Thumbnail attribution in order from left to right: kaelimaee, achendricks, mikaylanogueira
The poppi Super Bowl Controversy
In early February of this year, the poppi marketing team decided to exhaust their budget and go all-out with the vending machines and Super Bowl commercial. But internet users have grown weary of brands gifting already-rich influencers products they could afford easily otherwise. Folks are waking up and realizing that influencers and celebrities have always been rewarded for being rich, and creator marketing ensures this won’t change. Well, they’re not wrong…
Aside from the vending machine debacle, they also cashed out on a minute-long Super Bowl commercial featuring lifestyle influencers Alix Earle, Jake Shane, and other noteworthy influencers. Earle’s perfectly tousled blonde locks and seemingly dreamy lifestyle definitely aided in her rise to fame, and since 2022, she’s only gotten more unrelatable. This is simply speculation, but Earle likely cashed out at least six figures for her part in the poppi commercial. Super Bowl LIX? More like Super Bowl ALIX.
Since internet users realized that only influencers received the poppi vending machines, they’ve begun criticizing the brand for losing their relatability. poppi rarely gifts “normal” people PR products, which is allegedly in stark contrast to their past marketing efforts when they were just starting out. Many TikTok users have called on poppi to ditch their celebrity-first approach and give back to communities who need it—such as hospitals to support essential workers, nursing homes, and university campuses. Here’s the thing, though: poppi’s creator marketing still works, and exceptionally well. The masses can’t resist; products associated with rich people equate owning that same product with richness. This is marketing 101, unfortunately.
Olipop’s Response
Olipop, another gut-healthy prebiotic soda brand, has been coming for poppi’s neck. This is a very smart tactic because poppi is their main, more successful competitor, and being the “good guy” in an internet beef will almost always boost a company’s profit. poppi’s loss is Olipop’s gain, and Olipop is at the forefront of every poppi hate post.
sammysamslife on TikTok
Olipop alleged that each poppi vending machine cost $25,000, but poppi has since refuted these claims.
justinekoa on TikTok
justinekoa on TikTok
Either way, you’re looking at over $10,000 per machine, and that’s excluding their sodas. Through Olipop’s “defending” of non-influencers—the “little guys” of the modern world—Olipop gains social currency from poppi’s tone-deaf creator marketing and, in turn, boosts their relatability.
Shiny by Nature
Let’s shift away from creator marketing for a moment and focus our attention on social acceptance and the standard conventions of existing as a social media personality online—especially as a plus-sized woman.
Shiny by Nature, owned by Alex Ochoa and her husband Tianashi, is a plus-sized fashion brand whose target audience is “curvy” consumers. The brand emerged in 2021 and was fairly successful for a small business. Many social media users attested to the brand’s innate understanding of bigger bodies, and it catered to a consumer base that was widely ignored by other fashion brands. It felt as though, finally, curvy girls found an ethically-made clothing brand that understood the assignment.
It wasn’t long until folks started noticing suggestive anti-plus-sized content being posted by Alex, herself, on her personal TikTok page. Commenting on women’s bodies is tiresome and annoying, so I’ll keep it brief. The plus-sized community has taken issue with Ochoa’s public weight loss journey and believes it’s harmful to the audiences she has previously provided a safe place for in her fashion mission. We’re all for “happy and healthy”—whatever that might mean to you. However, promotional weight loss opposes her original mission completely.
Internet users are noticing a drastic shift away from the body-positive movement toward early-aughts skinny, and the plus-sized community admittedly feels left behind, especially by Ochoa. “Selling out” to conform with conventional beauty standards is another way one might lose a customer base, whether it is intentional or not.
Tarte’s “Trippin’ with Tarte”
The mainstream beauty brand, Tarte, is well-known for its all-expenses paid excursions to idyllic destinations like Bali, Turks and Caicos, Bora Bora, and the like. The brand hosts these excursions solely for creator marketing, and influencers from around the world are invited to attend, relax, and post about how perfect their lives are because of Tarte. Tarte gives back; Tarte is so generous. Only influencers are invited to these all-expenses-paid trips. Not only do rich influencers get to sunbathe in a luxurious villa, but they also receive thousands of dollars worth of free Tarte products, swag, and other PR. Do influencers need more free stuff if they can afford it otherwise? What about the rest of us?
Though these trips are planned well in advance, the timing isn’t always ideal. For example, Tarte brought a group of influencers to Necker Island back in January. At the same time, the LA wildfires broke out and devastated hundreds of acres of land and California residents’ homes. Instead of rescheduling the trip or even posting a bit less about how amazing the other half lives, influencers and Tarte itself posted throughout the entire trip. Marketing experts suggest that Tarte and its gang of rich-fluencers could have limited their online presence during this time instead of turning a blind eye to the tragedies happening back in the USA. Tone-deafness exists in the influencer sphere and especially in creator marketing.
Influencer-based PR has been a hot topic for a while now. Many creators receive products they admittedly don’t need—like beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira. The amount of PR packages Nogueira receives per day is absurd. Not only does this promote fast, excessive consumerism, but it’s also yet another reminder that someone with a likely net worth of over a million dollars receives a Dyson Air Wrap and a Chanel bag for free, no strings attached.
Nogueira hosts product giveaways with a good chunk of the PR she receives, but only if fans and followers repay her in social currency: “Like, follow, subscribe, comment!” Nothing in this world is free for the non-famous, but apparently, everything is free for those who benefit nearly nothing from it. Even still, Chanel will never go out of business, Dyson is a successful company, and every other product an influencer receives for free benefits from creator marketing, even if the talk around town says otherwise. Social media is an echo chamber, indeed.
Normal People Don’t Want to Buy Products From Influencers, But Brands Can’t Survive Without Them
The world is struggling. People, morally, don’t want to buy things from influencers. But, creator marketing is a surefire way to call attention to a brand. Any publicity is bad publicity, right? And being spoken about is better than being forgotten. Five minutes of fame turns to ten, then to 20, then to 60… and the rest of us normal people will keep buying these products whether we like it or not.
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