Innovative Influencer Relationships Open the Door to New Marketing Opportunities
Los Angeles-based marketing agency Runway Influence has recently expanded its footprint in the content and influencer marketing space through collaborations with top influencers and luxury brands, like Mission Pacific. The agency reports that it is focusing on impactful campaigns that resonate deeply with audiences and go beyond traditional brand exposure. Motivated by the increasing saturation in influencer marketing, Runway Influence has found that working exclusively with top-tier influencers, such as supermodels and recognized macro- and mega-influencers, can help ensure high-quality, deeply resonant campaigns with measurable long-term impacts.
The strategy is working. Runway Influence is gaining recognition from global brands with high-engagement campaigns boosting the reputation of prestigious luxury brands. CEO Ernest Sturm sees Runway Influence as an industry disrupter, setting a new standard focused on prioritizing authenticity and exclusive influencer partnerships that move away from traditional marketing campaigns.
Influencer marketing is built around brand exposure, whether getting a brand to appear frequently in influencer content or having influencers specifically discuss a brand in sponsored content.
Runway Influence set out to find the next evolution of these marketing strategies, hoping to discover unique perspectives on how influencer marketing can become a tool for storytelling and consumer connections.
Working exclusively with top-tier influencers is a key part of creating a narrative that transforms casual exposure and featured content into a meaningful brand narrative. Sturm asserts Runway Influence’s successful campaigns have demonstrated the model’s success.
Runway Influence has seen further success in hotels and hospitality, automotive, and the fashion industry, naming several major brands that are household names in the U.S. and beyond.
Sturm founded Runway Influencers to pursue new brand marketing strategies.
“I started Runway Influence because I recognized a gap in the industry,” said Sturm, “Brands needed more than just exposure. They needed genuine, impactful connections with their target audience.”
Sturm saw an opportunity to provide these connections by leveraging the unique appeal of elite influencers, using their reach to create campaigns designed to elevate brands and resonate personally with consumers.
Authentic marketing has become a challenge for influencer marketing. Consumers are becoming increasingly adept at detecting and dismissing brand placement, which often sees influencers promoting products unrelated to their content. Runway Influencers seeks to distinguish itself from its competitors by focusing on genuine, impactful connections between brands and consumers and between influencers and audiences. This means focusing less on the volume of content created and more on highly curated and carefully composed, often exclusive placement.
“What sets Runway Influence apart in the influencer marketing industry,” said Sturm, “is our commitment to exclusivity and authenticity.”
Sturm credits the success of Runway Influence to working only with elite influencers with a track record of genuine engagement and impact and focusing on quality over all else. Sturm believes this has been the key to creating campaigns that reach and resonate with a broad audience.
Sturm and Runway Influence have several key future goals: more global expansion, better integrated AI-driven analytics, 360-degree marketing strategies and mentorship for the next generation of marketers.
“Ultimately,” Sturm said, “my dream is for Runway Influence to be recognized as the go-to agency for brands looking to make a meaningful impact through influencer marketing, continuing to work with the world’s top influencers and iconic brands while constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.”
Sturm added that Runway Influence plans to maintain its traditional marketing core while pushing forward with new influencer marketing strategies. Looking to the future, the company hopes to change what it means for an influencer to feature a product.
