greater share of disposable income.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers. I think you only have to look at the truly high-end luxury market to see that that's not true. A _staggering_ amount is spent on absurd products that only multi-millionaires can afford. And they've very much doing it to one-up the other multi-millionaires. The likes of watches that cost tens of thousands and cars that cost hundreds of thousands are generally actually-wealthy-person territory, say.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I recently read that half of Ferrari owners in the UK have a net worth of less than £1M.

analog31 5y ago

In my view, children's advertising targets all children.

snowwrestler 5y ago

One of the few named brands in the story is a fried chicken place. You don’t have to be rich to afford fried chicken. But fried chicken is a multi-billion-dollar industry. And it’s an industry that is deeply dependent on advertising to maintain brand awareness and segment the market. All fried chicken tastes basically the same, so customers choose stores based on brand attributes. Are you a Popeyes, KFC, or Chick-fil-A kind of person? Influencer marketing helps you figure it out and remember which place is the most desirable for you. This sort of thing works on many people, but teenagers are especially susceptible to it.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> All fried chicken tastes basically the same How many places have you had fried chicken in?
- whall6 5y ago
  Some palates just aren’t as refined my friend
- efields 5y ago
  It’s an oversimplification for effect. Yes, there’s bad fried chicken and good fried chicken. But when you’re hungry cruising down the commercial strip, there may be two national brands you need to quickly choose from. One of those brands comes out on top because their millions of ad spend got you in there once or twice and now they’re you’re favorite. Source: we got chick-fil-a curbside many Saturdays last year but at least two other fried chicken places are closer and we generally eat much healthier food.
- pnutjam 5y ago
  All mass market fried chicken tastes pretty similar.
  - kjkjadksj 5y ago
    Lets agree to strongly disagree

didibus 5y ago

I think they might have older followers as well.

amelius 5y ago

> What I don't understand is why brands throw so much money at very young influencers. What I don't understand is that we, as a society, allow it.

timdaub 5y ago

One reason can be that they want to develop their branding as a long tail distribution of fans. If you look online, you'll also find baby naming websites that e.g recommend your kid to be named like a Disney comic figure. I can't pinpoint, of course, that this their motivation, but to me it'd make sense.