Biggest changes in 2020 with Honest London Founder
2020 was a year like no other, what were the biggest changes for Honest London, celebrities, influencers and digital marketing? We have a chat with Founder, Lauren.
The biggest change that you noticed in influencer marketing?
I feel the obvious change is that throughout the many lockdowns/rule changes that many influencers messed up by rule-breaking, going on vacations and showing off their wealth in a tasteless way. This is still happening in 2021.
It's obvious that a huge amount of followers have lost interest in their favourite influencers whether that's down to being tone-deaf or just unrelatable in the past 12 months.
Many will be unemployed, furloughed, suffering mentally or lost a loved one due to Covid- 19. Seeing an influencer who continued their nice lifestyle, partied, showed off daily, broke rules or enjoyed unnecessary vacations will leave a bad taste for many, which will result in unfollowing and negative engagement.
From a brand point of view, it's been eye-opening to see a huge lack of interest in using influencers for their marketing. The ROI has dropped massively in the last 18 months for influencer brand deals, this could be down to Covid or simply the influencer trend fading.
It's interesting to see the change. We have been working with our brand clients on their 2021 strategies and comparing to last year; there has been little interest in using their budget for influencer marketing but a shift back to mainstream celebrity marketing.
The biggest change that you noticed with celebrities?
I feel Honest got super lucky and must have a great celebrity client list as all of our clients have yet to break a rule in this pandemic. We were clear early on in 2020 that it would be difficult to help out if they have broken Covid rules plus we would be the first to judge them.
I think in a bazaar way, 2020 has benefited a lot of celebrities from a social media perspective. We sat with each and every one of our clients on how we can use this time to show their fans who they really are in a creative and positive way. We explained showing off wealth would be a disaster, sharing 'rich people' problems such as complaining about boredom while sitting in a mansion... It would be laughable to the general public.
As an example, we have one client who loves painting in their free time which she has never promoted simply down to thinking her audience wouldn't care. We did Instagram lives of her painting which was an absolute hit and grew in views every time, this led to really fantastic brand deals and positive press.
I feel we saw how different influencers are to celebrities in 2020.
In 2020 we had 92 emails from influencers explaining they broke rules and pissed off their audience meaning they needed Honest's help.
We declined all 92 FYI.
In 2020, we had 46 emails from mainstream celebrities asking for social media to help on how to be entertaining and engaging during this period. The difference in attitudes was staggering.
The biggest change that you noticed in digital marketing?
The biggest change is the growth of Tik Tok. I mean, wow.
People locked up at home are bound to be more into Tik Tok than other platforms - it provides the opportunity to be yourself and as creative as you wish.
It's been downloaded 2.6 billion times worldwide, TikTok has about 1 billion monthly active users. To show how much it's grown, just in November of 2018, TikTok reported that the number was 680 million monthly active users.
It gives me nostalgia of when Instagram first came around and how it used to push talented photographers, anyone remember the popular page? Tik Tok is still in a place where brands haven't figured out how to take over and in the meantime, still continues to highlight creative people (most of the time).
The biggest change that you noticed with Honest London?
We have been incredibly fortunate throughout this awful pandemic, we continue to work (in a very different way) with wonderful celebrities and brands.
As for change, everything. Working from home is the main one which has led me to forget what jeans feel like, my clothes are catching dust and I've become an expert at 'business on top, party on the bottom'. My dog has featured in most meetings and become a part of the team.
We've got clients who we have never met, simply over Google Hangouts. Every aspect of our work has changed including cancelling all our client's events/shows/gigs and adapt and produce online versions where we can. Crisis work is completely different and much more frequent. People are bored at home looking for the next drama, it's like a wildfire out there for celebrity/influencer 'cancellations'.
We really can't complain as we have been super lucky, it's just been a lot of adapting and banana bread.
