Domestic Influencer Marketing 2.0

The influencer marketing market enters a new stage of development. Alexey Sukhanov, Head of Influencer Development and Monetization at Gazprom-Media Sales House, told us how creator content and blogger collaboration formats are changing.

The use of influencer marketing within a media mix has long been a serious trend for brands of all sizes. The main advantages of this tool are attracting consumer attention, increasing sales, and encouraging clients to produce user-generated content (UGC).

Over the past year, the domestic market has been significantly influenced by the requirement to label advertising creatives, the blocking of foreign resources, and global trends toward cross-platform and omnichannel marketing. This has made advertisers more selective in their choice of bloggers to work with and highlighted the issue of relevant formats. Prior to 2022, influencers in the Russian market did not diversify their content depending on the platform for the most part. Later, however, this pattern changed. It became a necessity rather than a whim.

Video content remains an island of stability. It is still the main format of information consumption for users and the tool for drawing attention to brands. Despite the shutdown of familiar paid formats, advertisers retain access to other types of placement that are just as effective and can be implemented within similar advertising budgets.

Quality approach to influencer selection remains an important stage of running ad campaigns. In a recent case for a snack brand, we worked with prominent video bloggers with a wide reach to increase product awareness and loyalty. The brand’s core audience is men and women aged from 20 to 30 who value family and friends and spend a lot of time together. We selected over 10 relevant channels, and the creators added humor and real-life stories to the integrations. In this way, we captured the full attention of the target audience. We exceeded the view plan by 23%, the engagement rate (ER) was 2%, and the cost per view was optimized by 19%.

Other popular formats include:

collaborations with bloggers;

product integrations into reviews;

partner projects;

brand representative participation in shows or promoting the brand with “a human face.”

Alt-rolls, which replaced unavailable formats, have also proven to be efficient. In 2023, we purchased over 400 slots for our clients from bloggers. A significant advantage of alt-rolls is the high completion rate of videos and their availability for brands in various categories.

By consolidating the Holding’s capabilities, Gazprom-Media Sales House implements such formats with success. To improve the image and awareness of a TV operator’s services, 30 channels were selected to reach the broadest possible target audience (TA) of a video hosting service across multiple segments: popular science, lifestyle, humor, technology, automotive, music and movie reviews, and celebrity interviews. The placement of alt-rolls for various products allowed for a broad campaign that reached 20 million views while maintaining a high average ER of 4.7%. We are confident that this format will become even more efficient in the future.

Today’s market is special: the experienced generation of influencers has already adapted to the current reality, while a window of opportunity is still open for new faces as platforms actively invest in creating more and higher-quality content. The government is also interested in promoting domestic blogging. This will involve increased investment in the creation of original and valuable content that can both attract and retain an audience.

It is worth investing not only in content, but also in creators. There are entire “star factories” at work, and the Insight People production center is one of them. They invest in talents while building a brand-safe ecosystem of influencers. Stars can be born on various platforms: in TV shows on channels, on RUTUBE, and on PREMIER. Creative content is different everywhere, which means that an advertiser can both reach an “additional,” unique audience and “chase” consumers on other video platforms where users follow the creator.

Gazprom-Media Sales House, together with its colleagues, is also promoting domestic blogging: helping stars “shine” and building an all-Russian blogging infrastructure. This allows us to implement exclusive special projects and solve brand tasks of any difficulty.

Domestic influencer marketing has entered its 2.0 era: in this new stage, market growth will be linked to investments in original content and emerging talents, exploring different formats and content, and expanding monetization options for digital platforms.

Gazprom-Media Sales House, RUTUBE national video hosting service, PREMIER online cinema, and Insight People production center are all part of Gazprom-Media Holding.

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