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Ogilvy, the WPP-owned advertising agency, is launching a service that it claims can deal swiftly with rogue influencers who risk damaging the brands paying millions of dollars for their endorsements.
The agency will this week introduce “Influence Shield” to help clients deal with reputational issues arising from the social media stars who promote their products.
The new service underscores how the use of influencers has become a mainstream marketing tool, with an entire industry now built to connect brands with potential paid supporters among celebrities and sports stars.
So-called micro-influencers — social media users who are well known in niche communities — have become especially popular to appeal to more specific groups, in a way that is difficult to replicate with traditional mass advertising.
However, the widespread use of influencers has also elevated the risk that brands will be embarrassed or face a backlash, given the difficulties in managing what social media personalities say and do.
The rapid growth of the industry has come alongside the rise of political polarisation, contentious social issues and the so-called culture wars, which has heightened tensions and increased the pitfalls of social media.
Ogilvy, which is part of London-listed communications conglomerate WPP, describes Influence Shield as a risk management service, which will allow companies to assess and categorise threats to their brands, alongside offering other content compliance and management tools.
The service claims to offer round-the-clock monitoring of social media activity, alongside a dedicated team to deal with crises and develop strategies to respond to brewing PR disasters.
The service also aims to help protect influencers themselves from any inadvertent backlash from their activities.
“Influencer marketing has become such a dominant force it represents the new frontier for brand reputation,” said Toby Conlon, global head of crisis and risk at Ogilvy PR. “Many businesses are finding out the hard way”.
Ogilvy will also vet potential partners by trawling through their social media history to uncover problematic material.
“We want to make sure one tweet from 2008 does not come back to bite them,” Conlon added.
When celebrities pitching products become engulfed in scandal, the problems can quickly become extreme. Last year, brands rushed to distance themselves from the US rap mogul Sean Combs, known as Diddy, after accusations of alleged sexual abuse emerged.
Issues can also come from more traditional advertising campaigns using recognised stars. Last week, Adidas pulled advertising images showing Bella Hadid after a public outcry about using the US fashion model, who has been accused of antisemitism by the Israeli government.
Rahul Titus, global head of influence at Ogilvy, said that “mitigating and managing risk is very important”.
“Influence is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ for brands, it’s a business-critical channel,” he added.
Ogilvy clients are now investing an average of 35 per cent of their digital spend in influencer marketing, which can rise to as high as 70 per cent. The creator economy was valued at $250bn in 2023 and is projected to reach $480bn by 2027.
