At the end of the performance, as the exhausted actors leave the stage, the grand theater of pension reform leaves us with the memory of a tiresome spectacle. From the first to the last act, the government declaimed the economic imperative – as much as moral – and invoked the deluge or forty-eight months of compulsory labor. The unions, in a united chorus, resisted to the strains of the Internationale for a social gain won by their elders. Finally, in the pit, the media cohort greedily sang the hymn of social conflict and its probable slide into general strike.

This distressing review, destined to be repeated, is just one example of this general inability to communicate calmly to solve our problems. Far from being the sole preserve of political representations, this “langue de bois” has infiltrated all our lives, personal and professional, turning them into drunken, absurd Kabuki theater. Juniors no longer understand seniors, tenants no longer talk to landlords, artists and their audiences curse each other out over a faux-pas, elected officials and their constituents shout at each other over the town planning scheme, and conflicts between ex-spouses are making separations ever more bitter. Who takes the time to listen when incantation and invective have become our lingua franca? This collective awkwardness in talking to each other is what we call the new incommunication.

But why is this situation of growing incommunication striking us when, paradoxically, we communicate abundantly, with agencies and language elements, powerpoints, polished e-mails and explanatory visuals? Everyone now has an unprecedented arsenal at their disposal to back up their words. Some will point to social networks, undoubtedly at the forefront of the charge for their propensity to play on our differences and amplify the false. Others will point to the change in our fragmented societies, shaken by crises of confidence.

It seems, however, that the evil is much deeper, rooted in the conception that has developed of communication itself: it is no longer a means of reaching out and rubbing shoulders with others, but a closed circuit, a closed door disqualifying those who don’t join the party of unilateral consensus. Perhaps we’re simply fascinated by our own words, our own message, without worrying about the answers. What if the obsessive, narcissistic narrative we serve up to ourselves in this deaf monologue is a form of reality that dispenses with the return of reality? In this climate of post-reality, where the real is manufactured, would the image we tell ourselves be enough to satisfy us?

In this way, communication, a vector for understanding others, is misused to become both armor and an active tool for vexing and excluding one’s interlocutor. The government’s insistence on “pedagogy” betrays this desire to educate this rebellious, gypsy-smoking people, rather than recognize the healthy, legitimate disagreements that structure it. It also reflects the obvious sense of superiority of those who know better. Thus, the contempt and smugness of messages circulating from a clumsy CAC40 CEO to the smallest condominium are so many discreet slaps in the face of those considered inferior. We protect ourselves from him, and to protect ourselves even better, we disqualify him. We knock him out of the story.

Incommunication is the refusal to consider the intelligence and otherness of one’s opponent, in order to justify speaking only to those who are convinced a priori. Contemporary magical thinking, it is a denial of reality in the face of the basic teachings of the Palo Alto School: communication is a pas de deux played out between sender and receiver.

Ultimately, incommunication is an admission of a certain insignificance, taking oneself as the sole reference point, like an immature child. These self-referential bubbles are like fortified castles, protecting us from fertile cleavage in favor of sterile conflict… And yet, “the spirit of the fortified castle is the drawbridge”, as René Char puts it! So how can we turn communication back into a gateway to the other and to the world? How do we get out of this bulletproof communication exercise that managers so avidly practice?

We propose a simple solution to this problem: sympathetic listening and empathy as the unsurpassed starting point for any kind of message. Rather than protecting or humiliating them, we propose to start by listening to this interlocutor, this colleague, this friend, this parent and this constituent. Breaking the cycle of incommunication means first and foremost re-establishing the functions of opinion research and analysis, this time of disinterested listening, without any pre-formatted language in mind, in order to grasp expectations and nuances, which tomorrow will be so many assets needed to combine logic and rally emotion.

We need to put aside, at least for a while, the recipes for persuasion and other magic potions of leadership. Let’s break away from the illusion that to exist you have to shine and win votes by the sheer force of your egotistical words. Like Jacques Pilhan of old, let’s rediscover the virtues of silence, moderation and a keen ear for the deep breaths of opinion. Surely positive influence begins here? That’s what we think with our JIN teams. To overcome incommunication, let’s start by listening and remaining silent, in all humility.

Image: Screaming to each other (by courtesy of Dall.E-2)

Interview published in French in Influencia

INfluencia: Can you describe your agency in a few words?

Edouard Fillias: JIN has been in existence for just over ten years and employs 120 people. Our objective is to understand communities and their respective ecosystems in order to activate them and provide a service to the brand managers who use our services. Our clients include Bouygues, Ferrero, Grand Optical, Allianz, Casino, Samsung and recently Happn. We have a very corporate and marketing culture.

IN: When did you get involved in influencer marketing?

E.F.: Very quickly. Our first client in this market was Europcar. We called on an Instagrameur who took a whole series of photos of the most beautiful roads in Europe. The idea of this project was not to take advantage of his community but to use his influence to spread this campaign in 20 countries. We then did influencer marketing campaigns for many other clients including Ricoh and Geodis. For Bouygues, we developed a BtoB operation using drone pilots to shoot images in tunnels. This sector has always fascinated me. In 2019, I even co-authored the Influencer’s Handbook published by Ellipses.

I apply the principle of Jacques Séguéla when he called on Dali for a Citroën ad.

IN: How has this sector evolved over the years? 

E.F.: It all started with the emergence of bloggers in the early 2000s. These people who were good at writing were mostly journalists. From 2010 onwards, videographers like Squeezie began to appear. Since 2015, there has been an explosion of new online talent. With the collapse of the cost of access to video linked to the arrival of new smartphones, everyone is starting to post content on the web. It’s an incredible cultural revolution. Influencers are specialising in more and more specific niches. YouTube is and remains at the forefront of influencer marketing. I myself spend two hours a day on this platform because it is so rich.

IN: Faced with this explosion in the number of influencers, how does a brand choose one over another?

E.F.: Faced with the collapse of digital advertising, which is less and less impactful and effective, more and more clients are considering digital marketing as a recourse. While many agencies sell volume or pretend there is a wand to find the right influencers, I favour a more traditional approach that some might even say is old-fashioned. I apply the principle of Jacques Séguéla when he called on Dali for a Citroën ad. The designer and his messages must be in line with the brand. The meeting between the client and the influencer is a public relations job. It takes time and must be done face-to-face. The technological tools we use are used to detect talent, but in the end, the link must be forged between the creator and the company’s managers. This is even more true today because brands nowadays want to develop long-term relationships with the influencer, who becomes their muse, as it were. Most of them have become much more professional in recent years. Almost all of them have agents or agencies that represent them.

IN: Who are the most relevant influencers for a brand? The big global stars, the national stars or the nano-influencers?

E.F.: It all depends on the budget, the ambitions and the number of countries targeted by the client. We know that the larger an influencer’s community is, the less prescriptive they are. However, there is no universal answer to this problem. Global influencers can be counted on the fingers of one hand. To get high visibility quickly, using large national influencers is often the most effective option. To trigger a wave of buy-in from the bottom up, from customer to customer, using nano-influencers can make sense. Another option for brands would be to create their own influencer, but no one dares to do so yet and cross that Rubicon.

IN: How much does an influencer cost these days?

E.F.: We are currently going through a transition. 2021 was a very good year and 2022 marked a return to reality. Influencers are still charging the same prices as during the pandemic but the market has evolved since then and rates have dropped significantly and this trend should continue in the coming months.

IN: Is influencer marketing becoming cheap?

E.F.: You can’t say that… To launch an effective influencer marketing campaign, you need to pay an influencer but you also need to free up a budget to activate content, organise events and pay the agency that will manage the project. The entry ticket for a serious project is between 150,000 and 200,000 euros. 40% to 50% of this amount will be paid to the influencer, 30% to 40% to the agency and 10% to 20% to the activation costs. However, this envelope can be very variable. A campaign with a single nano-influencer can be done with a budget of 10,000 euros. However, I am delighted to see some brands investing between 500,000 and 1 million euros for ambitious campaigns.

Today, if you have one million subscribers, you are already an SME because you employ two or three people

IN: Will influencer marketing develop further in the future?

E.F.: I’m sure it will. Influencer marketing will quadruple in size by 2025. This sector will grow at the expense of SEA and advertising on social networks, especially Facebook. TV advertising, which is a medium on borrowed time, will also decline but I think radio and magazines will hold up better. The media landscape will change a lot in the coming years. The success in the United States of Dailywire, which was launched by an influencer close to the Republican party and which is a paid platform on which influencers replace journalists, is a good example. We can very well imagine seeing in the future media created by influencers specialised in politics, beauty or travel. This evolution is inevitable. Today, if you have one million subscribers, you are already an SME because you employ two or three people to help you, such as an editor and an assistant. You are also already a content producer. The next logical step in your development is to set up your own media and brands will have a role to play in this market.

Interview made by Cision

In an increasingly unpredictable world, faced with the challenges of a sustainable economy and the wavering authority of governments, the Internet is an opportunity to build popular trust, a disintermediated link between everyone. But while the network has become omnipresent in our daily lives, the picture of its success is mixed, with fake news, commercial predation and abuse of our data. Aurélie Siou (Cision) asked Edouard Fillias and Caroline Faillet about their vision of influence.

Aurélie Siou (Cision) : What is your definition of influence? What is an influence strategy?

Influence is the ability to provoke a change in opinion or an action in others. For us, influence is inseparable from the notion of trust, because it’s because you trust a voice that you will be influenced by it. Historically, influence was exerted by the public word, rumour, then following the invention of the printing press and public education, the written media greatly amplified the power of influence.

But this power remained concentrated in the hands of a handful of powerful people, whether in politics, the media, the intellectual world or the arts… The advent of the smartphone and social networks has turned the traditional mechanism of influence on its head. Today, everyone has a tool in their pocket with the potential to design and broadcast their message to the whole world.

You can inform – and misinform – yourself, film yourself, edit your video and then broadcast it to billions of people on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, all free of charge and using just a smartphone. With all of us spending so much of our daily lives online, the power to influence has never been so accessible.

This revolution brings its own set of challenges for entities that need to influence in order to prosper, or even survive. Governments, institutions, brands… are all competing with as many issuers as there are users publishing content on social networks. What’s worse, all the surveys show that these public bodies suffer from a lack of public confidence, compared with voices that are considered closer and more authentic, those of the famous “influencers”.

Who are these influencers?

They are people who have mastered social media, whose message has resonated with thousands or even millions of people, and who have built up a community of loyal followers.

Sometimes, the authority figures of the past have managed to build up their status as online influencers: journalists, political decision-makers, managers – many have adopted social platforms to create their own media, bypassing the traditional media filter. But the boundaries are blurring with the new types of influencers, whether they are life coaches, professional video game players, new technology testers, DIY experts… all today enjoy a platform that gives them the ability to reach and influence a vast audience.

From then on, the influence strategy is based on two levers. The first involves engaging in relevant dialogue with communities. The second involves identifying and then activating the influencers we can rely on to relay our messages and achieve our objectives: generating sales, improving our reputation, getting people to sign a petition, obtaining votes, donations, etc. This involves research using advanced technological tools to find influencers whose editorial line, style and audience demographics are compatible with our own. Often, influencer strategy is based on disseminating messages to radically different stakeholders, which means activating different types of channels and influencers.

Influence strategy is successful when it is possible to prove, following the deployment of a campaign, that the messages have indeed provoked the desired changes in opinion and actions. This can be measured both qualitatively and quantitatively, using surveys, or simply by analysing changes in traffic, subscriptions and, of course, sales.

To influence, organisations need to be connected to their communities, both directly and through this network of allies, the influencers.

This is a condition for dialogue, but soon also with the web3 and its new models, to share power with them in a new economy of ownership.

Should we distinguish between organic and monetised influence? Professional” influencers and “product” influencers?

In a society governed by recommendations, companies need to federate authentic allies, over and above paid spokespeople. Often, a complete influencer strategy will combine the two models: influencers from the professional world, also known as B2B, who follow and comment on our brand or organisation with interest, and with whom we nurture long-term relationships. These influencers have a profession and owe their influencer status to their expertise, which is widely recognised on the networks. Paid influencers, on the other hand, see their influencer activity as a way of making a living. This does not prevent them from being selective about the brands and products they decide to promote.

The most credible influencers owe their legitimacy to a certain authenticity built up over the long term with their community, and advertising in spite of their values would be seen as a betrayal of their audience.

Absolutely, it’s one of the challenges of our time. We can see it in the United States, but also with Russian propaganda: veritable empires of harmful influence have been created around the manipulation of facts and the dissemination of false information, the famous fake news. Fake news can sway elections, exacerbate the bipolarity of opinion, and encourage the rise of extremes and conspiracy theories. This negative influence often undermines confidence in science and democratic institutions. It is therefore essential to counter it with a positive influence characterised by transparency, factual rigour, courage and benevolence, in order to restore its social usefulness.

Hence the interest in Web3 and its promise of decentralisation and authenticity.