The Influencer Marketing Lab

Games industry is bigger than music & movies combined but it's not a vertical

• Scott Guthrie • Episode 8

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Episode 8 of the Influencer Marketing Lab - a weekly podcast tracking the growth spurts and growing pains of influencer marketing.

This podcast is sponsored by Tagger the data-driven influencer marketing platform and social listening tool.

This week Scott Guthrie is in conversation with Rich Keith, CEO & Co-founder of Fourth Floor an influencer marketing agency headquartered in the UK.

The episode covers:

  • Why many of the old media and marketing models no longer work in the new influencer marketing landscape
  • Why agencies which focus solely on Instagram may be doing the wider industry a disservice
  • Why influencer marketing will lose its prefix and become just marketing
  • Is it time for me to stop banging on about influencers being media mastheads of one (no, not by a long chalk)
  • Why games is not a niche or a vertical. The industry is bigger than movies and music combined. It's a directed activity which helps us better communicate with friends 
  • How you make emotional connections with consumers 
  •  Why influencer marketing needs a global trade body
  • The dangers of over-regulating influencer marketing

👍Check out the Influencer Marketing Lab for full show notes, related useful links and a transcript.

🆕 Don't forget to sign up for the companion newsletter The Creator Briefing ( https://www.creatorbriefing.com/ ) - the weekly newsletter from Scott Guthrie which provides a breakdown of all the major news from the creator marketing industry alongside his insight and analysis.

Scott Guthrie:

Hello, I'm Scott Guthrie and this is episode eight of the influencer marketing lab. This week I'm in conversation with rich Keith, co founder and CEO of fourth floor, an influencer marketing agency headquartered in the UK. Coming up at this episode we discuss why many of the old media and marketing models no longer work in the brave new world of influencer marketing by agencies which focus solely on Instagram maybe doing the wider industry a disservice why influencer marketing will lose this prefix and become just marketing. Is it time for me to stop banging on about influence as being media mass has have won? No, not by a long chalk. Why games is neither a niche nor a vertical. The industry is bigger than movies and music combined is a directed activity which helps us better communicate with friends, how you can make emotional connections with consumers and why Influencer Marketing Leads a global trade buddy. The influencer marketing lab has been made possible through exclusive sponsorship by Tiger Tiger is the number one data driven influencer marketing platform and social listening tool. It's an all in one SAS platform that helps users succeed in every step of the influencer marketing workflow. With it you can discover the perfect influences, research your target market, activate campaigns and measure influencer success all in one intuitive platform. If you want to see how Tiger to work with you go to Tiger media.com slash request hyphen demo. This week, I'm in conversation with rich Keith Richards, the co founder and CEO of fourth floor an influencer marketing agency headquartered in the UK, which has more than 20 years experience in the media, moving from writing for newspapers and editing magazines, to publishing digital brands, and then working with online content creators. First as the chief Revenue Officer at the YouTube and Twitch network, the Yogscast. And then found in fourth floor in November 2017. Fourth floor is focused on generating value for creators for brands and for agencies through video content, merchandise and events, the company has grown from a staff of just two at launch to over 30. And offices in France, North America, as well in the UK, or in under three years. Welcome, rich.

Unknown:

Thank you, Scott. Glad to be

Scott Guthrie:

a long career in the space and a busy last three years. Can you give me a brief overview though of your day to day role as CEO of four floor?

Unknown:

Well, it's definitely changed over the three years since we launched, that's for sure. Going from for the first three, six, probably 12 months doing everything from buying equipment and writing web copy, doing all the all that huge amount of client and creator comes and doing all the finances to to a more refined CEO role. Which really for me, it's about it's about communicating the vision that we have internally. And in a way that people can then communicate externally, and setting the goals and strategy along with the team but but making sure that that's that's there and then we're tracking against it. And then really day to day it's about unblocking as much as possible so everyone can get on with what they need to do. Last week on the

Scott Guthrie:

influencer marketing lab. I spoke with Jennifer quickly drones, founder and CEO of digital voices Jennifer spoke have a similar entrepreneurial experience where she had to spend a lot of plates at the beginning when she founded her agency. But over the last two or three years, she has been able to specialise and grow into her role of CEO Have you noticed a step change in output and culture now that you're able to focus on your role as CEO?

Unknown:

Definitely. But um, we did go in I did go in with a very, very clear idea of what I wanted to do with the company and how we were how we would set up we went in or, to be clear, I went I went in with a with a vision for what we're doing a clear mission, and which was to support and remains to support content creators. And an idea of the sort of culture that I wanted the company to have. I'm I've been around a bit as you mentioned at the top of what's in different companies, I've started my own company before and work with small and large businesses. And I had I had a clear idea of the sort of company I wanted for flow to be. Now it's not exactly that company because culture is is defined not by what I decided is but by the the actions and the deeds of the people that work here. We started off with a very clear idea and that has moved along for the impatient stuff, which is the, what our mission is, what our values are, what the company culture is, it's grown on it rather than change direction. In terms of our trading. If you like what we do day to day, then things have changed. It's a it's fast moving, working with content creators working in influencer marketing, you know, when I started working with creators, no one use the term influencer marketing. And I do realise A lot of people say that in interviews now to to mark how long they've been doing it, but but it will, and, you know, is working with great is, is in constant change. And so, so we definitely move with that. That

Scott Guthrie:

leads me neatly on to the next question about the challenges, and we'll come on to the opportunities in a second, but what what are the biggest challenges you have with your specific role right now? And how are you? How are you going? or How are you planning on overcoming them?

Unknown:

I think, broadly speaking, if you think about the influencer marketing area, thin for the biggest challenge is, is that it's in constant change, I think, in the sense that if I think about it, it does remind me a bit of the transition that we had from print to digital, and I'm old enough to have gone through that and many businesses through sadly, likewise,

Scott Guthrie:

yeah.

Unknown:

What I mean by that is that people have gone in to it to a nascent area with a preconceived set of ideas about about hard work, broadly mapping them onto the old model. And a lot of the change is understanding that our models don't work and reinventing as you go along. I think that's just a classic thing of, of a new industry, but a new a new way of working, that it will be driven at the start by legacy businesses. And often first entrance will follow that map over time you get to, you know, work out what what the new map should be. And that is sort of challenge for me is day to day for our businesses thinking that through and and really thinking about what the value of what we do is.

Scott Guthrie:

on an earlier episode, I was in conversation with Ashley fridolin, who set up a consultancy back in 1999. In discussion, he said that there are lots of similarities between digital marketing then, and influencer marketing. Now, that's a really interesting sort of way to look at it. And yes, we will try to try to tackle the new world with old world tools. And that's not necessarily going to work. But we're in the state of flux. I think, as he said, one of the facets of us being in a fast moving industry is that everything is is fluid. Are you seeing a shift from brands and influences towards being platform agnostic?

Unknown:

I think there will be a long correction away from Instagram, that will will unfold over time. If we're all doing our jobs properly, then the idea of being platform specific is against the grain when you think about what we're trying to do, which is how do you create value with working with creators to engage their audiences and to create emotional connections with their audiences, then just thinking you only work on one platform or one type of creator is is really reductive? way of looking at it. So how that has been reflected in the market? I think broadly, I think people people do understand that they're trying to get something out of this. I think there is lots of agencies who are singularly focused on Instagram. And I think that is that that's overall a problem for us. Because there's specific kinds of content and specific kind of content creators on that one platform and allowing that to dominate because it's easy, is not the outcomes that that marketers need for how they connect to their audiences.

Scott Guthrie:

That extent do you think it is the the industry is being driven or led by platforms that specialise in Instagram, and also by mainstream media, whenever they talk about influencer marketing, they're inevitably talking about love Island contestants who have large followings on Instagram. So is that one of the drivers do you think for this push on this woman, I suppose Lastly, on Tick Tock.

Unknown:

Yeah, well, absolutely. And it's the the sheer voice that they're able to get from a cultural point of view at the moment. So I don't want to put it all down to laziness is some part of that, that it's easy to do, and it's everywhere. So it feels like that is the conversation. But I think the correction will happen and is starting to happen because of the less less that people's fascination with that goes away. And more than the maturity of understanding the challenges and opportunities, especially opportunities of working with creators means that you have to be you can't Just think that way, because I think part of this and part of the ease of why people are more comfortable with Instagram is because it is easier to map, what you do, they're across to an old legacy advertising model, in the sense that you can kind of map the sort of product placement that has been very popular on Instagram, to, to advertising, and a lot of it is bought in that way, can I put my product in front of X amount of people, or usually someone who has x amount of followers and pay a CPM style rate for that, the way we think about that is already starting to change and and will inevitably change as the maturity of what we what we call at the moment influencer marketing. And I think, as with digital marketing, it will just become marketing changes and evolves.

Scott Guthrie:

Does that lead on to a more integrated marketing programme rather than a standalone influencer campaign? So we've talked about being platform specific, but are we are we now seeing more influencer campaigns that are part of bigger campaigns, they might have been part of TV, they might be part of radio or out of home, for example, slowly,

Unknown:

slowly, slowly, and it's happening in in fairly straightforward traditional ways at the moment, but there's, you can definitely see the path to it. And as as the idea of influencer campaigns fall away, then more and more than this will happen, you know, as you've spoken about in the past, on most of the podcasts, and we're moving, we're moving towards the world where everyone is their own media company, or a masthead of one I think is your is your

Scott Guthrie:

Thank you for listening closely. Yeah, it's kind of an atomization of Tom form ski that the former ft. tech guy who said that every company about 10 years ago, so that every company should be a media company. And I think since then, because of the proliferation of fast internet and smartphones, we all have the proclivity to be our own media masters of one our own influences. Yes. Thanks for picking up,

Unknown:

you can feel it happening, right. And the differences between being an influencer, which, broadly speaking, we mean that someone who's built their audience on social channels, and they haven't seen that and, let's say, a media built brand, with with an audience or a celebrity or a different kind of creator becomes meaningless when everyone's when everyone's across all of the same channels, which is, we're getting there now. Right? So, you know, is a footballer, a sports star, a celebrity, and influence, you know, what are they? It all starts falling away. And that idea of what an influencer is, will become meaningless. I would expect and definitely hope this so in the end for me and what we want to do it, we'll come back to creators and the creativity rather than just the fame part of it.

Scott Guthrie:

Yeah, that's key, I think and kind of morphs into what is celebrity endorsement versus what is influencer marketing. And in terms of celebrity Cristiano Ronaldo apparently earns more from his sponsorships on Instagram than he does from playing football for eventers. It's no small beer for playing events. It's $34 million a year, but apparently he makes 47.8 through his Instagram account. I would say that celebrity endorsement is kind of a one way comms it's scripted content rather than building that community up around those values and a point of view. This podcast has been made possible through exclusive sponsorship by tiger. I particularly like Tigers discovery tool, because it lets you apply hundreds of different filters to their huge database so you can find exactly the influences you want that perfectly match your campaign. I've seen agencies and brands discover high value influences in less than court for an hour Tigers affinity tool takes discovery a step further by showing you an influencers brand affinity. What does this mean? It means you're able to partner with influencers who are most likely to enjoy your brand or product, Tiger focuses on their customer success. When you sign up to the platform. You'll give it a dedicated customer success manager. They guide you through everything, from onboarding, to training, to just checking in and making sure you're finding success with the platform. When you're running an influencer campaign. Sometimes it can be difficult to measure your success, but it's easy to report your campaign data with tiger. Their modular Report Builder lets you pull accurate real time data directly from social media platforms. You can also choose which metrics matter most to you and your clients, meaning you can customise the data that you show in your report. Something that can be overlooked when you're choosing an influencer market. platform is the quality of the data. Tiger has direct API access to all major social media platforms. This gives Tiger users 100% accurate real time data that's gathered responsibly, you can't find a good strategy if you're not looking at good quality data. If you're looking to scale your influencer marketing efforts, Tiger is a truly global solution. It's availability in over 10 languages. And the ability to make multi currency payments directly on platform gives brands a huge advantage when running multinational, multi lingual influencer campaigns. If you want to see how to get to work for you go to Tiger media.com slash request hyphen demo. I'd like to now talk a bit about your pedigree in gaming and journalism you come from come with a strong pedigree in gaming, both as former editor and publisher of gaming media titles such as UK PlayStation Magazine, edge, PC gamer, PC gamer.com, and Official Xbox. But also, as we said in the intro, you have been the chief Revenue Officer at your cost the network of gaming YouTubers, and now you're the founder and CEO at fourth floor. It's a lineage of 20 years, and I'm keen to better understand the world of gaming and how it relates to influencer marketing. Is gaming a channel or is it something altogether different?

Unknown:

I think this is fascinating. And I was it's always interesting talking to people about this, because when you start talking about games in gaming, there is a preconceived idea of what that means. And especially what a gamer is, what people miss is the incredible change that has happened over the last 10 years just over the last 10 years. And as with everything else that has been talked about, and probably would talk about from a cultural or technology point of view, the smartphone has changed everything. And a lot of people still hold the idea of which essentially goes back to 1995 of of the plate, the original PlayStation. And that is a long time ago, the world has changed massively since then. And the reality of all of this is that almost everyone under 35 is a gamer. And the majority of people over 90% of people globally play games on a device at least once a week, very few of them, in probably single digits would consider themselves or self label themselves as gamers. And I think it's really hard for people to get them to get their heads around that. Especially I have to say people from from a legacy marketing background, where it is a it's a niche sector. That doesn't really affect anything else they do when the reality is that games isn't averse, cool. It's not a niche sector. It's not boys in their bedrooms playing their Xbox and playing Halo. It's not really about that anymore. Games is a is a horizontal that includes all the popular culture. And that goes from stuff you might think of as games like fortnight and stuff, you might have heard of like four guys on PC, which is massive this summer. But two words with friends and clashing plans and everything else that you find on your mobile phone. And the sector is worth but it's worth more than films and music put together. And it's growing unlike those it's growing at exponential rate. It's not going to slow down. And it's growing as a not as its own sector grown but as a horizontal across the whole of popular culture.

Scott Guthrie:

I'll try and dig out that stat bigger than music and and movies combined. But also the stat I've got, which is close to your 90% Global web index, the entertainment trends report from last year which said that 92% of internet users game on at least one device once a week. These are colossal, colossal figures.

Unknown:

It's essentially everyone is playing games, they just is not the same thing as self identifying as a gamer. And I think getting people's heads around. When we talk about games and gaming. It's not It's not that it's what everyone's doing. And more and more. It's moving towards the towards the centre of popular culture

Scott Guthrie:

as influencer marketing as well. Here are some more figures to add colour to your argument. online gaming platform Roblox is said to be preparing for an IPO in as early as 2021. The listing could value the company at $8 billion. That's doubling the valuation from earlier this year.

Unknown:

Roblox really interesting, hardly anyone's heard by blogs. His take is taken a slowly slowly approach to growth. And he's enormous and it's not a game. I mean, that's the other thing to think to remember. It's a platform for people to make games and other people to play games. And to be able to interact with the people making games and change them as they're made is a really fascinating development of what a game means. Because again, the cliched idea is that you have big games company that you might have heard of like, EA or Activision, make games. And these kids in their bedrooms play them too much. And their parents shout at them for not not getting outside into the fresh air. That not that that's, that's really not the model anymore. That is people with a model that's well over 20 years in their, in their heads and things like Roblox, and and fortnight, which has its fair share of parents pulling their hair out of kids playing them too much. These games are not modelling themselves on just people playing a game should be playing the face over and over again, they are building platforms, and they're doing it in a really meaningful way. Because they understand they're built out to understand what the future looks like games are not just about that playing the game, they are communication. And a lot of people use them just as a way to talk to their friends. And to have something to do while you're talking to your friends of directed, directed activity, which is what most of us actually do in our friendship groups, you know, whether that's sitting in a pub chatting, or whether it's watching the football or whatever it is. And games is is a way of communication and that's blown up even more during during the pandemic, when people are stuck at home. Certainly younger people weren't necessarily on zoom, chatting to their to their friends, living zoom quizzes and and zoom drinks. But they were in playing games and chatting and having those conversations there.

Scott Guthrie:

So what's next a gaming then

Unknown:

the future of all of this where this is going where games becomes even even more central to everything we're doing is and I know you you chat a bit badly about this on one of your podcasts was is the metaverse and that is a is an active strategy for a lot of games is how do you build towards what comes next what the internet becomes next post web which the term metaverse is becoming more and more used at the moment and certainly epic and a fortnight that's the term they're using about what they're trying to build. And that's why you see in fortnight it's not just a game. They have a building a platform where people can have music concerts and have a millions of people interact with them watching. And just in a lot more things come out of epic and fortnight about building as a platform. And Roblox fits into that Roblox is one version of what what that could look like.

Scott Guthrie:

One in for consumers are now more likely to source news updates and opinions from social media influences than from journalists or from established news outlets. This comes from a recent survey by Takumi, which interviewed 3000 consumers in the UK, in Germany and in the US, as a former journalist and now head of an influencer marketing agency. Are you conflicted on this? I want to explore the opportunities and threats This suggests. Let's go first with the good stuff.

Unknown:

What do you mean by the good stuff?

Scott Guthrie:

You touched earlier on legacy media tactics moving to New Media, one in four consumers are now more likely to source news updates and opinions from influences than legacy media outlets. And this ratio drops to one in three consumers below 44 years of age. Does this Herald or at least reinforce influences position within society?

Unknown:

Yeah, I think it's inevitable. I'm not sure good or bad means much, really, I think because you can look at plenty of legacy media. And there's lots of good stuff about it. As you say, I did start out training as a journalist and I grew up wanting to be wanting to be a journalist on a on a traditional newspaper, which I very briefly was. And there were lots of good things about that. But there are also lots of really bad things about the old legacy media model and about and the control over the over the news and the agenda being held by very few people who would do it not to make any money but to hold power, which is almost all newspapers, anywhere in the world, were developed through a desire to have power rather than a desire to spread any kind of news out there in terms of who owns them. Now, that's not to say the journalist didn't didn't do that. And that's the same whether it was you know, under under the control of despots, or or in democratic places, and so I don't think there's a there's a good old to new good to bad comparison, the ways people decide to consume stuff has changed. Mostly is driven by, firstly internet and the web, and then my smartphones. And so people understand that delivering it in a way that people want to consume it will, will do better, and people, especially young people will will go towards that we be concerned by that. I don't think there's any danger in that. What we had before was, you know, I trained as journalists, I did pass exams to be a journalist, I could almost call myself a professional. I'm not sure you could, even as a trained journalist. But did that really give checks and balances over whether the news was honest and fair and decent, if we want to look at in the UK? How the Daily Mail has been over the last 30 years, if you want to look at what when newspapers did pre war, what the early newspapers did, in terms of the propaganda that they did you ever look at how newspapers operate in some other countries where they are just propaganda, then I don't think there's really anything particularly meaningful and saying that this is a is terrible that people do look to influences as a as a new source. I think the problem is, calling them influences remains a problem, because then as you said earlier, in people's head, they'll be thinking about someone from celebrity from celebrity love Island, I never know what they're called Reza big Instagram account, posting about some kind of conspiracy theory. And that's not really what we're talking about. I think that the big study, just probably the one you quoted, but there's been another one recently, and that really dig into, into what people were doing. And following in terms of news across both traditional and, and new forms. People are looking for stuff that reflects what they already think that's what people have always done. That's why we have Fox News and afraid, and why the Daily Mail has been so hugely successful. And that's the same whether they're, whether they're traditional legacy media or, or not.

Scott Guthrie:

In terms of potential threats, I was thinking along the lines of moral obligation versus regulatory obligation, influences have a duty of care to their community of followers. And I was really thinking about whether that obligation should be more than a moral one. You've already teased me about my master of one descriptor. But as a journalist, you've passed exams proving you understand the complexities of substantive matters such as libel, and defamation, about court reporting, etc. as publisher influences are likewise bound by the same laws and regulations. But currently, the main regulatory influence rests on whether they've effectively declared brand collaborations as advertisement.

Unknown:

But it does an almost impossible thing to untangle, right? In that if everyone if everyone's their own media company, and then their biases, beliefs, mixed up ways of looking at the world become the thing that they're broadcasting, and that there's a million ways for them to, there's lots of different ways for them to broadcast that whether it's on on social media or, or, or on videos or whatever else. And then you can't believe that it's not like, you can have some kind of regulation, the regulator, sorry, that is looking at all the posts and deciding what the truth of COVID is an art. And this is all by its nature, global. So the rules of what is one thing in to take an easy case, China, which has an entirely different way of looking at the world, to to what is in America or or another Western European or Western European country. You know, the regulations would be different. So it's, it's untangle a bubble. And I think the idea that you could solve it through some kind of regulation, or by or that there's any kind of idea that everyone agrees on something, and if you work your finger, enough people will fall into line is, is comical. And the idea that it was all better before also doesn't really fit but also you can't put the genie back in the bottle, this stuff's going to happen. And what we've got to hide, what we've got to build towards is, is understanding what each what each creator what they're there for, and what they're not there for. So there's, there's a guy, my local pub, who's has political views that are very different to mine. Now, he has told me a story about COVID that I don't believe at all, and because I know what I know where he's coming from. with it. And it's just because people say something doesn't mean you have to doesn't mean you

Scott Guthrie:

say we're moving from a world of sort of blind trust in what institutions and what even individuals say to more towards trustworthiness and trustworthiness is now. domain specific. So you said that guy in the pub might be a world expert on pop trivia, for example, but not necessarily about COVID and politics. So it is that domain experience, I suppose.

Unknown:

Whatever you put that much.

Scott Guthrie:

Last few questions rich, what's the biggest industry trend you're most excited about? Or, or and or most concerned about?

Unknown:

We should talk about this one before and Scott was the thing that I'm most excited about. The the thing that most excites me is feeling that we can move to the next, the next level in terms of influencer marketing as its own separated channel thing into understanding that it is a very small element of something that's much bigger. And that bigger thing is, is world changing in the sense that is part of something bigger, which is how the internet web changes into something else. And what I mean by that is that influencer marketing is part of the wider creator ecosystem. And that creator ecosystem, as we've talked about, a lot starts to take in everything from from legacy media, and starts to be about how a lot of the communication that whether it's entertainment or news, like we've talked about happens, and figuring out the thing that really excites me to get back to your problem. But back to your question, is figuring out where we fit in all of this and how we can add value to it. And I think a lot of people are just looking at what's in front of them, rather than than where all this is going and figuring out what the best way to do what everyone wants to do, which is if we work in marketing, or we want to do is help brands, create emotional connection to, to audiences, to customers and potential customers, and thinking through where all this ends up is the thing that excites me most.

Scott Guthrie:

Over the last nine months or so, we've seen a great accelerant of change at an influencer marketing. We've seen that change manifested in the chat already hitting the mainstream. And we've also seen different use cases for campaigns on influencer marketing. So back to your point about influencer marketing, being marketing, getting to sell product. We've also seen different uses, for example, political campaigning with Michael Bloomberg and with Joe Biden. Last week, or rare very recently, David dobrik. He did an Instagram giveaway of five Tesla cars, but that was to promote young people to sign up and vote. We've also seen for good or for bad the UK Government working with love Ireland contestants to promote test and trace the winner of the of the PR week global influencer marketing award this year went to a German University working with Ketchum to promote more blood donors for the young and to get some stem cell donations. The most powerful influencer marketing programme of content that I've seen in the last 12 months went to pro rail, the Dutch regulator of the railway system. And that wasn't to sell product that was to lower the number of deaths or casualties on the Dutch railway system. So different different use cases. And also influencer marketing, hitting the mainstream.

Unknown:

Yeah, but it's absolutely true. First of all, broadly, marketing products come in all sorts of all sorts of shapes and sizes and are always things that you buy, you buy in shops or over Amazon, and really is it is how do you make emotional connections. And that's what all of this all boils down to? I think there is no coming back to your threads. There's, there's a whole bunch of stuff that's really important around around codes of conduct and ethics and, and practice and those sorts of things. And I think in the in the still nascent world of influencer marketing where there are no barriers to entry. Anyone can decide tomorrow to start a website call themselves influencer marketing agency and start sending things out to brands and to creators. there are dangers around that to have some structures to have some ways that people can point to things and saying look, we're doing it the right way is it is a good thing. Definitely.

Scott Guthrie:

To that end, you mentioned code of ethics in case of practices. How can the channel professionalise or can it professionalise?

Unknown:

Well, I think inevitably it will inevitably is happening. Right now my broad assumption is that the market will decide. And there'll be consolidation and falling away as people don't. If the money comes from brands, and they stop working with people who don't have any aren't able to point at something that says, you know, this is what I believe in this, this is the code I'm following, then that in itself will enable change, because the broad sweep of this stuff is that it goes from being influencer marketing to being marketing, and it will professionalise and it will almost definitely do it in ways that we haven't quite foreseen yet. Okay,

Scott Guthrie:

well, that's a little bit positive, but nebulous. Other any specifics that we can think of you said that, you know, if we're Browns we can vote with our feet and not go with an agency that we don't feel is ethical. But should we be creating our own codes of conduct and ethics and practice? How, as a group of practitioners, can we help ourselves by being more transparent and open and professional,

Unknown:

the people doing it have to be those things, I think there's a real need to have a professional trade body that is global, that will be able to set the standard, that trade body can then go and lobby for you. There's a desperate need for that. I think, again, with everything the old models don't quite work because this stuff is global by its nature. So how do you work within the different rules there say or the FTC or some of the other organisations around the world,

Scott Guthrie:

the global nature of influencer marketing is important here. Any Institute or body should at least acknowledge this. There are some interesting developments from countries and from various jurisdictions in Australia, you have aimco, the Australian influencer marketing Council, there's the Influencer Marketing Association in the United States. And there there are several others. regulation is patchwork, but looking to become more joined up. I think self regulators such as the Advertising Standards Authority, in the UK are part of the European Advertising Standards Alliance. The competition and markets authority in the UK and the Federal Trade Commission in the US are members of ic PN, the International consumer protection and enforcement network. And that's an organisation composed of consumer protection authorities from over 65 countries. So there are inroads being made to professionalise and to regulate the space.

Unknown:

Yeah, and I'm think there's there's a danger of over regulating, influencer marketing because of the perceived dangers of it. Because thinking of it as a very different thing to other ways of getting branded content messages through to audiences. And that doesn't understand the complexity of it, you know, as a company that works a lot in YouTube. And Twitch is a very different environment to Instagram. And a lot of the way the the regulations are written at the moment, they focus very heavily on Instagram, because that's where that's where a lot of the problems have been. And that doesn't make any sense. And that's another reason why we need we need to have representation.

Scott Guthrie:

How do you continue to learn in order to stay on top of the things within your role rich

Unknown:

reading, mainly reading and listening? I guess, as in listening to people, not just podcasts, I have a strong belief in and trying to instil it and part of the culture of fourth floor that we need to be on lifelong learning that we need to be reading everything we can get our hands on not just about the stuff in front of us but but what it looks like in the future. So I carve out quite a bit of time every week to be to be reading and listening and watching things.

Scott Guthrie:

Other other any goto publications that you that you go to.

Unknown:

There's loads of things off the top of my head, and stuff that I've been super interested in recently is Benedict Evans newsletter, which I think is excellent about the wider tech business.

Scott Guthrie:

I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But yes, I agree. That's an excellent read isn't a weekly newsletter.

Unknown:

Matthew ball, I think is a really interesting writer. If you are interested in the metaverse and what that can be. Then I would seek out his writings but about the metaverse, but also about what epic is doing with fortnight. And he's he's really interesting. And within the company, we have a Slack channel that people post up interesting stuff they've found and quite often that's the best way for me to find find new things to read.

Scott Guthrie:

Fantastic. Rich Keith, thank you very much for your time and for your insight. Where can we find out more about you and fourth floor online.

Unknown:

So you can go the website which is fourth floor.co Not stock code at UK or.com just.co or the best place at the moment is probably LinkedIn on Find us on LinkedIn

Scott Guthrie:

risky. Thank you very much for being my guest on the influence of marketing lab today.

Unknown:

Thanks, guys. It's been a pleasure as always

Scott Guthrie:

thank you for listening to the influencer marketing lab with me Scott Guthrie. The podcast is sponsored by tiger. Please subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. For more information, visit influencer marketing lab.com. And if you want to see how tagger can work for you, go to Tiger media.com slash request hyphen demo