Trend: de-influencing
De-influencing has been all anyone can talk about on TikTok and trade publications for a few months already. The idea behind it being that consumers need not purchase whatever product is being marketed to them by social media influencers. The concept, however, is not new. In 2011, Patagonia launched its iconic "Don't buy this jacket" campaign which asked consumers not to buy their products by highlighting the toll production of said goods took on the environment. You would expect that upon seeing the advertisement consumers would think twice before moving forward with their purchases, yet sales increased by 30% shortly after the campaign was launched. In fact, since 2011, Patagonia sales have gone from an estimate of USD600 million to close to USD1 billion today . That is almost 3.5 times higher than their sales in 2007.
So, is this time around going to be any different ?
Well, for starters, at this moment the movement seems to be heavily focused on the beauty industry. At the heart of the trend are Or so it seems.
This movement is driven by the following factors:
Dishonest influencer marketing
Rejection of overconsumption…maybe ?
The economic downturn
INFLUENCER MARKETING
The fact is influencers are no longer the same bloggers we were introduced to at the dawn of the internet. Today, a good chunk of influencers and other social media personalities have become professional spokespeople, brand ambassadors, and contractors, and as such there's growing mistrust towards them.
Credit: Vogue Business
In a world where influencers are taken on expensive brand sponsored trips costing hundreds of thousands of USD as part of a new product marketing campaign, it's hard to take their opinion seriously. Even when brands promise that said trips are not just pay-for-play content, how are influencers expected to give genuine product reviews when there's a clear conflict of interest going on ?
To give an example, Mikayla Nogeuira is the latest influencer to get caught-up in so-called deceptive marketing. Just a few weeks ago, she was accused of wearing false lashes in one of the TikToks she did to promote L'Oréal's latest mascara.
Credit: Fizzy Mag
Whilst the influencing game has changed, the players are here to stay, and they have become and integral part of any given company's marketing budget. It is estimated that the market value of the influencing economy will be worth USD 69 billion by 2029.
OVERCONSUMPTION
The overconsumption of goods and its adverse effects on the environment, whether it's beauty products, cosmetics, or fashion, has been studied countless times. One could argue that de-influencing is a way to push for conscious capitalism, a way to persuade consumers of only buying what they need in order to lessen the collective carbon footprint. However, this is not always the case. Whilst Gen Z consumers do strive for sustainable consumption, 33% of of them have still made a purchase based on the recommendation of an influencer.
At its core, de-influencing sought to scale back needless consumption of products, but by sharing this on TikTok, a platform well known for shopping hauls, product reviews, and microtrends, the message got distorted and circled back to pushing unnecessary product.
De-influencing has now bifurcated into different meanings.
One is to offer transparent and honest reviews of product regardless of influencers potentially losing on existing or future brand partnerships.
The second is to replace high priced cosmetics with inexpensive dupes. The message changed from "don't buy this product", to "buy this, instead of that" . To give an example, the hashtag "#dupe" has been growing in popularity over the last few months. As of February 2023, the hashtag has reached 2.7 billion total views, and "#deinfluencing" itself over 300 million views.
Environmentalism is simply an afterthought for the movement in question, even when stopping overconsumption would definitely slow down the pace of climate change. It is estimated that every year, the beauty industry generates over 120 billion units in packaging waste, or 70% of total industry waste.
THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN
The beauty industry is often often camouflaged as wellness, something akin to self-care, and make-up is one of the leading drivers of overconsumption. There is always new product drops touting the next best thing. The cosmetic to supersede them all. The one we must buy at once to not only look great, but also feel like we're a few dollars away from finding the one thing that will fill the existential void within us. Alongside, will come promises of youth and beauty, the only real currency that seems to be fungible in our superficial society (other than cold hard cash of course). Beauty, however, is expensive.
The price of cosmetics has been going up for the last 6 months at a time when people can barely afford eggs, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when influencers shifting fromg expensive cosmetics towards more budget-friendly goods, which only contributes to the skepticisim around de-influencing.
De-influencing, in the loosest sense of the word, is also closely related to TikTok's "recession-core" trend. Inflation and mass layoffs are pushing consumers to rethink their purchases, and de-influencing makes cutting back a bit easier to swallow, especially as influencers push more economic alternatives to high-priced items.
Credit: @ufodelaney
SO…WHAT'S NEXT ?
The idea that the same influencers that just a few years back got consumers to spend whatever disposable income they had on products that are now dissuading consumers from buying the latest trend is perplexing, and consumers are increasingly on the up and up. Influencer marketing is a behomoth that is here to stay, even as budgets are being cut. The original message that sought to scale back consumtion has been perverted into another trend that is still pushing goods on social media, albeit at a lower price point. Event the so-called transparency that's stemming from the trend seems performative and inauthentic because it's impossible to know where the product review ends, and where fishing for views and engagement starts.
De-influencing is still influencing. The only way to truly de-influence our purchasing decisions, other than overhauling our economic, social, and value system, is to stop talking about consumption in such an obscene way, especially on social media platforms.
Verdict : There is no substance behind the movement and de-influencing is just another trend that will die before Q2 is over, and will just simply be replaced by another micro-trend.
