As part of the millennial generation, it is interesting to see how the advertising industry has adjusted to meet the needs of consumers similar to myself. In an article featured on Forbes highlighting a company called ‘Fanbytes’, this topic is explored further in depth by considering alternatives to traditional forms of advertising that have been around for longer than millennials have been alive.

Fanbytes is a company that helps brands including Go Pro, Adidas and Nickelodeon collaborate with social influencers on channels such as Youtube, Instagram or Vine. These platforms are popular amongst millennials and this 16-24 year old demographic is seen as the largest current market for many brands. However, there has been a need for brands to change the way that they engage with younger consumers as millennials are particularly resistant to obvious, disruptive forms of advertising. They are cautious of product placement and will reject advertising that seems artificial or unnatural. Therefore, companies need to find ways to shift their blatant advertising methods into native content.

Fanbytes connects these companies to the influencers that would fit their brand image and would be able to reach a large audience while staying believable and authentic. An example of this is a highly successful campaign that they arranged for Go Pro in which they teamed up with a Youtuber called Kieran Brown with 150k subscribers who specializes in creating videos featuring freestyle football tricks. Fanbytes tends not to use Youtubers who are too popular because a lot of times they have entered the ‘celebrity’ category in which anything they advertise tends to lose authenticity. I think that this is definitely a more effective way of advertising as it is incorporated more subtly into content that is already engaging consumers. Instead of forcing consumers to be receivers of information, this opens up an alternative in which consumers can actively seek out ‘advertising’ from companies and not feel like they are being advertised to.

For more information on Fanbytes, the article I referred to earlier can be found here.