Chronically Online: Intentional Brand Storytelling in the Influencer Era 

In its 25 years, LaunchSquad has done its fair share of influencer marketing; tech media, after all, was dominated largely by bloggers-turned-reporters who editorialized with such sway that their columns and reviews moved markets and killed categories. What a time. 

Influencers today have the last word on many products, services, and trends. But its prolific iteration means that making meaningful content is only that much harder.

I lead our Creators/Influencer practice at LaunchSquad, and I wanted to unpack what this work looks like today with Emily Kaplowitz, who joined the Squad this year, after a long tenure in celebrity and mega-influencer strategies for some of today’s most known brands. 

Megan Soto Laney: Emily! From one very-online person to another, belated 'Welcome to LaunchSquad.'  Let’s start where we always do with clients, which is: story. As a firm, we’re extremely precious about this. We toil and fiddle and obsess over the narrative arc of a business and its main characters in the devout belief that it’ll be the thing that matters to people (customers, partners, industry insiders, etc.) when all is said and done. So it’s important to start from that lens, and how we work very hard to get it right. 

Emily Kaplowitz: Yes, I’ve noticed that. Spending time on deep story work has been interesting. In my past work, it’s been important, but always interspersed with other elements of the campaign or priorities that are in the mix. But, at the end of the day, it does all come down to strong and clear storytelling and a deep understanding of who you are as a brand to make a robust campaign.

MSL: Totally, and we should note that you were working with huge brands. LaunchSquad tends to work with companies that are establishing themselves or who find themselves at an inflection point and are looking for some articulation. It’s different work. 

EK: Yes, I worked mainly with legacy household names. I’ve worked with brands in both the U.S. and Europe that were deep in the fashion world, had a devoted base, and very loyal customers. They had an identity built out, and my role was to bring in influencers and celebrities to continue to up-level that story. Once in a while, you had a brand that had been doing the same thing for 30 or 40 years, and they wanted to try something new, and other times they stuck with what they knew. They can afford to do that, but it’s on us as marketing professionals to understand when there’s value in either direction. 

MSL: Yes! One of many roles we play. The other is often as “casting director” or “talent coordinator.” You have a ton of experience here, and I want to talk about how the idea of “who matters” is shifting and evolving. My sense is that “who matters” in influencer-world is both becoming clearer and more opaque. I had a client ask for the “top 5 influencers” for a campaign recently and I felt like a deer in the headlights. I just don’t think that’s the right question anymore, right? There are so many creators out there, and so many people speaking to hyper-targeted communities. I think the spirit of the question should instead be, “Who is making the most interesting stuff, and how do you create a campaign to fit their aesthetic/content canon?” 

EK: Or, maybe the right question is, “Who are the top five influencers for your brand,” and then you build from there. It has to hit those two things; you could work with one of the most powerful creators, but they may not actually work for your brand. So you have to envision your product or brand messaging being relayed by that creator to their audience, and often it doesn’t quite work. Which goes back to the story being 100% there, and the partnership being attuned to it, versus hiring the most famous person in the room at the moment. 

MSL: OK, this, to me, is why this new J.Crew Rollneck Generation campaign works. With Maggie Rogers, Molly Gordon, Benito Skinner, and others as models. All of these folks are just a little off-center in their fame, right? Not mainstream. You have to be someone who is a consumer of cool things – cool music, cool TV, cool TikTok – to recognize this group, and to recognize yourself in the campaign. It makes J.Crew, a legacy (and let’s face it) mall brand legible to the people who follow these celebrities (like my 16-year-old babysitter), and quickly brings them into their world.