• by Barbie Romero , December 20, 2024

Learn how Bayer’s Head of Social and Search Buying is reverse engineering the process of selecting influencers and how they are reaching a different audience with repurposing influencer ads on paid social.

1. Last time you spoke at the Pharma & Health summit, you presented on repurposing influencer content to use on paid media for your Claritin Diversitree Project. How did you go about selecting these influencers?  

We work closely with an influencer agency who helps us find the right influencers for each campaign. I like to think of finding the right influencers as reverse engineering starting from the eyes of your target consumer. So, if you do your research and have found your ideal target consumer, you then find out what kind of content that consumer is watching and engaging with, then finally you find influencers who are producing that type of content.

2. Was it an objective to repurpose the influencer’s content from the start of the Claritin campaign? 

You can use influencers in different ways and the most common way is to find influencers via the process I mentioned above, and then let the influencer produce content in their style integrating your brand in the most authentic way they know how. That content will then be seen by their loyal followers when they post it organically.  However, you can also use influencers as a source of content for paid media, but the key difference is now the audience is different. It is no longer the loyal followers of the influencer, but rather whoever you decide to target for your media campaign. That requires a different mindset of how the content is edited. For example, a two-minute video that an influencer’s loyal followers would watch to completion would almost never work as a paid ad because the audience is different. They likely won’t even know who they influence when the content shows up in their feed as a paid ad! As soon as the content becomes a paid ad, you should be following the best practices for ads on the platform you are advertising on.

3. Social platforms appear to be very noisily retreating from active content moderation. Where does that leave advertisers looking for clean, well-lit brand safety online? 

Of course, brand safety is important, and you should stay away from ad placements that could be conceived as your brand is supporting a specific person or organization, such as ads in profiles that are run on certain social platforms. Overall, in-feed social placements are safer because consumers have become smarter in the past few years and most know that social media is controlled by algorithms, therefore they don’t associate content before or after an ad in-feed with the ad or brand itself. They know that two pieces of content next to each other in-feed are not related to one another. Another trend I am seeing around brand safety is a return to comment moderation on brand social content (organic and paid). A few years ago, social platforms would recommend never deleting user comments because of concerns of alienating a customer, but now it is very normal to block/delete a comment that is not productive or breaks brand safety guidelines. 

4. Are game and metaverse social environments suitable for Bayer brands?  

I am a gamer myself, so these are areas that I am excited to explore how a healthcare brand like Bayer can be involved with, but we have not had much exposure to yet.

5. What’s the best career advice you’ve ever gotten?  

“Figure out your strengths and put work into multiplying them.” As humans we tend to think about our weaknesses and how to improve them, but you can get a lot more mileage out of figuring out what you are good at and putting yourself in situations where you will shine.

6. How do you recharge?  

Trying to do anything away from a screen, since screens are such a big part of my job. I love reading paper books still. I am also a competitive person, so I still like to play sports as long as my body will allow me to. Hockey and golf are my favorites to play.

If you’re interested in submitting content for future editions, please reach out to our Managing Editor, Barbie Romero at Barbie@MediaPost.com.