In this episode of Connected Thinking, Niamh, our Account Director sits down with James Pearson, Digital Marketing Manager at Arla Foods.
With a career that started long before social media, James has worked with influencers across events, magazines, and TV, bringing that experience into today’s digital-first world. At Arla, he blends creativity with a DE&I-led approach to ensure campaigns are both authentic and impactful.
James unpacks how brands can balance TikTok’s entertainment factor with a multi-platform strategy, why transparent storytelling consistently performs, and shares his advice on how brands can authentically champion diverse influencers.
How would you describe Arla’s current approach to influencer marketing, and how has it evolved over the past year?
It is constantly evolving, we're in a really happy place where we're ready to start with a bang. The exciting thing for me is that the plasters are off. We finally landed the message of trying not to over-script everything and actually working with our talent to educate us on how they use our products, what inspires them, what inspires their audience, and lean into that . It's an exciting time to start again!
We're now embracing more of the real stories. I don't want to use the dreaded word of authenticity, but it's letting our talent speak. In the past, I think we saw influencers as celebrities. We've now got to understand who plays a really good role in social media channels and have their own voices.
What platforms or formats are you currently seeing the strongest return from, and are there any social shifts that are exciting for you right now?
I think the excitement is on TikTok. We do recognise that a lot of our shoppers might spend more time on Instagram and dare I say Facebook, which we still use! TikTok gives us that creative spark, if it can keep people entertained for more than 2 seconds, then it's probably going to work on your other platforms.
We do need to get better at not just thinking about a copy and paste, or just changing captions for a different platform. That's probably the same challenge that a lot of clients go through, you see some great work and you want to broadcast it in as many places as possible. What's really niche about TikTok is trends. If you're watching on Instagram, those trends often don't even happen. It can take 3 months for something that's been a whole community on TikTok before it starts showing up on Instagram.
We are in brand marketing and trying to script comedy when we are not a Ryanair or a Hobbycraft Wimbledon, can be awkward and come back badly. We do not do a lot of comedy. I personally would love to do more comedy. Everybody does it on TikTok for joy and happiness and silliness, but it does not mean you can get it right. I think my learnings from doing a wee bit of comedy is you just have to be really transparent and approach it as, “This is going to be an ad, but there is going to be a hook and a bit of silliness at the end.”
One of my favorites, Christopher Hall did an influencer ad in comedy for Dreamies. When you are working with cats, that is easy to do because they own the internet. He really managed to capture it, he played up to being a cat in the video, which took that quirkiness around the whole trans debate, and then he walked out to their out of home billboard experience, where they had cats climbing up a building to get to the packet of Dreamies. He brought it all to life in a really nice way. So when you are transparent about comedy, I think you can get away with it.
How do you balance brand storytelling with performance when it comes to influencer-led campaigns?
In putting together my latest brief for Arla Protein, I was tasked with going back over the history of 4 years of influencer work and having a look at what really resonated and cut through. When we let influencers speak and tell their real life story, that content (even longer form video) performs much better from a view-through rate, shareability, and engagement. The comments that we got were very real because it was relatable.
That gave me a lot of confidence to think, we can rewrite this brief around real people, real stories and letting them speak.
Are there any standout influencer campaigns that have really impressed you recently, and why?
Comedy works really well for me. One of my favorites is Farrell Hegarty - through Covid, she was doing really relatable, funny memes. I noticed she got picked up by talent and she started to do briefs for cleaning brands, they were just the same as her own stories and they were really funny.
I think you need to look at those timeless videos and work out, could that be a campaign that has got more than one lifespan in it? And can we put more paid behind it and reach new audiences? That hopefully attracts them into the brand personality so that when they see some of your more organic content, they're a bit warmer towards you. It's helping them understand the features and benefits of your product a little better.
The reveal is to ask your brand team to try and take off their unconscious bias lens and view it through a shopper, a different type of shopper. Who are we trying to attract with this story? It's something I have to tell myself as well because I can see people automatically looking for a direct replica of themselves or their friends.
When it works really well is when you find people on the cusp of a breakthrough. They might be appearing in loads of channels and you're then getting on that sky rocket. Take off your unconscious bias and view people for who they are and what they can bring as a point of differentiation.
How do you define ‘meaningful’ representation in influencer marketing?
It all comes back to letting the influencer speak and being brave in yourself. There's a massive division in society at the moment. Part of that is young men not finding their voice. Women are really strong and empowering, finally and more of that, but it can push young men to feel alienated.
I'm excited about putting a different spin on young male representation. I work on Arla Protein and that could be how an everyday person is doing their everyday training, but their day job might be as a drag performer, so why does fitness matter to them?
Be proud of who you work with, let them speak and don't step away from it. Support them every way right through the journey, even down to the comments. Get involved and be that pioneer.
They say that now brands have more power than politicians in terms of consumer respect, so use your budgets wisely. If you're going to impact society, represent all of society and try to educate and be aligned with the right side of history. Those are the campaigns that will cut through and stand the test of time for years. They'll get more shareability.
We can play those stories back in with our talent and it can reach 100% of the audience because their story is going to be relatable. Yes, you're always going to have haters. It doesn't matter as long as you stand true to who you are and stand with your talent and support them. They need a career too. We're supporting them. I do try to put as much blend in our talent mix as possible to give that back.
Do you think the industry has made enough progress when it comes to diversity in influencer marketing? What do you think still needs to change?
During lockdown, we'd see these big brand corporate polished ads from the likes of Just Eat to Tesco to Vodafone and suddenly these brands couldn't afford to make those high production videos. They had to rely on hand filming and filming real people. I saw a lot of shifts of more diverse representation. I thought that was a really positive thing.
You can also spot when it's done very badly, you look at some of the supermarket ads where their Christmas dining room table would have 37 people on it, so they could represent every single nationality. That becomes a bit tick boxy.
You'd like to think there's been a big step forward, but when you look at things like the Channel Four Mirror On The Industry report, there's still an alarming underrepresentation, particularly in older generations and how they appear as personalities. I think we can do a lot more with representation today.
In the Arla Protein brief we were looking for real stories. We were looking to represent diversity in society in real life stories. We were looking for connectability, what I didn't want to see was a tick boxing exercise.
I remember the BPerfect campaign from January 2024, they actually cast real people and then they put them to the forefront of the campaign. Their videos were really long, and it was them telling their story and they never talked about the makeup but you knew it came from that brand.
It still inspires me today and helped underpin the brief for Arla Protein, because after they've delivered that campaign, they can go on to represent all sides of society. Anybody is open and proud to use their makeup because they started that platform. They were in it for the long game. They didn't shy away from it, it's not just a one campaign and then we're done onto the next brief. It's setting the foundations for a long term brand plan.
Which brands do you think are getting it right when it comes to delivering diverse and inclusive influencer campaigns, and what is it about their approach that stands out to you?
I really liked the campaign with the Arsenal women's football team because that was born out of human insight, not product or category insight. The human insight was that women are much more likely to throw their sports kit away rather than wash it because of period stains.
They actually embraced their periods and they spoke to the football team and they developed their own sign language. So when they were on the pitch and if one of them was on their period, they were able to do that secret sign language because they were very conscious that if they were about to score a goal that they were going to get photographed.
What they didn't want in the photograph was the period stain being the talking point of the picture. That is going to really impact your performance as a sports person, even if you're just turning up every week for your local hockey club. Lots of people were dropping out because they were at that time of the month, so the women's football club said, no, we're going to embrace our stains and they put that to the forefront of the campaign.
Then they worked with Ian Wright because what they needed to bring was the male audience into the understanding. I think that was a fantastic campaign for the brand to be proud of and put their name behind and it got people talking. It ended up on social media across all of their channels, and it's something that lives a lifetime and stays in your memory.
Favourite book or podcast you’d recommend?
Podcast is definitely How to Fail with Elizabeth Day. Yes, she gets on a lot of celebrity guests, but it's not about the power of the celebrity. It's about them talking very openly. One of my proudest achievements was that my brand manager, Laura, took the jump to sponsor the Elizabeth Day show.
In terms of a book Melanie B’s autobiography is immediately springing to mind because that isn't what you think it's going to be. I think we can learn a lot from the power of celebrity influence in autobiographies as well.
Best piece of advice you’ve received?
Stop and think before you put anything forward for social media. Would your mother approve of that? And if the answer's no, then post it. Post it, post it again, put paid behind it!
There is a famous Madonna quote that I always think of: ‘I never want to be taken too seriously’. It’s about bringing fun into everything that you do. We don't live forever, work can be fun as well. So bring your whole self to work and don't be afraid of that.
