A Richmond restaurant was recently left with a bad taste after working with an influencer who ordered food that cost more than $600 during a media tasting.
Cherry Food House, a Chinese Korean restaurant on Alexandra Road, decided to work with influencers to boost its presence to the public as it was "struggling, like many local businesses, to recover from the pandemic," according to an original Instagram post, which has since been removed.
The restaurant said in the post they felt they were “taken advantage” of after an influencer and a plus one ordered more than $600 of food for a media tasting.
“They enjoyed their meal and took multiple trips to carry the leftovers to their car,” reads the post.
Similar to Cherry Food House, many local businesses have increasingly collaborated with influencers or content creators to promote their businesses or products to reach a targeted audience on social media.
Media tastings are where restaurants provide a free meal to influencers in exchange for creative work such as photos and videos posted to media platforms.
The restaurant said in the post they budget media visits according to the number of people dining, but the incident left them “very uncomfortable” and with “a bad taste in our mouths.”
Cherry Food House acknowledged they didn’t set an ordering limit for influencers’ meals saying they wanted them to “enjoy their experience and trusted their ethics.”
“But the truth is, anyone can become an influencer these days. There are of course the professional creators who spend so much time and effort promoting local businesses, but there are also the rest that puts a bad reputation to this amazing community.”
When the online community took it upon themselves to guess who the individual was, Cherry Food House removed the original post and uploaded a new post clarifying they are not naming the influencer saying cyberbullying and public shaming are not the way to do things.
“How ‘viral’ this post has gone is beyond our expectations, and we know that revealing their name and account will lead to very massive cyberbullying – which we are very against of. So we stand firm on this decision," reads the post.
“Cancel culture can get really scary sometimes and while what they did was distasteful, they deserve a lesson learned and another chance.
“The Instagram community is filled with support but also hatred and people who love seeing others getting cancelled. This is toxic.”
Cherry Food House’s post wants to remind influencers and businesses alike to handle media visits “better.”
“It raises awareness of the current struggling local restaurant industry. It has brought so much kind attention to our restaurant and we are beyond appreciative.
“In this situation, and in all, let’s choose kindness.”
Cherry Food House declined an interview with the Richmond News.
Influencing helping the community grow
Not all businesses have had negative experiences with influencers.
Richmond dessert shop Matcha Café Maiko store manager Sam Wong said they’ve had both positive and negative experiences working with creators.
“We have a group of familiar people that we work with since we opened,” said Wong, adding they don’t work with an influencer agency and manage their collaborations on their own.
“It’s really easy to work with them because they know how it works, how our menu works, how everything goes,” said Wong. If a new influencer works with them, they are more than happy to explain their expectations, she added.
She described most influencers as “genuine” and “appreciate food” and care about how certain items are made, or want to know the idea or why certain flavours were chosen.
“Those who are serious are sincere about their work and produce reels that are amazing. They’re fully invested and creative.”
Because of their creativity, this has led to an increase in customers for the local shop.
“Influencers have really helped us out when I’m kind of out of time to take and post photos because work gets busy. Those who are serious about their work know what they’re doing for the benefit of themselves and the business they are working with.”
Wong told the News there has been a case where a “foodie influencer” has asked to “change up” the product the shop was trying to showcase at that time.
“This person said ‘I want to add things that no one had before. I want my photo different from everyone else,’” she explained.
This puts the shop and staff in a difficult position, she said, when customers come into the store asking for the same thing as the posted photo “when we don’t offer exactly that.”
Working with content creators has also allowed businesses like Matcha Café Maiko to promote other local shops in the area, according to Wong.
"It's very competitive for the business industry so it's good to let people know more about other local businesses in the community when we can."
Influencers transition from informal to professional work
The realm of influencers started off with people posting about their lifestyle, places they eat at or things they do as a form of a visual blog.
However, the industry has since expanded with many hoping to turn it into a full-time job and working remotely through it.
Local influencer and photographer Laurie Liu started her journey during the pandemic because, like many, she was housebound and wanted to use visual storytelling to make something normal more special.
She explained influencers use social media platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok or even personal blogs, to post photos and videos in a "visual style" that makes the general public want to follow them along their journey.
"Influencers are good at storytelling, they're good at photography, which makes the way they turn something normal into something special," said Liu.
"It's like enticing people and making them curious about a product or experience."
As a freelance influencer, Liu works independently, reaching out to businesses on her own. Occasionally, businesses reach out to her to work on a project.
Liu, who has worked with a wide range of businesses, told the News that the scope of a project depends on the size and budget of the business.
For example, larger businesses such as tourism boards can offer monetary payment to one to two influencers in return for multiple videos and posts on social media with copyrights to all their work, whereas local restaurants with limited budgets would offer "free meals" to multiple influencers in hopes of more traffic.
"Businesses using a budget to invite multiple smaller influencers to come often want a more grassroots outreach, which can be more relatable to audience members than big brand influencers," said Liu.
However, working as an influencer is not as glamorous as shown on the Internet as it requires many hours of work to put together and post videos and photographs.
There is a lot of planning, conceptualization, scripting, shooting and editing involved with a limited amount of time. This doesn't include researching and constant communication with businesses, according to Liu.
"You are basically your own editor, videographer or photographer, accountant, media spokesperson and writer, which a company would hire multiple people for."
There have been a couple of times when Liu was provided with a meal worth less than $15, but because she is a fan of the restaurant, she purchased more food out of her pocket for a "fuller spread" photo to fully represent what the restaurant truly offers.
"I don't think it's like (I'm being) taking advantage of, but sometimes, you're not actually earning any money because you put in more of your own resources into making these videos for this company because you love it and you want to showcase the very best of it," she explained.
"It's a labour of love."
Influencers "shouldn't recommend things based on money" and should showcase products they genuinely use and love, Liu added.
"Kind of gone are the days where you just take a selfie in a place or of you with the food, you really have to sell a story to retain a more authentic audience who trust and believe in what you're trying to promote."
As the years have passed, the idea of influencers has developed from informal photos on social media to people turning it into a full-time professional job.
Recently, the influencer marketing industry has evolved and many more creators are working on user-generated content (UGC), which consists of photos and short-form videos similar to commercials tailored for businesses.
Liu explained these are commercials for brands but they are done from the perspective of the user's first-person point of view of the product and are specifically paid work.
"You don't necessarily post these on your own platforms (rather) for the company's platforms," she said.
"(Influencing) has really become a formal thing where everyone knows what to provide, what the guidelines are, the do's and don'ts. People in the industry know what is morally and ethically right to do. It's an actual business and is taken seriously to protect both parties."
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