Betting on a Return to Offices, HelloOffice Raises $20M Series A
Ben Bergman
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior reporter, covering venture capital. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks. Follow him on Twitter.
Predictions of a working lifetime spent on Zoom meetings in yoga pants and not commuting to the office may be premature, at least according to HelloOffice and its investors. Wednesday the company announced a $20 million Series A round of financing to fund the growth of the technology-powered commercial real estate brokerage.
Justin Bedecarre is the CEO of HelloOffice.
The company, which started in San Francisco in 2016 and expanded to Los Angeles last year, has raised a total of $27 million and now plans to expand to other markets. It's betting tech startups will still want to rent office space and that offices will need to be bigger, partly because workers will need to be more spread out and workplace will be more focused on gathering people together, rather than merely seating them behind desks.
"Offices are really going to be built around what they're meant to be built around, which is collaboration," said Justin Bedecarre, CEO of HelloOffice. "In the short term, square footage per person is going to go way up."
Point 72 Ventures led the investment round with participation from existing investors Initialized Capital, Founders Fund, SaaStr, House Fund, and Jake Gibson.
"We are focused on creating new product offerings to help companies find their optimal workplace solution and, in many cases, work with companies transitioning to hybrid workplaces," Bedecarre said.
Nearly half of employees would like to keep working from home and more than 45% say their employers are actively considering or at least open to that option, according to an April survey of more than 1200 workers by getAbstract, an online business library. But many jobs cannot be entirely done at home. A recent study by the University of Chicago found only a third of work could be remote, though many have been surprised at how productive remote workers have been during the pandemic.
"Everybody's getting used to the work at home," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in April. "In some areas of the company people may be even more productive, in some other areas they're not as productive. So it's mixed, depending upon what the roles are."
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- dot.LA Strategy Session: Office 2021, in Partnership with HelloOffice ›
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Here’s how L.A.’s Curative Plans to Move Saliva-Based COVID-19 Testing to Other U.S. Cities
May 04 2020
Fred Turner, the 25-year-old founder of Curative Inc., is the man behind L.A.'s push to bring universal testing to the region. But, he has bigger plans.
Turner, an Oxford dropout, just landed a deal with the Air Force to test military worldwide and he's now eyeing national expansion for his startup. By the end of this month, the company he started months ago is expected to pump out more than a million test kits a week.
"We are a strange company because our goal is to essentially put ourselves out of business," Turner said.
<p>Turner, who was named UK Young Engineer of the Year at age 17 when he built a DNA machine from his bedroom to figure out why his brother had red hair and he had brown hair, turned his focus to coronavirus in January. He upended his life as head of Shield Bio, which sought to eliminate sepsis, and moved to Southern California after a local venture capitalist connected him with a lab that he could build out for COVID-19 testing. </p><p>Curative Inc. was born. </p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE4NjM5Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTkyMDg3Mn0.Fy0dtjHfIsqIXJAOI7MUohie11857cWDACI3OksmLt4/image.jpg?width=980" id="515a2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7ee43a7a9c8e7ea09bd6cdb251d45ace" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Curative, Inc. Founder Fred Turner is the man behind L.A.'s push to bring universal testing to the region.
<p>For weeks he lived in hotels as he created what has become the backbone of testing in America's second largest city. The company, one of the few saliva-based tests that have gotten emergency approvals from the FDA, has a 10% false negative rate, according to their own non-peer reviewed studies. Turner argues the rate is better than most of the nasal swab testing out there and oral tests, which can be self-administered, are the only way the country can reopen quickly.</p><p>He is now operating two labs, one in San Dimas another in Washington D.C., with plans for several more across the nation. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is watching to see if Los Angeles' promise of universal testing meets the expectations with some already complaining about the difficulty of securing an appointment.</p>
<p><strong>dot.LA: Curative is responsible for 95% of Los Angeles COVID-19 tests. Can you meet the demand for universal testing?</strong><br/></p><p><strong>Curative, Inc. Founder Fred Turner:</strong> We will be able to fulfill demand. There's more infrastructure that needs to be put in place. With the collection site, the mayor's office has been working hard to scale those up and make sure that the collection site infrastructure is in place. On the lab side, we definitely have enough capacity to serve the area.</p><p>In (the San Dimas) lab we have capacity for about 20,000 per day. We're going to be scaling this lab up to 30,000 over the next week or so, eventually, probably slightly more than that. </p><p>Ultimately, the goal is to do as many tests as we need to reopen the country and I think we've had many different estimates of how many that might be. I've heard estimates (that it will take) as high as five million tests a day to reopen, but the current supply chain is nowhere near going to be able to keep up with that. The next goal we are shooting for is a million tests a week by about mid-May, end of May.</p><p><strong>If we're testing more people will that strain the turnaround time? Right now, I understand it's about 24 to 72 hours. Can you take it down to several hours or even minutes?</strong></p><p>We are always aiming to push it down. I think it can be pushed under 24 hours, but we tend to focus more on scaling it up at that point. I think 24 hours is around optimal as you bring on more capacity. We're obviously being careful to match the capacity coming into the lab against the turnaround. </p><p><strong>Curative is one of the few companies that the FDA has provided emergency approval for use of a saliva test. Do you think this is the answer to universal testing nationally?</strong> </p><p>Oral fluids is the technical term, which is slightly different from saliva. Our protocol involves having the person cough first, which releases virus from the upper and lower respiratory tract. Some of that is then caught in the saliva, and also viruses in the saliva. The idea is you're effectively sampling multiple sites at once, which we think gives a slight increase in the sensitivity of the testing.</p><p>Self-collected sampling has got to be the way forward. There's just no way that we can do a million nasal pharyngeal swabs, or we call them 'brain swabs,' it's just not practical. We don't have the medical staff, and as a country we just can't do that many swabs. And so the way forward is going to be self collection. That's the only thing we can do at scale.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="93ba4781c410d06eb2cfed59cce147a8"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LNopEE7lC6E?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Covid-19 Oral Fluid Test Kit Instructions</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNopEE7lC6E&feature=emb_title" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p><strong>Curative recently secured a contract with the Department of Defense. What's next?</strong><br/></p><p>We haven't settled on the exact number, but we will be in a large number of states. That is the plan, building out the infrastructure for this kind of testing. We can take the L.A. model and scale it across the country. We have a version of the drive-thru software that other cities and states can take. We have all the training material. We have a team that fly around the country setting up these drive-thru sites. We have really tried to make a plug-and-play package where cities and states that want to launch drive-thru testing, we have everything they need. </p><p><strong>Is Los Angeles a testing ground and a proving ground for national efforts?</strong></p><p>Yeah, I think Mayor Garcetti has definitely demonstrated what can be done if the city moves very quickly to build out the infrastructure, I do think the drive-thru testing, walk through testing is going to be an essential component of this.</p><p>It's just much faster to get the samples to the lab than shipping it out and then shipping it back again. The infrastructure piece is critical for getting these tests out there and we're working with several other states now on building out a similar infrastructure. Some of them have existing programs that we would be plugging into and expanding, and some of them are looking to roll out their own similar programs. You can test a lot more people with the oral tests with far fewer staff.</p><p><strong>What are the challenges with the supply chain in terms of making your tests more widely available?</strong></p><p>We need more plastic, more robots, more people. Most of the components that go into these tests are just already maxed out in their production capacity. And so we've been throwing online a bunch of internal production, such as injection molding to make our swab kit tubes, as well as bringing on other sources of similar materials that are not being used for COVID-19 testing and validating them for COVID. So for the swabs, for example, we use a swab type that is usually used for testing clean rooms. It works just as well for COVID testing, but nobody else is using it for that purpose. </p><p>We don't want to be competing with other people, stopping them from getting access to resources. We want to bring on new supply so it's not a zero- sum game, and the total amount of tests will increase. But, I think distribution is going to be a bigger bottleneck over the next month. Los Angeles has done a fantastic job in building out infrastructure and collection. That needs to happen now across the whole country. </p><p><strong>What would it take to meet national demand?</strong></p><p>It would take a network of multiple labs that we are calling gigalabs that can process 50,000 to 100,000 tests a day across the country and a significant scale up in the production of the physical components that go into the tests. We've been investigating lab sites in a few states, something central like Texas or Colorado. </p><p><strong>Are you concerned that you have too high of a false negative rate at 10%?</strong></p><p>All COVID tests will have false negative rates. In our studies, we demonstrated that the sensitivity is at least as good if not better than the nasal pharyngeal swab tests. So, there will definitely be false negatives as there will be in every test, but we think the data supports us having a low rate of false negatives. The sensitivity is about 90%.</p><p>When you include all patients, the nasal pharyngeal came in at about 79%. A new (non-peer reviewed) Yale study shows a higher sensitivity from saliva and all fluids than the nasal pharyngeal. I don't think we have the evidence to say that we're better yet, but we have the evidence to say that we're at least equivalent. The ease of doing oral tests and the accessibility is obviously significantly better. We're not using PPE. We're not exposing healthcare workers. It's just a much easier test to roll out that people can test themselves.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Florida_National_Guard_%2849677710741%29.jpg" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGd2lraXBlZGlhJTJGY29tbW9ucyUyRmYlMkZmOSUyRkZsb3JpZGFfTmF0aW9uYWxfR3VhcmRfJTI4NDk2Nzc3MTA3NDElMjkuanBnJmhvPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGdXBsb2FkLndpa2ltZWRpYS5vcmcmcz0yNzMmaD1hZDI1NWIwOTNkYWE5ODBjMzU4NjMzYWM0YmE2OGYwYmYxZGRlMGNmYjFlNjdjNDhlMjQxZTZkZDZjZDE3YzNhJnNpemU9OTgweCZjPTEzMDE3NDMyMjYiLCJleHBpcmVzX2F0IjoxNjE0NzExNjkyfQ.BvjB0Zw5cLoqqcX5ba4uhPBwCzyao_4h0HSdTdD7IEk/img.jpg" id="cbbc9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8965d4da3c9fec19960a954cded4abca" /></a>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">File:Florida National Guard (49677710741).jpg - Wikimedia Commons</small>
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</p><p><strong>At one point, Curative was attempting to roll out at-home testing and then had to pull back after FDA warnings. Will you be making home testing kits again?</strong><br/></p><p>I can't give a time estimate but we are actively working with the FDA right now. I think their concern is "can people adequately collect the sample, or will they do it wrong, and then get a negative test result," which is incorrect. Our plan is to use telemedicine observation. What we've seen in our clinical studies is that if you give people the chance to do it wrong, they will do it wrong. In fact when you have somebody observing, they read the instructions better and they collect a better sample. We're still working on the pricing and potentially looking at whether there is federal or state reimbursement for some of that testing and the potential of billing insurance. </p><p><strong>Tracing technology has been promising. Do you have any plans to tie tests to these applications to testing?</strong> </p><p>We've had several conversations with contact tracing apps and we continue to work in collaboration with public health departments in their contract tracing efforts. Having the test is obviously one thing, but you have to use the information to actually stem the tide of COVID infection. And so, it is an essential step in working closely with various people. </p><p>I do like the app-based models where you obviously want to maintain people's privacy, but having people opt-in to share their location history if they test positive so you can contact nearby people.</p><p><strong>What does Curative do once there's a vaccine? Are you obsolete?</strong></p><p><strong></strong>The U.S. needs to maintain some kind of spare capacity so that next time we are not having to build all of this during a pandemic. But we are a strange company because our goal is to essentially put ourselves out of business. Ultimately, and I say this to everyone we hire, we don't know how long this will go on for. We want to provide as many tests as needed, but the goal is to end COVID and not be doing COVID testing anymore.</p><p><strong>Curative took off in March when you arrived in Los Angeles from Silicon Valley, how has the journey been for you personally?</strong></p><p><strong></strong>I don't have very much free time, but it's been a lot of fun to be able to work at this pace and have the support of people like the city, the mayor's office to really just do what is needed to scale this up. When we work with suppliers, and we say we're doing COVID testing, they just move heaven and earth to make things happen. It's been really inspiring to be a part of that push forward.</p><p>We are just pushing as hard as we can to scale up as fast as we possibly can and bring on as much testing as we can. The city opening up testing to everybody is kind of a culmination of that. We're making about 50,000 kits a day right now and we want to make that as widely available as we can. I would like to get a little more sleep. </p><p><em>The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. </em></p><p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Curative's saliva tests have a 10% false positive rate. In actuality, the tests have a 10% false negative rate.</em></p><p><em><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/racheluranga" target="_blank">@racheluranga</a>. You can also <a href="mailto:mailto:rachel@dot.la" target="_self">email me</a>.</em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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How Influencers Became Key to Big Brands During the Pandemic — and Why They'll Continue to Grow
Nov 30 2020
- Influencer marketing has surged during the pandemic as more consumers have moved online and brands have been forced to adapt to new challenges.
- The rise of ecommerce and social media continues to usher in a wave of less formal and potentially cheaper marketing from online icons directly connected to audiences that brands can target.
- Marketers expect the trend to continue, which could lead to more unexpected brand partnerships, like a KFC line of Crocs or Forever 21's Cheetos apparel.
Mix together a cup of cold brew, three pumps of caramel syrup, a splash of whole milk and a generous portion of TikTok and you've got yourself "The Charli" – Dunkin' Donuts' new menu item promoted in partnership with Charli D'Amelio, a superstar social media influencer and the drink's namesake.
Influencer marketing campaigns are not new, but the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated their appeal as companies have been forced to ramp up their online presence. Marketers expect that to continue, due to a combination of changing consumer behavior, a growing sophistication of data and analytics, and tighter ad budgets.
As these forces take shape, subscription streaming services expand and cable's decline continues, could it spell the end of TV commercials?
<h2>The Rise of Influencer Marketing
</h2><p>
Fundamentally, an influencer is someone with a level of knowledge, expertise or social following that enables them to, well, influence other people's decisions. That premise <a href="https://insights.digitalmediasolutions.com/articles/history-celebrity-endorsements" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has existed for a long time</a>, but the internet and social media gave rise to a new capability for companies of targeting specific audiences with more precision than a television or radio commercial. As a result, <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/03/reinventing-the-direct-to-consumer-business-model" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">niche, direct-to-consumer businesses offering specific products</a>, and online influencers to peddle those products, have bloomed.
</p><p>
Before the pandemic set in, Influencer Marketing Hub, a research firm, <a href="https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-benchmark-report-2020/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reported</a> influencer marketing was expected to grow to a $9.7 billion business in 2020, nearly a 50% increase from 2019. More recent evidence suggests that companies are still piling in, even faster than predicted.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDc3ODkzOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTgyMjA3OH0.xpryQloQoGrDFAS_tPWcgpveDJauJtbJSOMKa2rO4WE/image.png?width=980" id="ff70c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3dda47e9ab550c3021585f6d6426b260" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Influencer MarketingHub's 2020 report, based on a survey of 4,000 professionals, forecasted a massive rise in the growth of influencer marketing. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Courtesy <a href="https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-benchmark-report-2020/" target="_blank">Influencer MarketingHub</a></small></p><p>
In the quarter from June through August, for example, across a sample of 4,500 ecommerce retailers, sales and customers driven to brands' websites through YouTube influencers are up 80% year over year, according to <a href="https://www.magiclinks.com" target="_blank">MagicLinks</a>, an L.A.-based social media marketing company that helps firms track the performance of their influencer campaigns. Applications from influencers wishing to use MagicLinks' sales tools have grown nearly fivefold from the start of the pandemic. And across MagicLinks' retail customers, which include the likes of Walmart, Target, L'Oreal and Best Buy, influencer-driven sales are up 115%.<br>
</p><p>
Several other marketing agencies also told dot.LA they've seen increased spending on influencer content, and an expansion of the types of companies that use influencer marketing, compared to pre-COVID.
</p><p>
Part of that is out of necessity. With film production shut down due to the pandemic, traditional commercial advertising was hampered. And with marketing budgets crimped, potentially cheaper advertising routes, such as a well-targeted influencer campaign, grew more attractive.</p><h2></h2>
Influence in the Wake of Ecommerce
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="07f23e0bad020e13c4a64c5c6a12cd87"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VY-vJMb-Dr0?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>The pandemic has also caused ecommerce to <a href="https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/online-retail-sales-growth/" target="_blank">skyrocket</a> and led people to <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/content/how-coronavirus-changing-us-social-media-usage" target="_blank">spend more time on social media</a>, both of which have increased the supply of potential customers for brands to target with influencers.</p><p>"Consumers crave real-life stories and authenticity, and influencers are able to highlight brands in a way that feels real and accessible. We are seeing that during the pandemic, this need is further heightened as more consumers are spending more time on social platforms," Grubhub's director of content and social Mandy Cudahy told dot.LA.</p><p>The growing sophistication of data and analytics on the effectiveness of influencer marketing has also helped companies create more targeted ad campaigns likely to reach spenders. For example, tools are improving to help brands find the right influencer, track their ability to drive purchases, and even <a href="https://dot.la/social-native-2647873306.html" target="_self">predict how well an influencer campaign will do</a>.</p><p>"There's been a much bigger push around nailing down the attribution and ROI," said Kevin Gould, co-founder of three L.A.-based ecommerce brands that rely heavily on influencer marketing and collectively earn over $60 million in annual revenue.</p><p>That push, in turn, is helping to nudge brands that have historically shied away from influencer marketing. Part of what has held them back is the fact that the data from traditional channels like television and radio advertising is far more robust than what's available in the influencer space, if only because it is relatively new.</p><p>"You're going up against hard sets of data since like the birth of Macy's, so it didn't become a priority," said Jennifer Piña, MagicLinks' director of brand partnerships. "Now it's being forced to become a priority."</p><p>As a result, bigger, more traditional brands are moving into what has until now been a channel primarily used by smaller, direct-to-consumer brands. Tito's Vodka, for instance, ran its first influencer campaign in August with Brooklyn-based <a href="https://www.firsttubemedia.com/" target="_blank">First Tube Media</a>. Prior to the campaign, "Tito's had never spent a dollar in influencer marketing," First Tube CEO Andrew Beranbom told dot.LA. <a href="https://www.superdry.com/us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Superdry</a>, a publicly-traded British clothing company founded in 1985, is partnering with MagicLinks to launch its first large influencer campaign in advance of the holiday season.</p>How Influencers Change What We Buy, and What They Make
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGaXMlMkZpbWFnZSUyRkNyb2NzJTJGMDIxMTIwLUtGQy1BbmdsZWQzJTNGJTI0bWt0LWpwZy05MCUyNCZobz1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRmltYWdlcy5jcm9jcy5jb20mcz0xMDE4Jmg9YzYzNDVmZTk1OTk3ZjI0NDNkNDAzMzg1YTVhY2VlNGVjOWU1ZTUwMWNlOThhNzg4MjcxMTIxYjJmODBhOWY0YiZzaXplPTk4MHgmYz0yOTMxOTEwMjQ3IiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODk3OTA5OH0.gx73p3jbM6G95Y4iFZyHzIHpJiuUWfJAr1-reUHd1V8/img.jpg" id="67c4c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e5d31832c6a8ebce26e0222146f673e6" alt="KFC crocs" />KFC Crocs, an unholy creation of influencer marketing.
<p>Influencer marketing has also given rise to new partnerships between brands that arguably have nothing to do with each other, with influencers as the linchpin linking them together. Examples include <a href="https://www.crocs.com/KFC.html" target="_blank">a KFC line of Crocs</a>, e.l.f. Cosmetics' Chipotle <a href="https://nrf.com/blog/chipotle-inspires-new-makeup-kit-elf-cosmetics" target="_blank">burrito-inspired handbag and makeup kit</a>, and Forever 21's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/forever-21-cheetos-clothing-collaboration-2019-6" target="_blank">Cheetos apparel line</a>.</p><p>"It's this idea of like, a brand is a brand," said Piña. "What they actually sell or what people purchase from them is oftentimes irrelevant. It's more about the packaging and the moment and the feel and that's what social media does: it creates excitement for something that is not necessarily exciting. Like Crocs: Crocs is like your dad's brand. But it can immediately become cool, at the drop of a pin, once you get the right influencers involved."</p><p>Even as data attribution improves and consumers spend more time online in the land of influencers, one key downside to influencer marketing remains: limited control. A company can manage every element of a commercial shoot or Facebook ad, but using an unscripted TikTok or Instagram influencer requires letting go.</p><p>"Brands in some categories historically have been super fearful of letting influencers tell their story because it is so important to the sanctity of the brand to keep the messaging really succinct and in line with the brand guidelines," Piña said.</p><p>Yet that informality is part of the appeal of influencer marketing.</p><p>"Brands get stuck on needing to be perfect or scripted, whereas influencers talk to you like they're your next-door neighbor," said Brian Meert, chief executive of L.A.-based <a href="https://www.advertisemint.com/" target="_blank">AdvertiseMint</a>, a digital advertising agency. "It's very organic; it doesn't feel like a pushy ask. I think those kinds of elements have enabled us to grow sales for our clients using more of these influencer- and consumer-generated type videos."</p><p>Piña noted that while Ralph Lauren, a premium fashion retailer, has been wary of using influencers because of "brand safety," the company recently approached MagicLinks to build out a year-long TikTok strategy. Even as the social video giant's fight with the White House <a href="https://dot.la/celebrity-economy-2647441974.html" target="_self">threatened to upend the living of its influencers</a>, TikTok's hold on the traditionally elusive younger demographic – along with other user-generated video platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitch <a href="https://dot.la/snap-spotlight-2649022645.html" target="_blank">and Snap</a> – has become increasingly hard for companies to ignore.</p><p>"Any brand that wants to connect with Gen Z, and sell whatever product or service they have, has to engage (with these platforms)," said Glenn Ginsburg, SVP of global partnerships at influencer marketing agency <a href="https://www.qyoumedia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The QYOU</a>. "Moving forward I think we'll see brands start to build deeper relationships with influencers."</p><p>Not every brand is poised to get the same value from an influencer campaign, however. An influencer is unlikely to save the day for a travel and tourism company ravaged by the pandemic, for instance. And it remains a challenge to reliably execute an influencer campaign, notwithstanding the emergence of new tools to do so.</p><p>"A lot still depends on relationships, conversations and trial and error," said Darren Litt, chairman and co-founder of L.A.-based talent marketplace <a href="http://www.marketerhire.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MarketerHire</a>. "A successful influencer campaign requires a detailed understanding of an influencer's brand, and that's hard to do with tech and AI alone."</p><p>Achieving the cost-efficiency of a well-targeted campaign also remains most viable for companies that are best positioned to drive online purchases. Using Kim Kardashian to sell clothing that flatters one's figure, for example, is more likely to drive trackable sales than, say, pushing Pepsi.</p><p>"For mass-market products looking to reach a broad audience, TV advertising remains effective because you get the upside of wide reach with the downside of limited targeting," said Litt. That's especially true for products that people don't typically purchase online.</p><p>But much like a song that goes viral on TikTok can <a href="https://musically.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Report-429-4692555.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">drive a listening bump on streaming platforms</a> like Spotify, so, too, it appears, can an influencer campaign drive offline purchases.</p><p>After all, Dunkin' Donuts <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2020/09/23/charli-damelio-dunkin-donuts-drink-cold-brew-sales-boost/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">saw sales surge</a> following its D'Amelio partnership, even though the girl with over 100 million TikTok followers <a href="https://www.elitedaily.com/p/the-reason-charli-damelio-hasnt-ordered-her-dunkin-drink-makes-sense-38410234" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has reportedly never ordered "The Charli" herself</a>.</p><p>--- </p><p><em>Sam Blake primarily covers media and entertainment for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA.</em><br></p>From Your Site Articles
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