INFLUENCERS AND THE THOUGHTFUL MARKETING MOVEMENT
In concrete form, the Thoughtful Marketing Movement has been around since 2019, when it was launched by online florist Bloom & Wild to allow their email list to opt-out from emails around sensitive dates like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. (Mind the Product delve deeper into how they achieved the change on the backend here.)
It’s a pledge that the Bloom & Wild gave other companies the opportunity to get behind and choose to make the same public commitment to:
1. Set up opt-out emails
2. Talk to your opted-out audience
Brands that have signed up include Neom, Papier and Treatwell, as well as many others. There are companies with a naturally holistic and inclusive attitude (like Calm and Live Better With), but it’s a broad range of companies, both large and small.
This decision not only proved that online D2C retailers like Bloom & Wild are ultimately tech companies (whatever their core products), but also has much wider significance in the digital marketing space: it’s so much more than the “little act of thoughtfulness” (as they call it), and in our opinion sums up a much wider notion. The roll-out requires thoughtful execution as well as ideation, and Bloom & Wild ensured that an opt-out would ensure no Facebook or Instagram ads, or mentions on their homepage.
Navigating consumer feelings and emotions are an essential part of success today, more so than ever. With social media presence a non-negotiable, the opportunities for existing and prospective customers to speak to a brand and hold them to public account grows with every new platform. Traversing this can be a minefield: brands don’t want to lose valuable contacts, but even more vital is creating an empathetic forum for their customers. It’s this kind of long-term thinking that will keep people returning again and again to brands like Bloom & Wild and their wider cohort of thoughtful marketing.
We aren’t returning to one-sided communication (brand to customer) any time soon, so the brands that opt in are creating a list of like-minded entities, a resource for consumers to utilise and receive a positive customer experience in return.
This idea speaks to the heart of influencer marketing. Influencers grew from the opportunity to disseminate recommendations and expertise directly, so they’re naturally disposed to making those kinds of considerations with their content. Influencers Robyn Donaldson (@almost_everything_off_ebay) and Emma Hopkinson (@thecrapflat) took this very idea and created Other’s Day, to lend their support for anyone feeling left out from days celebrating parents, something they’ve personally experienced. As well as receiving significant recognition themselves, Robyn and Emma have also amplified the companies creating opt-outs and it’s becoming an annual moment of shared support.
The thoughtful marketing movement has further significance for influencers: Firstly, recognising that the future of influencer marketing lies in long-term, scalable partnerships. So much of the industry still focuses on the short-term when executing activations with influencers so both marketers and influencers are both having to revaluate the way that partnerships are designed. This is brand advocacy on a different scale so key performance indicators need to evolve with it.
Secondly, influencers are increasingly packaging content so it doesn’t just make you laugh or ‘need’ a new dress, but to ensure that it’s accessible. This could come in the form of captioning all video content, and adding alt text to still images so followers using a screen reader will have better access (Instagram already has this function embedded for when you upload an image, as do Facebook and Twitter). The onus isn’t just on companies to make these kinds of considerations, and influencers are taking the same steps to consider their audiences.
Just like influencer marketing places emphasis on the individual people rather than the market as a whole, the thoughtful movement places credence in individual voices and takes heed from small segments of a community, rather than a board of directors or the entirety of a market.
So, how to embrace thoughtful marketing…
As a brand:
The first step is easy – sign the pledge. But what changes can you make to improve the emotional execution of campaigns?
Recognise pivotal moments. Consumers told Bloom & Wild their Mother’s Day-centric marketing isn’t serving them.
Take action: Bloom & Wild create a comprehensive, powerful response that speaks to the emotional and material needs of their customers, to make sure they don’t disengage.
Embrace learnings: A fully formed business model can make pivots to ensure the wellbeing of their marketing recipients, prevent backlash and protecting customers.
Emma and Robyn kindly shared their own advice to brands who work with influencers looking to make real, substantive change with thoughtful marketing.
Make it authentic. Cannot stress this enough. If you want to do something that helps or supports people, make the campaign about that, and resist the urge to try and shoehorn selling into it too.
Be humble. Bloom & Wild don't ask to be congratulated for their Mother's Day marketing opt-outs – it's just the right thing to do, so they do it, and we love them for it.
Don't steal. If you see a great idea online and think it could work for your business, ask the original creator – however big or small the account – if they'll work on it with you, and if they won't, find out why. Then use that information to improve your campaign. We've actually had a few challenges with brands using Other's Day to market their products, which is obviously the other, less good end of that spectrum.
Know your content creators. If you're organising a Mother's Day campaign, don't invite people to join in who very publicly don't have a Mum (this really happened).
Be a real person. Yes, you work for a brand, but you are a person. If you make a mistake, own up to it. Apologise. If there's a way to improve, let the content creator know what you're doing to make that happen - they're people too.
As an influencer:
Make sure your content is accessible.
Share your personal values with the brands you work with. This is crucial as your values likely represent those of your followers. Influencers are perfectly placed to voice these kinds of messages, because they can actually speak from the perspectives of consumers.
Invite your brand partners to support you when opportunities arise. Telling brands where and how they can funnel resources into you is mutually beneficial, and an effective way to take a partnership to the next level when working together,
Bloom & Wild were able to massively impact the way that their customers thought about them, with a really simple yet sophisticated change. Anticipating these kinds of needs won’t magically enable brands and influencers to anticipate times of difficulty and moments when audiences question processes and motivations, but the conversations will establish systems to interrogate and antagonise. This time period has been called ‘the new normal’ again and again, and the message for the future is clear: influencer marketing cannot continue to focus only on the short term. Measures of success need to go bigger in order for influencer marketing to grow to scale, while preserving what makes it an incredible tool. The conversations around connecting influencer activity with wider brand values and campaigns executed on other channels have been ongoing for years now, but right now is the crucial opportunity to bring this ideal to fruition.
We’re not saying that brands embracing thoughtful marketing are perfect, but ultimately the resources will come in helpful when navigating difficult times. More than ever, good influencer marketing is a genius way for brands to humanise their messaging, share products and services, and create advocates.