3 Classic Examples of Influencer Marketing You’ve Never Heard Of
By this point, you’ve probably had your ears pounded by marketing blogs telling you how great influencer marketing can be for your brand.
Marketing writers everywhere are labeling it as “the new age of marketing”, and claiming fantastic results of “7 dollars back for every 1 dollar spent”.
In short, influencer marketing has exploded. Brands have just started to learn about the power of social media influencers, and it’s been huge.
But what most people don’t realize is that influencer marketing has been around for WAY longer than everyone claims.
For instance, in the early 1950's, brands started to pick up on the idea that celebrities could be used to promote their products and services to have a direct impact on their sales and the public’s view of their products.
They used a ton of different celebrities and figures to promote their products, such as the “Marlboro Man”, Santa Claus, and many different actors and sports stars.
Hell, the entire trading card business is built on celebrity endorsements.
However, this type of marketing dates way past the 1950's.
You may be surprised to hear this, but examples of influencer marketing go back all the way to the 1700's.
And it all starts with a man named Josiah Wedgewood.
Old English Pottery.
In the late 1700's, the market for pottery was thriving. However, a lot of people were doing it, so it was a tough market.
Just like today, potters of the 1700's had to think smart when it came to getting their pottery off of the shelves and into customer’s homes.
That’s where Josiah Wedgwood comes in.
Josiah was a potter by nature and later a successful business man.
With his skill, Josiah managed to massively reduce costs of creating pottery which enabled him to sell his products in markets all across Britain, Europe, and America.
But let’s start from the beginning.
From a young age (nine to be exact), Josiah was exploring the world of pottery and was showing great promise in the trade. However, shortly after he started creating pottery, he suffered a leg injury that left him unable to spin a potter’s wheel.
But that didn’t stop him.
By the 1760's, Josiah was already renound for designing extremely beautiful pottery. This is when he started to receive orders from some of the highest royals in his country.
Of course, getting commissioned by the royal family is a great deal in itself. But, being the entrepreneur he was, he started to form a better plan for what he could use these “influencers” for.
So, starting with a royal order from Queen Charlotte, Josiah convinced her to let him name the line of pottery she purchased “Queen’s Ware”. She agreed, of course, and he proceeded to promote the royal association in his paperwork for the pieces.

On top of this, the Queen allowed each piece of pottery he designed for her to go on exhibit in different pottery museums where they would be viewed by many. Josiah quickly became known as the man who made extravagant pottery for queens.
Little did he know it, but he had effectively used the Queen herself as an influencer for his pottery business.
After he had made a few pieces for the queen, he moved operations to Mayfair and continued to promote the “Queen’s Ware” brand. And you guessed it: it took off. Josiah quickly became one of the most successful and wealthy potters in his country.
And with that, Josiah officially became the first entrepreneur to leverage influencers to sell a product. Saying he was ahead of the game would be an understatement.
(Fun fact: his grandchild was Charles Darwin. Talk about a great bloodline.)

On a side note: I asked some marketers in the space what their favorite example of influencer marketing was, and 😎 Sam Hurley 😎’s response was my favorite! Here’s what Sam had to say:
“Influencer marketing has been around for centuries — And this is one of my favourite, quirky examples because it involves a ‘crafted’ influencer / character.
Back in 1890, ‘Aunt Jemima’ was brought to life by hiring a woman named Nancy Green; she adopted the role of this persona (created by the Davis Milling Company) to effectively sell pancake mix and maple syrup to the public.
It worked … And this was one of the first examples to indicate the power of influencer marketing, paving the way for years to come.” — 😎 Sam Hurley 😎
All right, let’s fast-forward in time a bit.
What I’m going to talk about next is a great example of an actual influencer marketing tactic used to promote one of the most popular foods around today.
The Popularization of Sushi.
In the 1970's, hardly anyone wanted to eat raw fish or sushi. They thought it was disgusting.
That is, until a man by the name of Hidekazu Tojo completely changed the perspective of thousands of Canadians and Americans with his revolutionary tactics.
Hidekazu was a chef who trained sushi chefs in Osaka, Japan. He did this for years, but felt the need to move on, so he moved to Vancouver and got a job at a Japanese restaurant serving high paying customers.
He was thrilled to start making sushi again. However, when he got the job and began interacting with Canadians, he learned that only 5 people he talked to in the entire city ate sushi and enjoyed it. The rest all thought it was unhygienic and disgusting.
Hidekazu wanted people to love sushi. But he knew that in order for that to happen, he’d have to change the perspective of the public and help them get past their fears of raw fish. While the task was daunting and was sure to be difficult, he took on the challenge.
First, he made a sushi roll that didn’t have any raw meat in it. It had a mix of different ingredients that he thought to be a good fit for sushi. This later became the California Roll.
When he released this, people loved it. But, they still had a bit of a negative opinion towards raw fish in sushi.
So how did he get past this barrier? Simple. He used rock music influencers of their time.
Hidekazu contacted popular bands of the time like Rolling Stone, Pink Floyd, and Aerosmith and asked them to eat sushi in public places and in videos, because he knew that they were on the wild side and always looking to try something new.
And crazily, it worked.
After Hidekazu introduced sushi to popular rock influencers, the sushi epidemic spread through North America like a wild-fire. When public saw their favorite musicians enjoying the treat, they wanted to try it themselves!
This helped the public over their fear of raw meat. Once they began eating sushi, they realized it wasn’t all that bad; and the rest is history.
The Pele-Puma Incident.
In all of my examples that I’ve written about today, this could very well be the most creative and hilarious version of early influencer marketing.
Let me set the scene for you:
It’s 1970, and one of the most heated games of the World Cup is being played on television. It’s a heated match between Brazil vs. Peru.
Earlier in the tournament, one of Brazil’s top players had been performing extremely well, singlehandedly causing Brazil to be 4–1 over Italy in a previous match.
That player was Pele, or Edson Arantes do Nascimento.
Pele, at the time, was widely regarded as one of the most talented football players in all of Brazil (it’s no wonder why a certain company chose him — but I’ll talk about that in a minute). In 92 games for the Brazil national team, he scored 77 goals. That should give you an idea as to how good he was.
However, it wasn’t Pele’s performance that made this match so memorable. It was what he did near the end of the match that blew everyone’s minds (especially in the marketing world).
Just before the quarterfinal kickoff against Peru, Pele decided he needed to stop to tie his shoe.

For everyone watching, this was certainly odd. The rest of this game could easily decide whether or not Brazil takes home the World Cup win for their country. And Pele decides to pause the game and tie his shoe?
Even the cameraman was astonished by this. After letting the refs know that he needed to take a quick break, the cameraman quickly zoomed in to Pele to see exactly what he was up to.
At first glance, it would appear that he just needed a quick break to tie a shoe lace that went lose.
This would be believable, except for the fact that Pele kneeled on the ground for over 42 seconds while the camera watched him the whole time.
Now, I know what you’re thinking:
“It doesn’t take 42 seconds to tie a shoe.”
And you’re exactly right. You see, Pele didn’t need to tie his shoe at all.
The reason that he knelt for so long? To get 42 seconds of camera time to show off his new Puma sneakers.
You see, Puma paid Pele previously to perform this in front of millions of watchers at the 1970 World Cup Final.
And it worked fantastically.
After this incident, Puma’s sales increased by over 300%. Talk about a viral marketing campaign!
I bet you thought you were ahead of the game when it comes to using influencers for your brand, huh?
I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick history lessen behind the beginnings of Influencer Marketing.
From pottery makes who used Royal figures for their own gain, to large shoe companies staging live performances to millions of viewers, we can see that some companies were just ahead of their game when it came to marketing.
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