Sonia Elyss, a 38-year-old magnificence advertising specialist in New York Metropolis who has labored in influencer advertising for a decade, acknowledged the issue. “This isn’t the primary time that I personally have witnessed influencer fatigue,” she stated. “At peak influencer tradition for Instagram, earlier than TikTok was even a factor, we had the identical situation.”
The distinction now, Ms. Elyss identified, is the size of affect made doable by TikTok, which has greater than 150 million customers in the USA, in accordance with the corporate. On Instagram, folks usually search out or comply with influencers. On TikTok, influencers’ content material is extra more likely to pop up in your feed.
Rachel Ferraro, a 25-year-old legislation pupil at Liberty College in Lynchburg, Va., described the Tarte marketing campaign as “tone deaf,” including that it was off-putting to “regular folks like me who’re nonetheless at school, who’ve a variety of debt.” She added that she had adopted a number of of the influencers who went to Bora Bora and had been excited to see what occurred on the journey, solely to seek out herself disheartened by the conspicuous shows of copious swag.
Tarte doesn’t purchase the items acquired by its visitors. As an alternative, different firms trying to elevate their profiles donate them. Ms. Kelly, the Tarte chief govt, famous that almost all of giveaway gadgets within the bungalows have been from female-founded manufacturers, a number of of which had been a part of Tarte’s small-business incubator program. She added that the 4 Seasons had given the corporate an “extraordinarily decreased charge,” however she declined to touch upon the corporate’s whole funding within the journey.
Tarte is not any stranger to backlash. Critics of the model’s Dubai journey final yr famous a scarcity of range among the many invitees; a subsequent journey to Miami got here beneath hearth when the corporate was accused of treating Black visitors in a different way from different influencers. Ms. Kelly stated the corporate had made a number of modifications since these journeys, together with companywide range trainings and the hiring and promotion of Black girls in crucial roles. All the visitors on the current tour stayed in equivalent rooms and had equivalent perks, she added.
Ms. Blackmon, the Tarte journey fan, stated she was happy to see a extra various group on the Bora Bora journey and was not swayed by the critics of the model’s social media marketing campaign. “I personally don’t suppose it’s out of contact,” she stated. “I feel individuals are upset that they’re not there.” When requested if she would get on a airplane tomorrow if Tarte have been to ask her, Ms. Blackmon stated, “I’d be on the airplane right this moment.”
