Launchmetrics releases its 5th annual State of Influencer Marketing 2019 report

How influencers are driving the conversation for today’s biggest Fashion, Luxury, and Cosmetic brands

A deeper look at why 80% of today’s professionals leverage this tactic for generating brand awareness, supporting their digital strategies, driving sales and building consumer loyalty

Launchmetrics releases its 5th annual State of Influencer Marketing 2019 report, which covers the challenges of reaching the customer of tomorrow, how brands are investing in digital talents, the similarities & differences of this phenomenon across fashion, luxury, and beauty as well as how to measure the ROI of this powerful marketing channel.

NEW YORK (April 29, 2019) – Launchmetrics, the leading marketing platform, and analytics solution for the Fashion, Luxury, and Cosmetic (FLC) industries, releases today its 5th annual report entitled State of Influencer Marketing 2019.  This report has been prepared by Launchmetrics and surveyed professionals in marketing, communications, and PR from the fashion, luxury, and cosmetic industries as well as influencers to provide a holistic approach and insights.  This year’s report also provides a special section for Fashion, Luxury, and Cosmetic industries, breaking down the numbers by sector. 

In the half-decade since the launch of Launchmetrics’ inaugural report, the digitization of our industries has brought with it new challenges and new opportunities, redefining the customer journey and causing industry professionals to rethink the marketing channels through which they speak to their customer. 

“In 2014 — at the brink of what is now accepted as Influencer Marketing — we began developing this annual report to offer professionals a useful resource in which they could better understand the evolution of this Influencer Voice. This was at a time when many said that this phenomenon would only be a passing or ephemeral trend. Yet, now that some time has passed, we have witnessed that this ‘trend’ was not as brief as some claimed and that it has in fact stabilized and become a common professional practice within our sector,” says Michael Jais, CEO of Launchmetrics.  “It is now a critical part of brands’ marketing strategies, and brands are investing heavily. it’s no longer a question of if brands should be engaging with these new channels, but how.

With the opportunity of increased sales, awareness, and brand loyalty, it’s no surprise that the number of professionals who claim to work with influencers continues to grow – 80% this year alone. However, with this growth, the influencer phenomenon is facing new challenges, such as maintaining authenticity or defining the return on investment of campaigns that are a part of omnichannel strategies. 

Not only is authenticity key, but our report reveals that brands are speaking to a younger audience and using influencers to leverage sales.

Year after year respondents to our survey claim they prefer working with Micro-Influencers or Mid-Tier Influencers (45.5% and 37.7% respectively) with one of the main motives being authenticity.  This coupled with the fact that industry professionals are paying closer attention to audience insights, points to the fact that brands are understanding the importance of maintaining authenticity – not just with the type of content, but by working with the right influencer and targeting the right audiences that are aligned with the brand. 

Launchmetrics’ report discovers that brands are seeking to reach younger and younger generations.  Although Generation Z consumers (those between the ages of 6 and 23) represent the smallest share of target audience in this survey, this group has more than doubled since last year, suggesting a shift in spending power in the near future. It is also interesting to note that this generation is a bigger target for fashion than for luxury or beauty – approximately 21% of fashion industry respondents target Gen Zers.  

In order to reach their customers, brands are leveraging influencers to drive sales and 76% of respondents confirmed having obtained better sales results thanks to their collaborations with influencers over the past year. When asking professionals about which goals their influencer campaigns were most effective for, awareness was the top answer. Yet, the biggest year on year increase was the percentage of respondents who claimed influencers were effective for driving sales (6.7% more than last year). 

The report also revealed that there is a strong need for better managing workflows, a 360-degree performance analysis and understanding of ROI at all levels. 

56.9% of respondents admitted to struggling with managing the influencer collaboration process.  This number shows a large demand for tools and services which support the content creation, identification, scalability, and contracts + payments. Brands are looking to focus on creating effective content with their influencer counterparts and scale their influencer marketing strategy to become more efficient in achieving their goals and seeking tools to do so. This is evident at Launchmetrics with sales for our Influencers tool, having more than doubled over the past year, as the market continues to develop.

An astonishing 83.4% of professionals claim to rely solely on social media metrics when measuring or recording the performance of influencer campaigns. However, with campaigns becoming increasingly omnichannel – this metric is no longer sufficient for analyzing performance. By benchmarking their Voices (traditional media, celebrities, influencers, owned media, and partners), brands can gain deeper insights into just how effective their key opinion leaders are and even identify the best tier of influencers for their target market. 

Lastly, when professionals aim to boost sales through an influencer collaboration, the ROI can be measured thanks to influencers’ direct link to e-commerce sites. Yet, what if the objective is to generate awareness? The proper measurement of the ROI of campaigns has become business professionals’ main concern (nearly 26% of respondents). Placing a monetary value on the buzz generated is possible through Launchmetrics’ proprietary algorithm, Media Impact Value™, which assigns a monetary value to every interaction, post, and article.

This year’s 5th annual State of Influencer Marketing report provides insights from professionals and influencers alike while offering a benchmark among the three industries – Fashion, Luxury, and Cosmetics. The report also features case studies of leading brands and influencers in our industries such as Chiara Ferragni and Fendi. Lastly, the report has exclusive insights from the likes of Cristiana Monfardini, Chief Communication Officer at FENDI, Enrico Zannini, General Manager, BolognaFiere Cosmoprof, Lisa Benson, VP of IMG Models, Joerg Zuber, Creator of @noonoouri, Jennifer Powell, Influencer Talent Manager and Digital Brand Strategist and more.  

To read more about the State of Influencer Marketing 2019 and how it compares to previous years, download the full report here. 

Press Contact:

Katherine KNIGHT
Corporate Communications Director 
Email: Katherine.knight@launchmetrics.com

About Launchmetrics

Launchmetrics is a Marketing Platform and Analytics Solution to help Fashion, Luxury and Cosmetics professionals discover, activate and measure the voices that matter for their brands. It is the most essential and trusted platform in the industry, yielding an unrivalled market penetration to the top seventy fashion and luxury brands worldwide including Dior, Fendi, NET-A-PORTER, Topshop and more.

Founded in NYC with operating headquarters in Paris, and offices in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Madrid, Girona (Spain) and Munich (Germany) and support in five languages; the company works with over 1,000 brands as well as partners like IMG, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the British Fashion Council, Pitti Immagine, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, and Google, to accelerate their business and build lasting exposure. The company’s industry communities GPS Radar & Style Coalition bring together over 50,000 influencers, editors, buyers and more to share content, events, news, images and more.

To learn more about Launchmetrics, please visit launchmetrics.com and follow us @launchmetrics

 

About MIV™

Launchmetrics’ proprietary audience-driven Media Impact Value™ (MIV™) algorithm measures the impact of relevant media placements on all channels (online, social, print), inclusive of paid, owned, earned mediums in order to derive a quantitative number for performance outcomes.

The algorithm has been finely tuned to specificities of the Fashion, Luxury, and Cosmetics (FLC) industries, relying on historical data to create a more accurate way of measurement. It also takes into account both media and content quality to provide a higher value for content posted by more influential voices or content that includes powerful images or videos. 

About The Voices

The “Voice-centric” approach places an emphasis on the Voices speaking in order to cross-compare performance. 5 main Voices are identified: traditional media, two Voices from influential individuals (influencers and celebrities) and two Voices coming from entities (partners and owned media). This reflects the real investments and organizational decisions that surround marketing and communications strategies and allows brands to craft the perfect “Voice mix” across various channels, media types, and regions.