How quickly influencers can lose their advertising

Nothing has shown the dangers of influencers and false advertising quite like influencer Olivia Jade Giannulli. The news of numerous rich celebrities has come out about parents paying for their children to attend prestigious universities without the required academic qualifications. Many of the parents have already been charged for this blatant fraud including actress Lori Loughlin, mother of Olivia Jade, becoming a wake-up call for influencers everywhere just how important the content they present is.

Prior to the scandal being exposed, Olivia Jade would present her “brand” on her YouTube channel as a fun college girl and even admits to only wanting to experience USC for the games and parties over the actual school work in her video below titled “basically all the tea you need to know about me (boys, college, youtubers).” It’s a wonder how the world didn’t put the pieces together based on how she branded herself online. Now, the appropriate reactions have come forth and according to Ad Age author Angela Doland, “ In the comments of a sponsored Instagram post about Giannulli getting her college dorm supplies from an Amazon service for students, someone wrote, ‘Hoping your sponsors dump you ASAP.” Since then the advertising backlash has taken off, her biggest partner, Sephora, dropped her “Olivia Jade x Sephora” makeup collection most recently, which will be a big dent in her current and future relationships with brands.

This just goes to show how fragile the common job of an influencer nowadays truly is. Branding yourself online is opening companies and audiences into your life and when your credibility becomes lost, so does all your income that relies on it.

-Julia

For more info go to Angela Doland’s article, “An Influencer Gets Caught Up in the College Admissions Scandal: Wednesday Wake-Up Call,” Ad Age, (March 13^th, 2019).

Link: https://adage.com/article/news/news/316960/