Chances are – if you’re not already one of her 10 million Instagram followers – you have at least heard of Kayla Itsines. In a few short years she’s transformed from an Adelaide-based personal trainer to one of the biggest names in fitness (with a multimillion-dollar bikini body guide empire to match).
And while Itsines could be considered one of the original influencers, you would be hard pressed to find a sponsored post on her transformation-filled Instagram; and that’s because she refuses with partner with brands (on sponsored posts or otherwise).
Speaking to AdNews on a recent trip to Sydney, Itsines says her and partner, Tobi Pearce, explained they have set “hard boundaries” for what products they choose to promote and what they’ll share about their lives:
“We choose not to partner with brands or do any type of brand partnerships because we don’t believe it adds value to our customers or aligns to what we want to achieve,” Pearce says.
“We don’t consider ourselves as influencers, we’re trainers. There is a big difference between being an influencer and being influential and we consider ourselves leaders in this space, we don’t consider ourselves influencers.”
Itsines elaborated, referencing the huge backlash that followed a Federal Government influencer campaign encouraging girls to be active: “The backlash around that campaign shows two things; that there’s people in the marketing industry who will use influencers just because they have a large amount of fans instead of a positive alignment and also, there’s influencers out there just wanting to receive payment for something and they don’t consider authenticity,”
“You can’t buy brand alignment for a few thousand dollars.”
