Arkansas’ Collective Bias storms marketing scene with army of 1,400 influencers, $10.5M

Brands are constantly courting consumers. Like a persistent wooer, they try a range of tactics to secure affection, passion, and loyalty.

Collective Bias has raised $10.5 million for its approach to consumer engagement. This “social shopper media company” connects brands with consumers through its Social Fabric community of 1,400 influencers. These influencers tell “real-life” stories about their shopping experiences and product usage and share them on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. The company claims to have an aggregate, multichannel reach of more than 50 million people.

“Collective Bias was founded to create a solution to the challenges posed to shopper marketers by social media,” said founder and CEO John Andrews in an email. “Specifically, we create an alternative to traditional ways brands and retailers have reached shoppers along the path to purchase.  Our goal was to create a predictable social shopper media format that has measurable scale and performance that is superior to existing mediums.”

This marketing method seeks to harness the power of social media and integrate into people’s everyday life, so brand promotion seems more authentic (and hopefully persuasive) than display ads. Clients include Walgreens, Sears, Disney, Nestle, Tyson, and Starbucks. These companies set their parameters for a campaign, and Collective Bias taps the appropriate influencers to generate content about a specific product.

With this first round of funding led by Updata Partners, Collective Bias will work on developing new products to streamline influencer identification, content delivery, and campaign management. It will also grow the Social Fabric community member training and technological support and continue to expand regional offices into NYC, Chicago, Minneapolis, and San Francisco as well as push into Canada and the UK.

Collective Bias is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, the home of Walmart.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Collective Bias