Latest / Influencer Marketing with Fexingo: Creators, Sponsorships, and Modern Endorsement Deals / Why Authenticity Is the New Currency in Influencer Marketing
Transcript
- Lucas: So a couple of weeks ago, a pretty well-known beauty brand launched a campaign with five mid-tier influencers on Instagram and TikTok. The brief looked standard: bright lighting, product close-ups, a scripted anecdote about why they love the moisturizer. Standard stuff. And the campaign flopped — not on reach, but on sentiment. Comments were full of people saying the posts felt 'too agency,' 'too polished,' like the creators were reading off a teleprompter. The brand ended up pulling the campaign after three days. Luna: I remember seeing that. The hashtag 'scripted' was trending in beauty circles for about 24 hours. It felt like a tipping point — audiences have been getting more sensitive to that polished, ad-read energy for a while. Lucas: Exactly. And I think what we're seeing is a fundamental shift in what audiences value in influencer content. It's not about production quality anymore. It's about perceived authenticity. A Nielsen study from late last year looked at trust signals in sponsored posts and found that the single biggest predictor of positive brand lift was whether the audience believed the creator actually used the product before the deal. Not the lighting, not the editing — just that basic belief. Luna: That's huge. So a shaky iPhone video of someone genuinely talking about a product could outperform a professionally produced spot if the audience buys that the creator isn't reading a script? Lucas: Exactly. And brands are starting to catch on. Glossier has been doing this for years — they famously used real customer photos on their site, not professional shoots. Their influencer strategy is similar: they work with creators who already use the products, give them minimal direction, and let them post in their own style. Liquid Death does the same thing — their whole brand voice is irreverent and anti-polish, so their influencer campaigns feel like a friend making a joke, not a corporation pushing canned water. Luna: Right. And Liquid Death's approach is almost a parody of traditional marketing. They lean so hard into the anti-influencer thing that it becomes their brand identity. But that only works because it's consistent. If a brand that usually does polished, aspirational content suddenly tries to be raw and gritty, it reads as even more fake. Lucas: That's the danger zone — the over-authenticity trap. There was a big athletic wear brand last year that tried to do a 'real bodies, no filter' campaign with influencers, but the creators were all still very clearly following a brief about being 'unfiltered.' The audience could smell it. You can't fake authenticity any more than you can fake being funny. Audiences are incredibly sophisticated at detecting when a creator is performing vulnerability. Luna: And I wonder if part of that is because the barrier to entry for creating content is so low now. Everyone who's on social media has tried to make a video, so they know what a scripted versus unscripted moment looks like. It's not just a gut feeling — it's a learned pattern recognition. Lucas: That's a really good point. And the data backs it up. Nielsen also found that posts with lower production value — unsteady framing, natural lighting, no jump cuts — actually saw higher purchase intent among 18 to 34 year olds. The theory is that lower production value signals lower brand interference. The audience thinks, 'If the brand let them post this raw video, they probably didn't control the message too much.' Luna: So the optimal strategy might be to hire creators who already love your product, give them a clear but minimal brief — here's what we want you to mention — and then get out of the way. Let them post in their own voice, even if it's a little messy. Lucas: Right. And let them say something critical if it's honest. One of the most successful influencer campaigns I've seen recently was for a skincare brand where the creator started the video by saying, 'I didn't like this product at first. It took me two weeks to see results.' That honesty built so much trust that when she finally said it worked, people actually believed her. Luna: But brands have to be comfortable with that level of vulnerability. Most legal and marketing teams are trained to control the narrative. Letting a creator say something even mildly negative about a product — even if it's part of a honest review arc — feels risky. Lucas: It does. But the risk of seeming too scripted is starting to outweigh the risk of a little honest criticism. Because if a creator always raves, audiences stop listening. And if they always rave in a polished way, audiences actively distrust them. Luna: I want to come back to something you said earlier about the beauty brand that pulled its campaign. Was there any fallout beyond the immediate backlash? Did the brand lose followers or see a dip in sales? Lucas: Hard to isolate sales impact from that one campaign, but their social media engagement dropped about 15 percent in the following week, and their sentiment score on Brandwatch went negative for the first time in six months. The bigger issue is that the creators involved also took a hit — some lost followers because their audience felt they'd sold out. So the consequences ripple beyond the brand. Luna: And that's where the creator economy really intersects with brand risk. A creator's credibility is their primary asset. If a brand damages that, the creator has to decide whether the paycheck was worth the long-term trust loss. Some are now building clauses into contracts that let them retain creative control, or at least veto power over overly scripted elements. Lucas: I've seen that — some top-tier creators have started demanding 'authenticity clauses' that say the brand can't require them to read a script verbatim. They'll agree to mention certain points, but they want to phrase it in their own words. It's a power shift. Five years ago, the brand had all the leverage. Now, creators with loyal audiences have real bargaining power. Luna: It's also worth noting that the platforms themselves are rewarding authenticity. Instagram and TikTok's algorithms seem to favor raw, unpolished content in the feed — maybe because it keeps people on the platform longer. A perfectly produced ad might get skipped in half a second, but a creator talking directly to camera, even with a little stumble, can hold attention. Lucas: Yeah, and there's a whole genre of 'anti-influencer' creators now — people whose entire persona is based on rejecting the polished influencer aesthetic. They film in bad lighting, they make fun of the typical product endorsement tropes, and they still get brand deals. It's almost like a double bluff. Luna: It reminds me of how early YouTube was — all webcams and bad lighting, and that felt genuine. Then it got professionalized, and now we're circling back to the raw style, but this time it's a conscious choice rather than a limitation of the technology. Lucas: Exactly. And brands that understand this shift are starting to win. There's a direct to consumer supplement company, I won't name them, but they do almost no polished brand content. They work with a network of creators who are genuinely into health and wellness, give them a discount code, and basically say, 'Tell your audience what you think, we don't want to see it before you post.' Their conversion rates are through the roof. Luna: But there's a limit, right? If you give total creative freedom, you also accept the risk that a creator might say something off-brand or even damaging. How do brands manage that without eroding the authenticity? Lucas: It's a balancing act. Some brands use a tiered approach: for creators with small, highly engaged audiences, they offer almost total freedom. For bigger campaigns, they might still want a brief review, but they focus on guidelines rather than scripts. The key is to communicate the brand's values and let the creator interpret them. If you hire someone who genuinely aligns with your brand, the risk is much lower. Luna: I think we're heading toward a future where the most valuable influencer is not the one with the biggest following or the best production, but the one whose audience believes they're honest. And that honesty has to be earned over time, not just performed for a campaign. Lucas: I want to pause for a second because this kind of conversation is exactly why we keep this show ad-free and free to access. If today's episode was useful to you and you want to support that, you can chip in at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Even a couple of dollars a month helps us keep producing deep dives like this without any sponsors telling us what to cover. Luna: Yeah, it really does. We don't run ads — that's a deliberate choice, and listener support is what makes it possible. Lucas: So anyway, back to the authenticity question. I think the beauty brand's campaign failure is a case study that will be taught in marketing classes. It illustrates something fundamental: in a world where anyone can create content, the only scarce resource is trust. And trust is built in small, consistent actions over time, not in a single campaign. Luna: So what advice would you give to a brand manager listening right now who wants to pivot toward a more authentic influencer strategy? Lucas: First, audit your current roster. Are you working with creators who genuinely use your product? If not, find ones who do. Second, shorten your briefs. Instead of a three-page document, give them three key points and let them run. Third, be willing to accept content that doesn't look like your brand's Instagram feed. It might not match the aesthetic, but it will match the audience's expectation of a real person talking. Luna: And fourth, maybe consider a small test: let one creator post a completely unscripted review, even if it's not entirely positive. Measure the engagement and sentiment compared to your typical campaign. I bet the results would surprise some people. Lucas: Absolutely. And finally, remember that authenticity isn't a tactic — it's a long-term relationship strategy. If you treat creators as partners rather than distribution channels, your audience will feel that. And that feeling is the most valuable asset you can build. Luna: It's a better way to work, honestly. Less stress, more trust. Lucas: Alright, that's a wrap on this one. Thanks for listening.