The final rose was once again among us mere mortals. However, it looks like The Bachelor did not just launch the “perfect love story,” but also presented a new generation of influencers.
Premise
Before we continue with this blog, let me first introduce the franchise. For 18 years, the premise of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette is to find 20-30 women or men who are willing to enter a polygamous relationship where they share one person. Aside from living with dozens of other people who are also dating your partner, as well as seeing the “love of your life” only once or twice a week, contestants must also endure physical activities like play an intense game of football, wrestle in the mud, or binge-jump naked. And, oh, there is also this one requirement where you must share their traumas and tragic pasts to a person you basically just met. After all that, only one will end up engaged.
In 2014, producers decided to shake things up and created Bachelor in Paradise. In this spin-off, former The Bachelor and The Bachelorette contestants are given another shot finding love among each other in a secluded paradise in Mexico. To keep the dynamics in the island entertaining, the producers add new people to the group every week. Meanwhile, Winter Games, another franchise spin-off, is the winter sports-themed counterpart of Paradise.
The Right Reasons
For those who are regular viewers of the dating show, the concept of “the right reasons” is an overused phrase that contestants throw around to expose their fellow contenders’ motives and intentions. In recent seasons, this idea is emphasized to address the modern caveat of the show: that people are going on The Bachelor franchise to gain money and fame, instead of falling in love with the person of their dreams.
The original romantic reality show, which currently features Pilot Peter Weber for its 24th season, peaked at 8.2 million viewers on its finale episode last season. Because of the show’s consistently high ratings, former contestants utilize their screen time to launch their influencer careers after they exit the show.
These former contestants usually gain more than one million followers once the show starts airing. According to data, paid partnerships with these influencers have better engagement rates on social media than other celebrities and lifestyle influencers. Most of these former contestants now label themselves as brand ambassadors as they help sell clothing, makeup, events, workout merchandise, restaurants, and even board games, among others. A lot of Bachelor alumni have also launched their own YouTube channels, podcasts, books, clothing lines, shoes, perfume, and basically any commodity under the sun!
In Vox’s podcast called “Reset,” they discussed how the advent of social media, particularly Twitter and Instagram, provided a platform for former Bachelor contestants to share their own narratives. In the beginning, these alumni leveraged their personal social media accounts to defend themselves from gossips and scandals, as well as share their experiences behind the scenes. Always up-to-date in trends, marketers zeroed in on the show alumni’s significant follower counts and leveraged this opportunity to market their brands.
According to The Ringer, Tenley Molzahn, the runner-up from The Bachelor season 14, seems to be the “patient zero” in this breed of influencers. Even before the word “influencer” has been in our lexicon, Mehzan’s Instagram page in 2010 was already filled with photos of her modeling a bracelet and recommending a cleansing juice that her followers can purchase through her promo code.
Brands can often be a perfect match with some of the former contestants. For example, according to Tribe Dynamics, some of the most popular Bachelor former cast members like Ashley Iaconetti (Season 19) and Amanda Stanton (Season 20) drove more than $6 million in earned revenue in 2018 for online store Revolve. FabFitFun’s head of influencer marketing, Jolie Jankowitz shared in an interview with WWD that what makes the romantic reality show contestants special is they are average women that consumers had gotten to know right before they became popular. According to Jankowitz, they are aspirational, but attainable.
However, launching an influencer career right off the bat is not as easy as it seems. For one, Bachelor contestants have to make sure that they always look good for TV. Entertainment Tonight reporter Lauren Zima shared that women who are set to go on the show are reaching out to brands for outfits in exchange for exposure. Similarly, brands are also proactively ensuring that they reach out to contestants before their competitor does.
Moreover, in the latest season, Revolve decided to further get ahead of the curve and sponsored one of the group dates. In the episode, women who are vying for Peter Weber’s heart participated in a Revolve fashion show, wearing products from the company’s in-house brands. The woman with the best catwalk won heaps of clothes from the brands.
These sponsorship deals are not limited to women cast members in the franchise. Former leads like Nick Viall and Ben Higgins have their fair share of endorsements that range from sports brands to cars. Even former The Bachelorette contestants like Jared Haibon (Season 11) and Tyler Cameron (Season 15) are posting photos with oral care products and liquor brands. Meanwhile, some couples who actually ended up being together after meeting on the franchise, are “joint-influencers” in their own right.
True Love, After All
Going on the show, these men and women knew what they were getting themselves into. If you knew that the risk of leaving with a broken heart is greater than the potential chance of getting engaged with the person of your dreams, is it not better to forge a career out of it? Hey, if you can’t have the person, then you might as well get the coins. To some, money is the ultimate true love, after all.
To read more about this phenomenon:
https://wwd.com/beauty-industry-news/beauty-features/bachelor-contestants-influencers-1202969257/
https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/1/6/21048923/the-bachelor-bachelorette-instagram-influencer
https://www.vox.com/reset/2020/2/24/21145335/the-bachelor-instagram-social-media-influencers-money
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