Ravineo’s AI technology finds 80% of influencers don’t disclose brand deals

The evolution of influencer marketing has brought unprecedented opportunities for brands. But it has also given rise to obscure tactics, including undeclared partnerships and hidden collaborations. This is where the marketing analytics platform Ravinéowho officially spear November 12 arrives.

Ravineo enables brands and agencies to make smarter, data-driven decisions about their influencer strategies in real-time, using AI to identify where and when brands are mentioned on social media.

This month, Ravineo launched its Influencer Analytics feature to improve understanding of brand exposure through influencer content.

“What we bring is AI to automatically detect brands,” said Jan Rezab, CEO and co-founder of Ravineo. “Frankly, we’re just taking what was there and making it through AI and being smart and standardized about it.”

Ravineo uses AI technology to help brands identify all brand mentions on platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, including undisclosed partnerships and hidden collaborations, so they can fully understand the impact of their relationships with influencers.

Although Rezab wouldn’t say which brands are using the platform (companies have had access since February), he said it counts some of the biggest beauty and fashion brands among its clients. It currently works with 100 companies and over 1,000 users use the platform for its capabilities such as influencer auditing, SEO, tracking, reporting and research.

“[Brands] came to us and said, ‘Look, we need to have some structure here,'” Rezab said.

Distinguish branded content from non-branded content

A significant issue in the creator space is the challenge of distinguishing branded content from unbranded content, Rezab said.

Creators have found that calling a post “sponsored content” doesn’t always mean reach the same level of engagement as posts that do not carry this label.

In Ravineo’s November 2024 analysis of more than 70,000 influencer posts (including images and videos) on Instagram, 13,432 were identified as partnerships. Among these partnerships, 80% were not labeled as such, while only 19% were correctly indicated.

The team has established criteria to define what constitutes a “sponsored post”. Thanks to its AI indexing tool, the visibility of a brand in a post determines the likelihood that it is a sponsored post. The index operates on a scale of one to 10, with 10 representing “super important.” This study only considers posts rated nine or 10. Through manual verification, more than 90% of these posts were confirmed to be sponsored, Rezab said.

“We know directly from the brands that these are paid partnerships, and we know that they are not declared,” Rezab said.

When creators don’t label a post as “branded content,” it’s harder for brands to gauge the success of the content and determine if the creator is the right fit.

“What the platforms expect is for brands to foot the bill and provide the nudge,” Rezab said. “I don’t think that’s quite fair.”

Identify brands on video

Another big challenge that brands may face is mentioning their products in videos. Platforms like YouTube are starting to offer features that allow creators to tag products in their videos, but this practice is not yet universal among all creators. With Ravineo technology, a brand or user can upload a video for the AI ​​tool to analyze and determine if a brand’s product was mentioned.

“We achieved over 90% accurate results when it comes to detecting marks in a video,” Rezab said.

Mentioning the brand in the comments of an article is not necessary, he explains; The AI ​​tool can detect whether a brand or product has been mentioned in a video, so brands can measure reach and impressions of partnership-related content, even when a creator doesn’t explicitly mention the brand. Additionally, it can help brands discover new creators to collaborate with based on the impressions a product receives in a video from a creator they might be interested in working with.

“We have an insane roadmap,” Rezab said, highlighting future features Ravineo plans to offer, like hyper-local results for New York restaurants wanting to learn more about their mentions or usage. menus.