Extortion and the dark underbelly of influencer marketing

Above the Fold - Marketing and Laughs

The deep, dark side of influencer marketing is starting to take shape. Jeff and Francis discuss a Wired article that depicts an unregulated, wild wild west scenario where legitimate businesspeople are torpedoed and extorted to be successful. The story discusses Sahara Lotti who started a B2C cosmetics company called Lashify. Lotti was told that she would have to "pay to play" in this market, which included paying influencers upwards of $100k for endorsements. Little did she know, "influencers" are not only paid to endorse products, but also to take down competitor products. This happened to Lotti, in an attempt to torpedo her business. An online war ensued, resulting in light being shed on the mafia-esque nature of influencer marketing on Instagram. Data ownership! Make sure you check your contracts with your marketing vendors so that you own your analytics data and your website login details. It's a damned good thing Google didn't roll out comments for ALL Google searches. Fortunately it's going to be limited to sports scores. Red Dead Redemption has a hilarious feature that watches you crash your horse into everything, all in cinematic glory. Francis explains "cowboy time, and the incredible amount of time he sinks into this game.