As a way to supercharge their social media campaign strategy, Viacom has acquired influencer marketing firm Whosay. Steve Ellis, CEO of Whosay, made the announcement on the Whosay Twitter account this morning.
Founded in 2010, Whosay has been a leader in the world of celebrity and influencer paired social marketing campaigns. The firm creates campaigns for a wide range of brands, then casts popular influencers to share those branded messages on multiple social media platforms.
In the past, Whosay has tapped Darren Criss to promote AT&T, Vanessa Williams for Aveeno, Alec Baldwin for Chevrolet, Lil Yachty for MTV, former Olympian Nastia Liukin for Cigna and many others. From videos to GIFS to Instagram images, Whosay has driven over 400 of the best influencer/brand matched marketing campaigns.
Whosay masterminds the entire campaign process and, rather than just controlling a network of celebrities, they enlist the help of popular influencers to distribute custom created branded content. The company then optimizes and monitors distribution performance and “doubles down on the best performing segments to deliver efficient reach, desired actions and positive sentiment.”
Whosay remains loyal to the process the whole way through, utilizing analytic tools to measure sentiment, ROI, and brand lift.
This acquisition is not the first time Viacom and Whosay have teamed up. They’ve collaborated with each other for two years developing over 50 campaigns for MTV, BET, and other Viacom entities and events. This acquisition stems from the positive results of those campaigns and marks a major step forward for both companies.
In today’s Whosay blog post Steve Ellis stated,
“Combined now with Viacom's global content engine, diverse audience and best-in-class advanced advertising tools, we will continue to seamlessly marry creativity and every level of talent with brand objectives all while optimizing the message via omnichannel distribution."
With this new alliance, Viacom will be able to start creating campaigns for their multiple intellectual properties. They can also begin to venture further into the social media and shopper marketing landscape. Whosay will also help Viacom’s new digital studios unit develop and monetize short form content.
Moving forward, Whosay will reap the benefits of Viacom’s global content engine, massive social media and television audience, and their top of the line advertising tools to tell better stories and increase influencer reach. This integration will allow Whosay to develop content not just for Instagram, Youtube, and other online platforms, but for television as well; allowing the company to grow right alongside Viacom.
As the new age of digital marketing and vertical optimization continues to unfold, Whosay and Viacom will undoubtedly be at the forefront of 2018’s developmental marketing shifts. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed but both companies seem to be looking forward to the new creative opportunities their partnership will hold.
The entire Whosay team will continue to work out of their current offices in New York and L.A. as an independent organization working closely with Viacom’s Marketing & Partner Solutions Group.
To learn more about the acquisition, check out Whosay’s and Viacom’s announcements.
