by Herman Manson (@marklives) TILT aims to reignite interest in influencer marketing campaigns by disrupting the dominant pay-per-post model. Lead by chief creative officer, Arye Kellman, and co-founder, Jason Levin, this new influencer marketing agency is being positioned as a creative concept-led one.
Kellman, a former creative director at both CliffCentral.com and Touch HD, describes the duo as influence architects working to connect brands with audiences through digital and activation campaigns. Social influencers will create their own third-party content, to encourage content authenticity, and will be relevant to the brand they act as ambassadors for.
Levin, who led HDI Youth Marketeers for over eight years until late 2016, became involved in TILT when Kellman approached Levin’s company, Elevation Holdings, for startup advice. The two had met previously through HDI, which hadsupported some of the work done by Kellman on the millennial market.
Kellogg’s All Bran Flakes
TILT was recently involved in the relaunch of the Kelloggs All Bran Flakes brand through a #BranNewDay campaign, driven by eight influencers over a 8-10 week period. All long-time consumers of All Bran, they’ve all been provided with a basic content policy to ensure messages stays in line with client expectations but, for the rest, the individual influencers do their own thing.
TILT gets paid content and campaign management fees. Influencers are either paid or, when company policy doesn’t allow for this (Nike being a case in point), receive product(s). The hope is that the brand and its influencer team will build a long-term relationship and that this will result in creative collaboration to drive brands forward. Media buying is at the discretion of individual brands and their digital media agencies; for TILT, the focus is on a strong organic approach, says Kellman. This is done through authentic, enduring content that engages people. On the experiential and activation side, TILT has teamed up with Funeka Peppeta of Mood Mechanics, who assists in sourcing talent for on-the-ground activations where the campaign requires it.
According to Levin, that influencer marketing will continue to gain both traction and importance as brands adapt to the dialogue-driven landscape of social media, a vastly different beast to the monologue they usually subject consumers to in other media. There is little traction for brand voices online (Nando’s would be an exception) and influencers may offer compelling language on behalf of brands.
Tracking ROI
Tracking ROI in influencer marketing, says Kellman, is easy enough (it becomes harder when the campaign runs across multiple channels) and the case studies TILT is pulling together makes for compelling material in convincing brands to give the agency and its influencers a shot.
TILT has a panel of around 100 influencers it can work with but, says Levin, it prefers finding relevant talent based on campaign and brand objectives.
By the end of August 2017, TILT would have run between 12 and 14 campaigns for a client base which includes Nando’s, Virgin Atlantic, Kellogg’s and FNB. Levin says marketers are open to TILT’s pitch, although several had burnt their fingers in influencer marketing in the past, either by feeling isolated from the campaign (little or no interaction with the influencers) or through lack of ROI. Like TILT, they are keen on getting it right. “We are getting meetings, and briefs from those meetings,” says Levin.
TILT will continue to evolve in the year ahead. It was conceived as a global business and Levin hopes to work with multi-national companies to bring their offering into other emerging markets. Levin says he hopes TILT will be able to create a marketing platform that offers a voice to the millennial market as well as assisting brand in understanding what Levin believes is a fundamentally misunderstood (and fractured) market.
Case studies
Supplied by TILT
#MZ17 with Nando’s
Objective
Create and build a media platform (audio, visual and ebook) for Nando’s to connect with brand-aloof South African millennial authentically, meaningfully and engagingly.
Solution
#MZ17 (2017 Millennial Zeitgeist) self-expresses the narrative of the millennial generation. It’s a digital-thought series of engaging podcasts, short videos and an ebook presented by Nando’s, encapsulating millennial opinions on love, fame, passion, success, social media and purpose.
Results
The campaign is ongoing, with the #MZ17 ebook coming soon. The launch of the campaign podcasts and videos on 13 February trended #1 on Twitter, achieving 33m+ impressions for the hashtag (#MZ17), and
reaching an audience of 2.3m+ (per Zoomph) in a single day.
Virgin Atlantic #GoLiveVA
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRsHJtAg3-I/?tagged=goliveva
Objective
Enable Virgin Atlantic to connect with millennials from around the world by giving them an active voice on Virgin Atlantic’s social media platforms, and letting them co-create content.
Solution
#GoLiveVA enabled audiences to engage with an influencer-driven Virgin Atlantic travel experience in real-time, as social-media users from across the world instructed millennial influencers navigating New York and London to share their experiences and go live on social media at any time.
Results
#GoLiveVA saw an extensive amount of social-media users engaging with Virgin Atlantic as a content provider as well-known millennial influencers engaged with the brand on their personal platforms in a meaningful and engaging way.
Kellogg’s #DonateYourGreat
Objective
Align the #Kellman20 brand to Kellogg’s business objective of connecting with millennials in an authentic and meaningful way on Mandela Day, 18 July 2016.
Solution
Create content around the #Kellman20 engaging with the Kellogg’s brand on Nelson Mandela Day through a series of digital motivational videos and podcasts, as well as appearances by the #Kellman20 at a Kellogg’s Breakfast For Better Days school in Joburg.
Results
The #Kellman20 collab let Kellogg’s leave an indelible mark on Nelson Mandela Day with the hashtag #DonateYourGreat trending #1 on Twitter on the morning of Mandela Day. #DonateYourGreat was able to rack up an online audience reach of over 4.5m by providing engaging content and extensive digital reach through influencers.
Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com.
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