Influencers and Values-Led Advertising with Didrik Svendsen, CEO & Co-Founder at Tailify

Welcome back to Life and Digital Podcast. This week we're joined by Dydric Spencer, CEO and co-founder of TeleFi. TeleFi is shaping the world of influencer marketing powered by science. We discussed how advertising is becoming more people-focused and humanised as we move towards values-led partnerships. Dydric shares how in only a few years, influencers will account for the largest job role globally and what that means for the future of brands. We jump straight into this episode so no introduction from Ed as the guys were busy talking about the results of the TeleFi values test. I hope you will enjoy. As humans we're biologically aware to trust and listen to people because it's how we've lived for a couple of hundred thousand such billions years depends on who you ask. About 20 years ago we got something called websites. We started interacting with people and looking for information not by people but actually through websites and we were never engineered to actually consume from websites or trust websites because you trust the website. So for a long time that was kind of the only way you could communicate is scale. Then some influencers came along and with consumers got the option to either go like I can listen, I can go to a YouTube reviewer who like watch a review or whatever I'm buying or I can go to this random website which might have something that really opposes websites. So like you'd be we go to people. And again when instead of me going to websites I can just curate my YouTube or Instagram channel or whatever we go to people. And since we're biologically hardwired to list to these people as soon as we can actually start connecting to these people we just start showing off other parts because your brain consumes about 283 calories per day. Give or take. Does it really? Yeah, mine is less. I don't know, thank you. I'm just very efficient. But it's been like that for a hundred thousands of years and your brain is biologically hardwired for minimal effort and maximum output. We're a lazy creature. So as much as possible as you can outsource decision making to other people which is kind of how we manage the form of societies and then tribes the more you can outsource the better which means the more I can just follow and trust and rely on other people to make this ends for me the better I am because the less energy I have to consume. Yeah decision to take is really really simple but not been made by like we all feel decision to take so there's rituals and things that we do so we have to make less decisions but I went by just exactly the same clothes and we're the same thing every day because I have to think about which also probably makes a little bit of sense because some stimulation in your low yeah what is that okay so what does that mean? So stimulation is shorter or to how excited do you get about trying new things yeah I'm about a nine out of ten on stimulation I go to a restaurant and I see something and I know that I love it I'll still try something weird and obscure or something new just for the novelty of how that's so interesting so I like going to restaurants and I wouldn't know what I'm in water before I go there because I don't want to have to think about why I'm going to eat. I drink certain wine certain times a day I might have it so I do because it's this time of day and it's this thing. So again your battalions test shows that which is also actually so did you see his test? Yeah we just looked at it so you know all right so again you in combined that with all's used for ten out of ten or nine out of ten ahead and it's yeah nine out of ten on head and his me yeah the strongest head and his score I've ever seen which means you're a man who likes enjoying your life which I applaud you I applaud you. Now it's actually very interesting because your low stimulation and high and head and his makes a lot sense because you know you care so much about enjoying life and knowing what you want which means you stick to your gut. I care less about hedonism and more simulation which means I just keep trying new things because I don't care that much about actually enjoying it I just enjoy the novelty and the stimulation of it which is too completely different approaches to consumption and enjoying it's funny to put things like a movie as an example or a series I would really like to know what happens because I like to relax and enjoy it so if I know what happens I will actually enjoy it but I work with it I'm such an avid planner like when are we doing everything by I can have it used to it but if the poor are just doing it I'm not going to we're going to work out like granularly how and I'm not going to scale with it. That will use so your personality test and personality traits which can be kind of both negative and positive and all positives are negative it's just kind of the vice versa. But with values as much more to do about how you deeply value your life and how you see situation and kind of the goal you want to get out of it you just approach everything you just want to enjoy life which is beautiful I just do everything because I just want to try new and experience new things and experience as much as that's possible in my own way which is different approach but actually knowing this and again as you said you actually don't want that much stimulation you would rather have things planned so you know how it's going to be stimulation is to do it exactly and then people around you which either consciously or subconsciously know this they interact with you in that way which means all your interactions with people at least people that you know becomes in a way which is actually customized to you versus if you go to the online world today or you go to YouTube they not just serve you content based on what is kind of popular from an attention so that they can make money off or stuff and demographic information they know about you so you're living in London, Nariara and you click these things in the past. If then you and actually started framing and giving you content that provides people and influencers according to actually what you like and value certainly you can actually be connected with people who share your values and people who talk about or approach anything from an enjoying life whether that is planning a car review or how to create a workplace or how to plan trips to a beef though or just knowing how to book shit everyone can talk about things that you can be connected with people who speaks about things and review things through the lens of head and his or where you would go like we make sense. I feel understood that's what you want to do when you have great relationships is a sense of I feel understood because so much of life which feels jarring is I don't feel understood so that understanding is so key I'm interested so I don't think that's good you become understood and that's what we're kind of trying to bring to influencers or influencers and wider world to just help people understand themselves to be understood when they go into the world and connect with other people. That's just a better one. It is, yeah it is and you know if I'm a brand I want to understand my brand and if I'm an influencer I want to understand what I'm getting across and as a consumer if I feel understood I'm more likely to buy from you. Yeah because this is a bit away from kind of the influencer space but with life choices we're behavioral science one of my kind of bleases is if you can understand what your natural way of being is and make decisions aligned to those you're going to enjoy like a bit more because I think one of the challenges with the modern world is there's so much there's so many things that people think they should do because of what they're I should do this my friends doing that. What should you or how people can take something like the psychometric testing to create and so okay this is this is me so how do I make decisions in line with me because I'm making decisions in line with me I'm probably gonna I'm probably gonna be on a better path but yeah so interestingly I should one of the researchers run depression some of these is ways to fall into it it's acting against your values because yes I can imagine that I can actually just kind of it confuses your brain it confuses you are you kind of going away from your identity so when people don't feel if you lost like yeah you're typically living off non-part who just pulling away from enjoying life. Yeah in general I've very bad life which most people would agree with but the more you understand something more you know accordingly. A lot of these things we do personality tests at work typically whenever you which is most common type of people trying to do this and whenever you chat to people who have done it they go ah now I understand why I get in a fight with you with eggs. I have this because I'm I'm ludic seriously stupid when it comes to details and planning and things and I just want to explore a new day's high level and if I sit in a room with someone who's the opposite we'll just look at each other we're actually that person will look at me and like you're fucking stupid and I'll go look they're like why are we not having fun and exploring these things yeah but knowing them suddenly makes work relationships which are kind of forced not chose relation make a lot more sense. I did the values test with my girlfriend when we live together and the where we differ so we're strong overlap on most which actually most couples are and then we have a couple of strong outliers which also most couples have because there needs to be a little bit of a challenge. And a chance to make it some interest. There are misalignment on a couple of key values which is around the security self direction and stimulation. Explain all the times we look at each other when we discuss something and she goes like how are you thinking? And I go like wait you're thinking what and it just explains it and it turns the puzzle from a question mark into something which is just beautiful which is differences. Yeah absolutely and you understand that yeah and so you're very strong self determination yeah and then very strong one kind of curiosity I forget the word in use later so that's like I know where I'm going to go into self determination and I'm trying those stuff. It's crazy something like terrifying but knowing these things you can then make career decisions like if you're a high on security depends on how high and other values. You're like some parts are actually starting for yourself. It's much much bigger challenge and something you need to think about as both if you score as a person. So again if we work to have people to do values test to help them make career decisions make personal decisions understand themselves better. And obviously because hey we need to make money we'll apply this into the world brand product which again all of your choices are based on these values and the world of brands. I try to get people to make choices. Just go to people who show values as both you try to persuade people who you are and like you to actually go and buy you and then they won't be long-term customers. Absolutely and tell if I win with your customers do you see yourself as an agency or a technology vendor or an agency type of technology what's the kind of the framing to brands and any influences. Good question. So we call yourself a technical agency. Yeah. Actually we just say we're going to come into this company. Yeah if we need to put it in buckets which someone with self-direction that like to be put into it. I've written technical agencies what we do would never be able to be done without deep tech and research the signs which we're doing. Yeah but on the flip side because people are people and influencers are people. We still need humans as a way of interacting in an interface layer to actually translate the signs that we're doing giving it to the world. But we've gotten a risk due to the stage where actually the technology which we're building we built into tool for someone to the test you did. So actually everyone on the planet can start interacting using it as opposed to just a couple of our plans which we carry on the service through manual project which doesn't really scale particularly well. Yeah and also things you notice where brands are really having an amazing impact with the influences and with influence marks and what are the themes that you should notice. So themes are we know all the usual suspects in the UK the gym sharks of the world etc etc. Yeah and then one looks at the like how did they do what they do. Yeah they can do what they do because they actually had young people doing this and they knew that it was okay this is actually these are people and we need to authentically do. So if you listen to all good companies who've done it they'll say authenticity they will say long-term collaborations they will say working with inputs and actually integrate them. All things which are very like relationship-y because they understood the inputs. So all the good ones typically have young teams doing it on the large corporate strength that if it's more a thing on the basis typically of all the people who try to do it. Exactly we have a boss who's saying now we need to get the people with the maximum amount of followers not the people who are the most relevant and then it can go wrong and you were able to identify the correct brand and influence the match which I guess is where the campaigns become much more effective. Being a screw-top line matrix don't to choose an emphasis based on how many followers they have will engage in rates and choose the basis who they are and how well they match with your brand based on values and personality because then the consumer sees all this feels right this feels authentic and working together with notebook company makes a lot sense because it's an headlines planning notebooks from about planning they both care about sustainability because it's notebook companies stapling manufacturers so if you do collaboration highest in an audience and follow what you go yeah that makes sense I'll actually buy this because I trust that and he says this is good yeah I'll buy it so yeah again just matching on those values makes sense and how do you acquire the influence is how to be because there's two sides what the brand makes is the influence is how do you get the relationship with the influences oh so we actually well we don't yeah so we obviously we need to communicate and get in touch with them there's two approaches in the world of influence which you can take which is one which is like the traditional which is build up a roster and on talent of the panel of rosters of panel rosters rosters the roster is technically a panel and yeah you build up a pool of talent yeah and you say oh we got 20 top talent on our in our books or you we have 5,000 10,000 technically means you're inherently biased because it's like high this these are the people of itself as we scan the entire universe of a hundred million influencers and then for each individual brand we select the right people yeah then we just get in touch with them and say hey you match because you have the same values as the sprang you want to do collaboration to which they often go yeah this one's pretty cool and this is a good match because again from a new perspective they want to make sure that they actually work with the right brand which their audience perceives as authentic so us giving the understanding to the brats out but also to the influence of society just makes the conversation why do you see the influences are typically like yes cool yeah I'm spoken of kind of often before we started a bit about behaviors new interesting in behavioral science and advertising is such an art form I guess one of the things I love about the nature of behavior and how influence the marketing explores that and people is that at its core advertising was all about creativity and I guess the emergence of digital pool so much focus on performance which is incredibly important because the metrics really really really matter yeah it feels like we're getting back towards the kind of the behavior when you're artistic nature and the creative nature of advertising because of these ideas from space so what do you think is the direction and travel for I know but yeah but for advertising the digital world when it comes to the behavior and the human element the personality element all the cool bits okay so good question short answer it's becoming people focused and humanized so again when we're experiencing the shift we're the entire online world is going from websites for a non-human entities to people influence platforms essentially exactly it forces marketers to rethink what they're doing from who let's persuade people at scale they're just like serving them 20 ads in a row until it happens a lot of buyers they exactly they have to look and play in a space where you're asking an influencer who's had a follower for like three years which is a very human and long-term relationship if you go into that space to play like you have to play by the rules of humans which brings it back to what we use called like the artistic side which is I should just understand humans and what makes them tick which is if you go back to old school art directing creativity it was about it's always been my human behavior you're going to most marketing conferences everyone will secretly admit not secretly wouldn't admit to them being hobby psychologists because it's at the end of the day we're just trying to get people to change your behavior and that type of was a balance life between behavioral science coupled with creativity how do you kind of who goes to together ooh like the teams what one doesn't go without the other in more way so currently if you just have science matching yeah and those are some brands they still need to do something certainly there needs to be creative guidance to both points the brand needs and how do you think about creative in people content then what's the need to answer how do I can I think about creative in a people science context so we're very much everything is powered by tech and data but then it's a little bit of art form just layered nicely on top of people I think the creative assets probably 10 years from now we will nicely educated the world well enough to do the creative layer so we can just be power on the tech side of things yeah one wonders when you go without the other you know you guys go and I know from seeing Judo you all can I straight to do a presentation some really fascinating things just about like whether people are looking at you in a campaign in terms of our front-on headshot versus sideproports that's what you fancy with fascinating things about what people engage with yeah so if you ask the question what is influence you can call that deep rabbit hole which we can do the problem through all of the fun stuff but what is influence actually yeah what is influence oh so it depends on the personality question if for me influence I guess is people listening to you and being heard and having the ability to have an influence on someone yeah yeah yeah and like if you start bringing that up into why do you listen to someone else you listen because you kind of respect this is going to be my word yeah you've trust in them as I've said good things to you in the past like we're inherently as humans trained to which people do we trust or not from behavior signals yeah from behavior signals for millions of years how will we evolve so the reason why we trust and listen to people today are the same in the cave days it's well I trust the end because I don't know well enough long enough for me to say I can't trust you because I'm like a nice guy and we share a couple of values hey yeah but if you consistently given me good information you will also create a building because you're in this space of digital equipment so when you come to recruitment you've got authority of credibility yes you also would love me in the eyes so thank you very much for that you do a little bit of self-disclosure you shared information with me and the more information you share with me the more I trust you yes very human reciprocity yeah so vulnerability and honesty exactly so what we measure is present eye contact as you mentioned yeah higher levels of eye contact means higher levels of influence higher levels of self-disclosure of your point about vulnerability the more an influencer discloses about themselves and their personality their audience the more the audience feels like they understand the influencer there's also a weird thing which means they also feel like the influencer knows them better and the more they feel like the influence knows them and vice versa the more they trust them so the more again you've been trusting me with vulnerable secrets more okay when I then recommends me something to buy I'll go yeah and I trust it it's funny I'll smile when you're talking so I think people with people my life my wife loves as influencers and I just that's we have two kids so it's like she loves tomorrow equals to she's done it for the program into her life because she's like obviously she's a multi-grillian and there's in care so it's one perception of her but then I've seen her life in her kids and kids sleep in her bed so she's just about that level of I know I know where we share this thing so she would put anything on any platform I guarantee it would get bought yeah if you could pull it yeah and say if the this echo soul lady your partner meets in the street she would always like hey look oh no she doesn't actually know me yeah but this is someone of a weird thing there's also beautiful but if you look at if I were to ask most people in one of the societies in the UK who do you listen to the most and I'm asking about now the minute you listen to another individual typically you are partner and family close family then some colleagues and workplace but after that's typically like number three four five six on our list will be around the podcast room where you're listening like I listen to an hour of an episode from a show every week I don't speak to my friends in a week yeah yeah yeah yeah you guys you start having like these people in both bad and good ways having influence on our lives and we're building relation with these people at a rate and a level which is just unheard of until you're actually going to have an interesting time going on for tangent but the self-disclosure thing there was actually quite a big divide a couple of years ago where you started having there was lots of influencers who were being created you started seeing bad influencers the people who are just like polished surface lifeless hey look at me everything is probably well really being human and without being vulnerable go down because it's not no relationship it's just if I every time I meet you and I'm like yeah life is great I just want lots of for our life it's fantastic you kind of like you're a dick yeah yeah yeah but the people who you started sharing more about themselves and people who are open and more human-like relationships are they started to brag which influencer industry comes a little bit from a background of people like oh there's lots of bad influencers etc but naturally those who are kind of doing the way and the good ones are sticking just like for the drivers let's think yeah yeah it's fascinating and I know it's from professional discussions you want to kind of go and explore which is incredible it's how new things are built so when coupled with direction of travel what do you think is next in the influencer world yeah last one first I said hey we look at influencers and how that's going to go what do you think it's going to be the themes that pop up over the next few years so I'll go I'll go tangible and then tangible yeah okay so the very straightforward things which is happening now we will see a lot more so influencers gone through this largely three large evolutions the first wave of evolution which we saw was influencers taking over media so influencers becoming a new radio challenge TV channels that's already happened and we're all aware of it but what's coming hard and there's been the we're in Asia for quite a while those influencers are becoming new retailers yes I've seen this but the world's biggest retailers in about five to ten years will be influencers just selling products through built-in shopping functionality in Amazon Facebook Instagram like a really good version of the old shopping channels they said like it's a QVC on steroids yeah but it's because again like hi I followed saying a hiking influencer for the last three years if they recommend me something like I just click and buy through them and make sure they get a little piece of the pie I suppose you have to go off to website and buy and it's completely relevant because you'll fall in doubt I'm making a person choice to follow and since that person is like so that's been going on with WeChat Rages but that's coming hard yeah the third one which we started seeing a lot more often in the UK but it's just that the cosplay is influencers creating ransom cells the next generation of unity is it going to be next unity work it's going to be newly rebuilt on influencers creating ransom cells yeah real-distance complete already consumer correct yeah because normally how you start a brand you're like oh I want to find an audience and I'll go create a product and then I'll create a product and then pay lots of money to find the audience and then hope that it works yeah an influencer is expensive with gas for it an influencer already knows their audience there are an influencer in particular given me asian topic because they know what they're talking about they just create but a product makes sense and they'll sell it off the shelves and we keep seeing this left-right incentive but suddenly the world's biggest beauty companies which is the first evolution of this beauty products for the last 10 years have been influencer creating yes we're going to see this across not just the traditional beauty and gaming but coming in as I follow guitar influencers guitar influencers are suddenly launching they're on guitar brands they're on online courses just next generation of products and services are influencer but so those are three big things happening then that's a slightly more tangible slightly more intangible which we're going to see in part of the evolution which we see it is people today think about influence in the content of influence marketing so I want to say influencers I have brands and influencers in part of James night no influences so much deeper influences behavior is why we assume see what we do and what we are doing is we're bringing influence on the sides of influence to not just brands but also to influencers themselves and to consumers so brands don't really make sense and better day we can match up with influencers to better make marketing plans to influencers today they have no idea what works and what doesn't they don't really know who their audience is other than top-line demographics they don't know what they care about so again giving them to influencers we can actually help these guys become better and make their creative outlets their full-time jobs which would be pretty nice influencers interestingly enough and about three years from now will be the world's largest industry in terms of people employed yeah I can say about because believe I've gone exactly in about ten years from now we're talking about there's about a hundred million investors today and ten years we'll talk about probably two hundred which would make it the biggest industry in the world by a factor of ten wow but to do this you kind of need to solve some problems for and also the third thing which we're giving our product and our science too is consumers because if you think about it today the way you discover podcasts or find YouTube versus the recommendations of friends you're trying to find a way hope that you to bother algorithms or something that's good but if we could actually from an early age understand that Ed cares about feminism okay we can then start matching the US you said we could help you may be understood online we could actually help you connect with the right websites helping record the right searches the right influencers and suddenly customized entire online experience according to who you are and what you value so how's it going but short version into the next generation of smart things rolling in for media into commerce new generation of brands but from a perspective is just what's going on the web world influencer marketing will go out of the marketing sphere and just go into everyday life of how we interact globally digitally as technology infiltrates so many different things from where it starts bigger and one will sort of bit the side track question going back a bit you mentioned earlier how influencer has created so well for young young people and young brands and the reality is we're going to get over so that would just be the future you know so that in time we'll get older but I have it don't change but they do that change yes if there are more traditional brands I don't think I know banks or somewhere their audiences in their 50s do you see successful influencers of campaigns for traditional organizations which are not so direct consumer and or where their audience is older it was after somewhere you say this is not for you guys right right now from a like climb frightful for the so I had a discussion with someone recently who was of older character yeah it defines all but he was about 16 yeah I'm real exactly which and we were telling about influencers and I quite like because he was quite skeptical he's like no I've been following because I don't really I'm not influenced yeah so I can't fair play so what have you been buying lately and then you bought a new car and we used a little bit of car enthusiast who's bought an alpha male Juliet so yeah fast sports car and then it's like okay sweet so what made you buy that one and then you kind of eyes looks to the side for a couple of seconds then he goes yeah so I watch a car review side so okay on YouTube okay I'm like who and then he mentioned this the online YouTube car dude and I was like oh see you footage yeah yeah I've been watching his channel for a couple of years like oh not have you so you've been building a relationship with trust with someone and then they told you to buy this car because of the great review and then he's like yeah and I actually didn't drive it I just the review was so good I just bought it there's a little bit of money to buy a car that expensive but anyhow without trying but I was like okay thank you for putting me on my bike so the yes older people aren't as much as so for which means their brains haven't developed as far to they'll be able to kind of match what was going on so they're slightly harder to reach but you still have six year old people buying cars on YouTube so it's not that many but it is do yeah I want to cover that is um is that there's just not even any any perceptional conscious of about their following influence no because it's so real to them cell effects it's them but there's no I couldn't tell the exact same story but my brother more was 50 and he's very like avidly not influenced by people he's very independent sustainability is like his biggest thing and being you know away from the mainstream and he starts up mind things because this person he was following on Instagram because he doesn't have a he doesn't post anything but he just follows people because he really trusts on his wife um that's he works in marketing and he just genuinely points out to you do those all these products you're buying those people follow they are actually influences he's like really good mountain climbers so they're really good mountain climbers but they are they are actually influences he was buying so many things without any perception that they were influenced he just thought they were like great cyclists a great mountain climbers or really it's you know the bar which is true but they were sending him stuff yeah and I think it's it's um an interesting point the word influence has quite a negative connotation part because we humans don't like thinking that we're influenced we like to think that we have we will do things on on on the core but then you start actually thinking like what you you follow people and I think there needs to be and kind of a re-understanding of what it says to on what is possible what's negative influence and so actually whoever I choose to surround myself with either that's a workplace or people on social they have an influence on me which means you get get and help people to make more conscious decisions with who they follow so I don't encourage anyone to just go through your feed just move anything which isn't good and then I have a thing like I don't care what is actually that I would want to be influenced on which maybe up to mountaineering or whatever it is and I should start following this often do you end up influencing you you kind of the choice to to follow around yeah and trust is really important we expect about how people trust and people listen to people you feel hurt by and think about that's that that's really enriching this I think in a sense that's been amazing hearing about your view on infant smart thing and before we finish up I guess what what what I'm asking about Taylify so you're you're growing in the future for you guys what do you think the yeah the future how should I define who good question the it's worth focused on solving the problem which is understanding influence that we can help connect the world in a better way to drive more positive influence for brands consumers some influencers if we do that well enough we would technically do what we'll do to the world websites we will do to the social world and we end up creating a world where if we do what we do and we think we can we could create a world where there's 100 million influencers out there being paid which is 100 million people just doing what they love and getting paid for do so we could actually help brands good brands who actually do good things in the world be rewarded and people do bad things they can know yeah and help consumers to actually be linked up to those people who have positive influence on them and make decisions accordingly so how far we will go into that future that's a big question mark but I think we're going to have kind of a fun of the next couple of years yeah amazing I want to ask you we can put this as a link in all the follow up to the podcast goes out is if people listening today want to get access to the test for their brand for them as individual is there a way they can follow up to get access to the test so just jump on to our website we'll probably put a link somewhere yeah I know where you take huge values tests long brand tests but one for you in particular and then you do that and you get the takes about five six seven minutes and how fast you're clicking and it gives you the scores right away with a little bit of explanation with different topics and if you want to just get in touch we'll give you full psychoanalysis so thank you ourselves come here thank you very much a big thank you to Ed and didrick for this week's episode we'll link the values test in the show notes and via our website along with where you can find more about telephye we hope you'll join us next month for another episode of life in digital