Young people do not care about advertisements anymore. Gen Z prioritises authenticity in their content, and traditional advertisements can feel too forced to be of any interest. I, for one, would much rather watch my adblocker fight its way through YouTube’s blocking systems for ten minutes than watch a thirty second unskippable ad. It’s not even about saving time anymore, it’s purely about principle. 

But what can companies do if people aren’t responding to traditional advertising? Recently, more and more organisations have been turning to paid partnerships. Influencers receive payment to promote a product, the company receives their promotion, it’s a win-win. But even then, that pesky little ‘paid partnership’ label on most content drives away a lot of engagement.

Luckily, there’s an easy way around this: simply don’t disclose the ad. AI companies such as Walter and Anara have been building ecosystems within studying communities on TikTok, where paid influencers create content intentionally designed to seem authentic and organic. Anara is particularly drawn to this tactic, preying on students to both use and promote their site. Anara markets itself as ‘AI you can trust’, an ironic statement considering its marketing strategy. The company has influencers create entire accounts dedicated to praising and promoting the platform, and these creators position themselves as Master’s and PhD students giving genuine, organic recommendations to fellow students. Anara as a company and the influencers they partner with have no issue with viewers believing this content to be organic recommendations; if anything, they seem to prefer it.

Lying about whether or not you’re being paid to create content is bad, but lying about the actual product you’re peddling and your credentials is arguably worse. One influencer stated that Anara was made by her professor in response to use of ChatGPT by students, a claim that is provably false. ChatGPT was released to the public in 2022, meanwhile Anara’s founder, Naveed Janmohamed’s only experience working in a university was as a research assistant. 

I spoke to Dr. Steven Buckley, a lecturer in digital media sociology, who told me ‘the important thing for people to understand is that these creators are liars. Many of them claim to be doing a PhD or MA when if you actually try to track them down online, you discover that at most they maybe have a BA and are certainly not part of any PhD programme. Not only are they lying about their credentials, they also lie about the efficacy of the product and the things it can do.’

I spoke to an ex-influencer for Anara for some insight on why they market the way they do. In terms of their formulaic content, she told me: ‘We were given a book of content ideas. Some were more experimental, while others were based on what had already worked for the company.’. When asking about advice the company gave regarding disclosing content as advertisements, she said ‘[Anara] told us we did not need to disclose that the content was an ad, as they believed it would affect reach…That felt questionable to me.’ She also said ‘The company focuses heavily on producing a viral video…They do not place much value on consistency. Their priority is achieving one viral video, which means the work is entirely dependent on whether that happens. In my case it did not, so they decided to drop me.’

Initially, I had been feeling quite venomous towards the influencers engaging in this ad campaign, but speaking to this ex-partner made me feel far more sympathetic. Anara targets students who need extra funds at university, bleeds them dry for content, then drops them when they don’t go viral. It makes sense that a company with a predatory marketing strategy would treat their content creators with as little respect as they treat potential users. 

An important thing to keep in mind when engaging with any advertisement is that a company who has to adopt predatory marketing techniques is likely not selling a product worth your time. Consume ads with caution, stay wary, and don’t let big media sell you useless tat. 

Both Anara and Walter were reached out to for comment, to no avail.

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