Can the influencer ‘barter economy’ be the most cost-effective marketing tool for fashion?

Room Unlocked removes ALL financial exchange between fashion brands and influencers

Room Unlocked enables the exchange of stock for authentic content, stopping billions lost in product seepage

Alex Payne and Tanya Hamilton-Smith, founders of Room Unlocked are available for comment on why influencers are dying off, but advocacy remains king 

A combination of rapidly rising energy bills and inflation reaching  record highs caused the average discretionary spending power to fall by 12.7% in July, leaving UK households with £145 less per month to spend on non-essential items, according to insight from Retail Economics-HyperJar Cost of Living Tracker. 

Particularly with businesses in the fashion industry which are almost entirely reliant on people’s spending power, have been suffering the knock on effects of this, facing their own ‘cost of operating crisis.’ One of the most popular online fashion retailers, ASOS, revealed today an operating loss of nearly £10 million for the year. Just a few months ago, Boohoo also reported a 94% year-on-year fall in its pre-tax profits in the year to March 2022.

As a result of this, marketing budgets are being slashed across the board to cut down on costs. Brands have begun to cancel campaigns and reduce spending amidst a crippling deficit due to surplus stock – a lot of which is due to redundant gifting and supply seepage sent to influencers. Retailers end up with billions of pounds of excess, unsold inventory with returns creating over a staggering 2 billion kilograms of waste in landfills each year, and more than 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – according to CNBC.

Room Unlocked  – a platform overhauling influencer marketing for the world’s biggest brands – restores the relationship between brands and influencers, building this through love, not money, and providing an alternative to traditional, paid routes for content creation.

The influencer sphere has been seriously affected by businesses looking for new ways to save on marketing expenses, this has given rise to a bartering economy where brands exchange goods or services as opposed to money. In relation to traditional, paid influencer marketing, founders of Room Unlocked Alex Payne and Tanya Hamilton-Smith argue this form of value exchange is far more cost-effective for brands. 

Gifting leftover products to influencers is a way for brands to utilize unused stock that would otherwise go to waste, whilst also turning passion into true value. With brands now able to facilitate an exchange based on true love, Room Unlocked provides the most effective form of influencer marketing, which generates real results and over five times more content for brands. Room Unlocked facilitates this through its innovative platform in which influencers bid to secure promotions with brands. However, with no transactional fee passing from brand to influencer, the content produced by influencers acts as advocacy. Put simply, for love, not money.

About Room Unlocked: 

Founded in 2017, Room Unlocked is a joint venture between sports host Alex Payne and marketing executive Tanya Hamilton-Smith. Having spent their careers understanding the power of fandom, Alex as the face of Rugby broadcasting on Sky Sports, and Tanya as a leading figure for brands such as JWT and BBDO, they have developed a powerful proposition to bring together the worlds of Brands and Influence to unlock brand love. Today brands are having to buy influence, and influencers are having to sell themselves. This exchange is creating an unrewarding experience for both parties, which is neither truthful nor trustworthy.  

Not only is their method fixing a fractured relationship in society, but it has been proven to drive higher engagement rates. Proprietary research from Room Unlocked has also found that influencers are more likely to share more pieces of content when they have actively searched out the product or experience they’re advertising – further highlighting the benefits of this approach. Brands also have instant access to diverse advocates from A-list TV talent to macro and micro-influencers, eliminating countless wasted hours of outreach to the wrong people, whilst also fostering relationships underpinned by love and not currency.