To Eat the Cake and Have It, too: How Marketers Control Influencer Conduct within a Paradigm of Letting Go

Abstract

The influencer industry follows a paradigm of letting go of control, which assumes that collaborations with influencers will only be effective if marketers grant influencers substantial autonomy in their conduct. However, yielding control constitutes a risk to marketers, because influencers might act differently than desired. This article assumes that, rather than letting go of control, marketers are developing a set of control techniques that are compatible with the paradigm. Grounded in multiple data sources (a secondary analysis of data from two interview studies, ethnographic field data, and member check interviews), it draws on organizational control theory to identify 11 control techniques that marketers employ when collaborating with influencers. In doing so, this article contributes to emerging research on the power structures in the influencer industry. In particular, it adds to the body of knowledge by systematically accounting for marketers’ set of control techniques and identifying hitherto undescribed techniques. On a broader level, this article reconstructs the paradigm of letting go of control in the influencer industry, while simultaneously providing a critical scrutiny of this paradigm.