At the Cannes Lions media festival this week in the south of France, global ad agency OMD shared the results of a study in which it sought to determine the 20 most influential influencers across 12 content categories — from fitness to beauty to gaming to food.
AdWeek notes that the results turned out to be somewhat unexpected, with the final ratings designated by an OMD-derived I-Score — a riff on the longstanding Q Score concept that was conceived in 2017 to reflect the magnitude of an influencer’s impact. I-Score takes into account demographics, bot followers, and paid vs. organic brand mentions. OMD’s conclusions, reached in collaboration with influencer marketing company Influential, also considered mention volume, follower sentiments, new follower growth, and channel engagement.
The study found that Instagram users engaged with fitness content more than any other platform, and that Kayla Itsines (11.6 million followers) was the most effective creator in the space. In beauty, YouTube is the de facto destination, with controversial makeup reviewer and brand owner Jeffree Star (15.3 million subscribers) nabbing the top honors. And in the wide-ranging ‘entertainment’ category — comprising comedy, music, and modeling — the most influential star is the newly out Eugene Lee Yang, of Try Guys fame (6 million subscribers).
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Other top influencers, according to the study, include: men’s style vlogger Alex Costa (Fashion), Ethan ‘CrankGamePlays’ Nestor (Gaming), Kate ‘Mr. Kate’ Albrecht (Home), blogger Kayla Howey of The Original Dish (Food), filmmaker Alejandro Salomondrin (Auto), The Bucket List Family (Travel), Bruno Bartlett (Pets), photographer Brandon Woelfel (Tech), and photoshopped family The Life Of Aivax (in the Kids category).
