What Comes After the Cigar Influencer Trend? The Next Decades Trends in the NC and CC Cigar World?

[El Presidente]

Is the "Cigar Influencer" train running out of steam?  To be fair, I am talking about the influencer "genre" in general. 

What happens when you have taken all the short vids possible of yourself lighting/cutting/puffing a cigar? You start to insta/you tube short vids of you and other cigar influencers lighting/cutting/puffing a cigar together 

It reminds me very much of what is happening to the podcast world right now. There are so many podcasters and podcasters devoid of interesting content, that shows are taken up by podcasters interviewing other podcasters. They literally do a podcaster circuit. It is certain death 

So what is the next "trend/s" in the cigar world? 

Topic of discussion in this weeks FOH Video Room Session Tuesday night NY 8PM. 

Still, kick it off here so we can continue to kick it around there 

 

 

[Chibearsv]

Damn, I was going to launch “Cigars With Scotty From the Cigarden” this summer as my retirement gig. 2 hours daily of me smoking, listening to tunes, and random yelling at Tilly to “drop that!”  A day late and a dollar short as usual. 🤣

[ElLoboLoco]

Interesting, I think that may slow shiny new cigar sales to some degree. 

New trends: it feels like Honduran and Dominican cigars seem to have a renewed interest as maybe tastes in the USA are leaning to more refined/balanced character.

That is just a gut feeling, no actual data to support that.

 

 

[zacca]

I think what you’ll see across industries is more of what you see in the cigar community - pockets of micro/nano “influencers” versus large mega influencers. Think Lounge Lizards, your FOH deck videos with Ken, etc. Consumers will be looking for more thought leadership and expertise. The brainless influencer just peddling products for a fee is going to die out (thankfully). 

So I think influence will remain, but as part of a more sophisticated ecosystem that values meaningful engagement, measurable outcomes, and specialist voices over pure attention chasing.

[tbelle7]

I've always wondered who some of those "influencers" are actually influencing. Maybe I'm not their target audience and therefore don't understand their appeal or reach.

[TommySnark]

Personally, I don’t think the influencer model is going anywhere, as social media is basically the only way left to reach consumers - in many industries, but especially tobacco, traditional advertising (ie, radio, television, print) is ineffective or unavailable, so the socials are all that remain. So it’s either: continue to pay influencers for posting, stick to self-promotion (which tends to only reach the already-converted), or give up marketing altogether. Not a lot of great options there. 

[Boss Hog]

55 minutes ago, tbelle7 said:

I've always wondered who some of those "influencers" are actually influencing. Maybe I'm not their target audience and therefore don't understand their appeal or reach.

You and me both, my fellow brother.

Can’t wrap my head around it whatsoever.

Never been on social media, mind you.

FOH is the closest thing to social media for this bloke.

[El Presidente]

10 minutes ago, TommySnark said:

Personally, I don’t think the influencer model is going anywhere, as social media is basically the only way left to reach consumers - in many industries, but especially tobacco, traditional advertising (ie, radio, television, print) is ineffective or unavailable, so the socials are all that remain. So it’s either: continue to pay influencers for posting, stick to self-promotion (which tends to only reach the already-converted), or give up marketing altogether. Not a lot of great options there. 

Some good points raised 

[chasy]

End state is that everyone is an influencer and everyone has their own micro brand. 

[JPark3]

The time for Rob and Ken to team with Jasim for deck review videos is now.

[zacca]

1 hour ago, TommySnark said:

Personally, I don’t think the influencer model is going anywhere, as social media is basically the only way left to reach consumers - in many industries, but especially tobacco, traditional advertising (ie, radio, television, print) is ineffective or unavailable, so the socials are all that remain. So it’s either: continue to pay influencers for posting, stick to self-promotion (which tends to only reach the already-converted), or give up marketing altogether. Not a lot of great options there. 

AI is going to crush a lot of them. Also audience burnout is very real and it’s only getting worse. Like I said above, I don’t think “influence” is going anywhere, but who is doing the influencing will change. Companies won’t pay for things that are ineffective. They will have better data and won’t spray and pray like they do today. The cream will rise to the top.

[LizardGizmo]

I think the biggest threat to 'influencers' as you describe them is AI slop. In the last six months it's gotten very difficult to find quality original non-AI content on YouTube, Instagram or elsewhere. For example, this morning I wanted to watch John Mayer's tribute to Bob Weir that I missed live the night before. After searching, four of the first six videos that were shown were either AI summaries or AI re-creations of what he said. 

I'm actually considering canceling YouTube premium as I'm just not using it like I used to. AI fatigue will be the death of the internet as we know it. Bots talking to bots making content for bots.

[NYGuido]

2 hours ago, LizardGizmo said:

I think the biggest threat to 'influencers' as you describe them is AI slop. In the last six months it's gotten very difficult to find quality original non-AI content on YouTube, Instagram or elsewhere. For example, this morning I wanted to watch John Mayer's tribute to Bob Weir that I missed live the night before. After searching, four of the first six videos that were shown were either AI summaries or AI re-creations of what he said. 

I'm actually considering canceling YouTube premium as I'm just not using it like I used to. AI fatigue will be the death of the internet as we know it. Bots talking to bots making content for bots.

I agree with all of this, and it’s getting worse. I, too, am thinking of killing my YouTube Premium because it’s just AI. Though Rick Beato has fantastic music content. 

And if you find that John Mayer replay, can you send it my way, please? Have been looking as well and can’t find it. 

[yuppie]

5 hours ago, Chibearsv said:

Damn, I was going to launch “Cigars With Scotty From the Cigarden” this summer as my retirement gig. 2 hours daily of me smoking, listening to tunes, and random yelling at Tilly to “drop that!”  A day late and a dollar short as usual. 🤣

This is something I would probably watch! Just hit record.

What I'm doing on my YouTube channel is what I hope to be anti-influencer content. Just me, what I can find in the way of an incredible view and my random thoughts. Long form, relaxed and just real.

I think the younger generations are going to head into this direction, where there are no frills, just real life and honest, authentic thoughts and opinions.

Short-form and high brow content has been on it's way out for a little bit now, but I'm imagining with the rise of AI, anyone can post a picture of themselves standing on the hood of a Lamborghini and I think the generation coming up actually has some disdain toward that.

[ha_banos]

This is a very good point regarding YT. I've just lost interest in anything but very specific content. Browsing has become laborious. 

Wife might get annoyed watching ads when searching crochet content but hey...

[Li Bai]

It's pretty simple.

On the one hand,  the more efforts an influencer puts into looking like an expert in the eye of the newbie, the bigger the audience, no matter the field.

On the other hand, knowledgeable people often don't really care about appearing so, which leads to much smaller audiences.

Therefore, if you want to help educate a lot of people, you can't be an expert unless you crack that code which is what I hope will happen next.

To be realistic I just think they'll all disappear at one point and that will be for the best. Nothing new under the sun, those who know have always been and will always be the quiet ones, it's human nature.

 

[ATGroom]

I don't know too much about the NC world, but speaking for the Habanos world I'm not sure that there is really such a thing as an 'influencer', at least not in the way that the fashion, travel, makeup et al industries have them. None of the ten or so Instagram famous people are able to support themselves through influencing - they all have day jobs.

The big problem is that on most of the big platforms you can't monetise tobacco content (get ad revenue). Therefore, the only revenue they can make directly from their content is in shilling for stores and NC brands. For someone setting out to become an influencer, it'd take a long time to build up enough of a following that people will pay them to shill for them, which they'd have to do entirely on their own dime. There also seems to be a bit of a ceiling around 100k followers, after which they get shadow-banned and struggle to grow any further. 100k is very small potatoes in the world of true influencers.

The question was what comes next for the industry, but in terms of what comes next for the influencers, if they want to professionalise they need to find something they can sell:

-Start their own cigar brands
-Start their own accessories lines (come to think of it, it is pretty surprising Dupont hasn't released a Jasim collaboration Limited Edition helicopter lighter yet)
-Write a book 

[Cigar Surgeon]

Ah dang I'll miss this one. Our live top 25 list starts at 9 EST Tuesday night. Enjoy gents!