Influencers ≠ Influence
Influencers ≠ Influence
Real — Influence
Understanding what drives consumer choice
Influencers ≠ Influence
Real — Influence
Understanding what drives consumer choice
“Real Influence is simply about understanding how customers make decisions about brands and products, and building creative campaigns around them.” — Ross Crump, CEO & Founder
The Process.
Real Simple.
We Listen >
In collaboration with your team, Ardent compile data from leading research & social platforms, as well as consumer focus groups to produce a Real Influence report that understands how your target audience is making decisions about your product/service category. This isn’t just about social and creators, our goal is to understand the customer journey from start to finish.
We Develop >
From that, we develop a robust strategic framework that focuses on the role social & creators play, and how we can maximize these channels as part of a the campaign. We understand the importance of connecting the journey for the customer. No more ‘thinking-in-silos’ from your agency partner.
We Deploy >
Finally, we build & launch creative campaigns that are more robust, realistic and can be measured in a way that demonstrates meaningful change in your customers intention towards your brand. We focus on storytelling, emotional connection and building community.
Then we utilize our learnings to start the whole process again.
The origins of Real Influence — by Ross Crump
In 2021 I had the opportunity to work with a major tech brand on the launch of their new gaming monitor series. At that stage everything was about brand awareness and influencer marketing was still the hot topic. Their competitors had been established for years and were ahead in the race, and we were tasked with utilizing influencers to get the brand noticed.
Not only did we use influencers to launch the brand, we also focused on building their community and delivering a consistent brand message. Guess what happened.
Awareness went up. But sales remained low.
The brand reacted by applying pressure to increase sales volume without increasing marketing spend. We took stock of where we were at, the solution was not to do more of the same and hope for better (what do they say about insanity) The solution was actually quite simple, we needed to understand how consumers were making decisions about which gaming monitor to buy. They didn’t know, and neither did we.
The agency conducted a series of studies into the behavior of the customer, where they discovered products, how they compared them, and what made them finally decide to buy. The consumer research also exposed some interesting insights about the role that ‘influencers’ and social media played in the decision-making process. Our strategy evolved and sales rose exponentially, helping the brand achieve number one status in the USA by year four.
Fast forward to 2025, another gaming monitor brand engaged us for an RFP for influencer marketing. When we asked how their customers were making decisions about which product to buy (even though we knew the answer), the brand responded with “we think it’s influencers”. We knew they were wrong.
This was the first time the concept of “Real Influence” entered my mind. The process that brands understand what is actually influencing their customers to make decisions, as it is not always an ‘influencer’ that is doing so (also why I hate the term influencer marketing).