Australia leads the way with transparency for influencer marketing

Thought Leadership
Ben Mayor

The world has moved past influencer marketing just being a phase or a box to tick in a marketing plan. Many brands now have influencer and ambassador engagement as a cornerstone of their marketing, with increased spend and emphasis being placed on these tastemakers to disrupt brand communications and deliver strong business results. Brands have experienced a big shift in channel engagement, throughout COVID-19 in particular, and our research shows that the average Instagram engagement with the top 300 influencers in Australia has been 43 times higher than the top 300 Australian brands’.

However, with increased spend and attention, comes criticism and scrutiny on how authentic and effective this tactic is. Australia recently made a huge leap forward in this regard with the establishment of the first industry code of practice for the influencer marketing category. AIMCo (Australian Influencer Marketing Council) was formed by a collective group of leading marketers within the category, to deliver increased accountability and transparency to a growing sector – and we are onoured to be part of it.

The code of practice has been established to arm the industry with an agreed framework for influencer engagement which, in turn, will bring more transparency to influencer marketing. The code defines:

Back in May, during the peak of the pandemic, we developed a research piece by interviewing key Australian influencers to discover what brands can learn from them in order to stay relevant. A key theme? Transparency. Influencers put their audience first and if the brand partnership fits, their audience will engage with it and marketers will benefit from it – otherwise, expect some serious backlash. 

As a proud member of AIMCo, we will be working closely with the organisation as we continue to advocate for the effectiveness and transparency of influencer marketing. Keep you all posted! To view the full code, visit the AMAA website. And if you’d like to chat about how influencer marketing can help your brand, just drop us a line.

Photo by Alexandru Zdrobău on Unsplash