We’ve all heard the stories of tech innovators like Mark Zuckerberg, who have decided to drop out of college and go it alone with a great idea and a lot of gumption. It is, however, not often that we hear stories about young entrepreneurs who have always known exactly what they wanted to do and have gone on to make their dreams come true from a very early age.
Henry Young, CEO of influencer marketing strategy firm Avari, began his foray into influencer marketing when most kids were still logging hours of Roblox play in their bedrooms. As a 14-year-old high schooler, Young honed his creator skills as a video editor. Soon, he was diving into the world of influencer campaigns, social media strategy, and managing content production.
While his peers were crossing their fingers over college applications, Young was setting the stage for his own social media influencer strategy company — all before graduating high school.
Stepping stones to influencer marketing campaign success with young audience demographics
While other students at Ardsley High School were preparing for college, Young was spending his time proving his value across the online marketing space, helping brands find influencers, working across social channels, building partnerships with influencers, and discovering that analytics were a doorway to a better understanding of the younger generation. As his own target audience, Young knew he had the inside track on what drives engagement and conversion among Gen Alpha and Gen Z. The old digital advertising approaches were no longer working, even on popular platforms like TikTok, and brands were turning to Young to help them understand this new generation of consumers.
Once Young graduated from high school, he saw an opportunity to take the road less traveled. Deciding to take a gap year, he founded Avari Research with the aim of helping forward-thinking brands and marketing teams connect with influencers, design thoughtful campaigns that resonate with younger generations, and measure success within virtual experiences. Through in-depth metrics and innovative deliverables, Young plans to focus on demographics that many brands struggle to reach and, eventually, help many of them achieve skyrocketing engagement rates.
“Research is the most value-packed work, I believe,” Young explains. “I want to help brands learn how to spend influencer marketing dollars effectively, establish strong influencer partnerships, and design campaigns that convert young consumers.”
Through virtual experiences within popular platforms such as Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft, Young is leading brands into the future of online marketing, where savvy young markets have grown weary of obvious ad placements and are seeking more authentic connections to community and smaller influencers.
Reaching new audiences through brand awareness, savvy outreach, and influencer programs
The rise in popularity of virtual experiences has been astounding in recent years, and has also left many legacy brands scrambling to adapt. “I have a nuanced understanding of my peers that most marketers don’t,” Young explains. He has leveraged this understanding into a data-heavy approach to marketing.
“We don’t just track reach or views, we dive deep into what actually drives results, such as in-world purchases, return visits, and time spent within a virtual experience,” Young says.
This data helps connect the right influencers to the right brands and also allows brands to see the benefit of speedily deployed campaigns built strongly through in-depth research. “We are seeking to design campaigns with measurability in mind,” says Young.
Young is not content with taking a gap year simply to rest and reflect; he has hit the ground running with research projects that deliver some of the most innovative creator selection, campaign design, and data analysis frameworks the digital marketing space has seen.
The new influencer marketing strategy: bold business goals and delivering on KPIs with impressive ROI
Despite his young age, Young brings several years of brand-side influencer strategy and retention experience to the table. Even before founding Avari, he had already worked with both influencers and major companies on videos that have since garnered over 1 billion collective views. His approach to succeeding where others have failed? Listening.
“For me, the worst way to fail is quietly,” Young says. “How do you figure out what failed with a campaign and do better next time? You have to practice social listening. You need feedback that goes beyond numbers.”
Young is excited to bring his past experience to an expanded frontier with Avari and see his data-rich approach to influencer marketing become widely popular with brands seeking a firm that handles campaign design and strategy from start to finish. He also looks forward to making his mark as an influencer marketing expert for the next generation, a CEO who deeply understands what Gen Z and Gen Alpha are looking for.
From the time he was 14 years old, Henry Young was sure that he could bring value and innovation to the influencer marketing and digital branding space. By scaling his expertise and betting on himself, he aims to create opportunities for brands to tap into new markets, build immersive and engaging campaigns, and access highly attuned performance data that lets them continue to reach the right audiences.
