The Influencer Continuum is an exclusive opportunity for marketing executives and leadership teams to discover, collaborate, and redefine audience engagement. Taking place October 28-30 in Dana Point, Calif., this one-of-a-kind event will go beyond education and get into real solutions designed to immediately deliver impact.
Sara Hightower (Vice President, Integrated Strategy at The Marketing Arm) researches, designs, and develops the things that affect human behavior and their relationships with brands. Her team is responsible for developing influencer strategy and creative ideas for brands participating in The Influencer Continuum, presented by The Marketing Arm.
We asked Sara some of the common questions brands might have about The Influencer Continuum. Here’s what she had to say…
How is The Influencer Continuum different from other conferences?
We actually don’t see this as a conference. And, we don’t want brands to look at this as a conference either – we know the market value of a seat in hotel event space with hundreds of others listening to a speaker.
The Influencer Continuum is the culmination of a few months of intensive work by our team developing custom, tailored strategy and ideas for these brands. The event in Dana Point will then be the convergence of leading brands, influencers, and platforms to collaborate in the context of this type of [influencer] work. We think it’s important to bring this select group of major players together to collaborate and talk about where influencer marketing has been and how we can impact its trajectory moving forward.
So, in some ways those days in Dana Point are the end of a chapter and the start of a chapter at the same time – because then it will be time to take the ideation and learnings and begin the work of bringing them to life.
What deliverables will participating brands receive?
The challenge we’ve received from our CEO since day one is that the value we deliver has to be far greater than the price. We don’t believe you could pay another agency what we’re charging and get this level of work.
Brands will walk away from The Influencer Continuum with a comprehensive strategic playbook for influencer marketing that’s been tailored for their organization as well as big campaignable ideas.
We started our playbook with the foundational chapters we think marketing leaders care about: show me the ROI, what’s your methodology, what’s my bad ass creative. But ultimately, each brand’s output will be quite different because it focuses on the role influencer marketing can play for their organization and for their challenges as well as what can they carve out in the marketplace that is theirs to own.
Why should a brand participate in The Influencer Continuum vs just paying an agency for this type of work?
There are tons of people and agencies and marketplaces who “do influencer,” which is why you see so much terrible “influencer work” out there: disingenuous collaborations, fake followers, tone-deaf messaging. These people are just trying to play the game.
We’ve got incredible digital and social media strategists and analysts, influencer strategists and analysts, brand marketing strategists, and a diverse group of creatives from not just the best of The Marketing Arm, but the best from partner Omnicom agencies developing on these brand playbooks and influencer first ideas.
Beyond the strategic rigor we are putting behind our work output, we also think we are doing something a bit different. We’re bringing together the thought leaders in this space – leading brand marketers, influencers with a clear point of view, established and emerging platforms, and top agency creatives – to connect and have meaningful dialogue an intimate atmosphere.
At The Influencer Continuum this fall, The Marketing Arm will help participating brands uncover how they can achieve an Influencer Edge with their consumers.
For any questions regarding The Influencer Continuum, please reach out to Kiley Kmiec.
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About Sara Hightower:
Sara Hightower (Vice President, Integrated Strategy at The Marketing Arm) leads a team responsible for strategic planning and insights and developing strategic solutions for a range of TMA’s clients and capabilities. Her team works at the intersection of the business, brand, and target audience need; with a deep understanding of how to tie emotional triggers to behavior. Sara focused her education on consumer behavior, completing her undergraduate studies at Michigan State University and graduate studies at Auburn University.
