Genuine brand influencers are hard to find. Since Gladwell talked about Mavens (people who had the social influence to move ideas over the tipping point), marketers have been searching for the tools to accurately identify (and subsequently leverage) people who had influence around their brand.

Facebook uncovered the phenomenon that normal people can ‘truly influence’ only 4 or 5 people. And their influence is for specific areas their friends or followers truly respect their opinion on. With this in mind, Young & Shand set out to create a tool that helped their clients find thousands of people who can each influence 4 or 5 of their friends.

Redefining influencer marketing, the Nudge platform allows types and roles of influencers to be clearly articulated and how brands can leverage them. This has led to new thinking on how influencers are rewarded and utilised and how ROI is measured. Its real strength lies in allowing unprecedented tracking of sharing, which not only delivers significant media effectiveness for promotional activity based in Nudge, but is also completely unique in the way it identifies genuine influencers.

From creating new social groups at a quarter of the cost of typical group creation to getting a 23% response rate for consumer-generated product ideas, to defining that influencers spend 67% more than non-influencers, real data is uncovering new insight about individual consumers and driving marketing efficacy for Young & Shand’s clients.

The most exciting part is the ability to make sense of the big data Nudge is pulling. Total data set analysis enables all their clients to benefit from an understanding of who and what it takes to be a brand influencer. Not only can they communicate with influencers more effectively and efficiently than ever before, but now also understand how a brand can move regular consumers to influencer status.

Over 150 Nudges have been delivered for 50 of NZ’s leading brands, uncovering the level of influence for over 400,000 Kiwis at a category- and brand-specific level. For the first time, clients have been able to find their brands’ real influencers and develop reward and retention strategies around them to drive real business results.