Ernest Sturm
Ernest Sturm. Runway Influence collaborates with some of the world’s most influential celebrities on Instagram and other social media platforms
I am a seasoned entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience in the marketing industry. I started Runway Influence about 5 years ago and in a short period of time have expanded its operations globally. Prior to Runway Influence I was in the Luxury Events marketing space, I’ve ran a high-end nationwide events company called Runway Waiters. A luxury events firm that provides agency signed models from top modeling agencies in the US for high end events.
Through that I’ve successfully built relationships with some of the worlds biggest and most luxurious brands in the world such as Tom Ford, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Ferrari, Rolls Royce etc.. I started that company when I was around 22 years of age and have built it into to a nationwide phenomenon that was and still is revered by some of the most well known brands as the best events marketing company in the US.
After a successful run in the events space I started building Runway Influence, a premiere social media marketing company that works with top model influencers in the US, UK, AU and runs some of the most successful influencer campaigns in the world. We work with the biggest names in the social media influencer space and produce campaigns for some of the most renown brands in the world such as Adidas, Mclaren and many others.
How did you start Runway Influence and what sparked the idea?
The idea was simple, put together the best group of influencers and deliver the best results possible.
What has been your greatest success to date?
I think one of my most successful jobs was for WildFox Couture for which we booked incredibly talented influencers that brought a ton of exposure to the brand in a matter of days. We organized a 2 day Coachella shoot with girls like Rachel Cook, Jena Frumes, Kylie Rae, Celine Farach and Kyra Santoro. Not only did this campaign bring quite a bit of exposure to the brand but it also was visually stunning and so it produced incredible content!
The girls did an amazing job and our client was extremely happy with the results. The key to successful influencer campaign is of course the talent you book. We look not only for influencers with strong numbers but also talent that fits the brand and their image. We also focus on influencers that perform when it comes to generating exposure as well as ROI. Not every girl or guy with a million followers will bring the needed and wanted results. It’s important to know who to book, number of followers and engagement rate is of the essence but what’s even more significant is how their audience reacts to certain brands and products.
Not every influencer will be good for your brand no matter how extensive is her or his reach, however, from our experience model influencers perform the best as they know how to entice their audience and advertise a product/brand in a way that will appeal to their followers.
How do you make yourself unique from your competition?
We’re very different from competitors as we have personal relationships with every influencer we work with. They’re not just a number on our roster, we speak to them on regular basis and know their strengths and weaknesses which helps us to assemble the best team possible for our clients’ campaigns. Another strength of ours is that we work both with Macro as well as Micro-influencers, our network is very diverse and has the most influential and far-reaching audience on social media.
