How Just Eat and British Heart Foundation manage brand risk in influencer marketing

Brand risk must be balanced against the need to allow creators the freedom to engage audiences when using influencer marketing, delegates at Campaign Media 360 were told this week.

Dan Gineen, head of mass fundraising aquisition marketing at the British Heart Foundation, said the charity relied on public trust, and is “hugely risk averse”.

In a panel discussion at the event on how brands balance traditional and new media, Gineen said: “You can’t get donations unless you have trust. But what is the risk of not being in [the creator economy]?”

He also referred to the scandal of scam ads on Meta platforms, after the company admitted 3-4% of ads could be fraudulent, representing potentially billions of dollars. He said: “There is risk everywhere, but we have to balance it up with the opportunity and the risk for us is not showing up where our future donors are.” 

Ryan Gardiner, head of media and social at Just Eat, said using creators “can be a leap of faith”.

He said: “You have hired them for a reason; for their following, their personality. If you try and restrict their personality you will end up with vanilla content that no one will engage with.”

Gardiner added that due diligence was required, such as looking at creators' old tweets, but “you have to embrace them for who they are”.

Ellie Hooper, global vice-president, growth, at The Goat Agency, also spoke on the panel. She said: “With a clear brief and guard rails, giving the freedom to create content is really important.”

Ndu Uchea, CEO and co-founder of audience engagement agency Word on the Curb, meanwhile, stressed the power of new media. He argued that brands could get “better cultural cut-through now with less money than you could before. It’s not to say mass doesn’t matter, but there are examples of 12-year-olds with more reach than TV, by shooting stuff on their phones.”