Cognito, the international specialist communications and marketing agency, announced the launch of a new influencer discovery platform that will deliver an important shift in the way brands in the B2B financial services sector can view and integrate influencer marketing into their communication strategies.

Finfluence acts as a discovery platform for influencers from fintech to blockchain, wealth management and investment banking. It leverages a bespoke algorithm developed by Cognito to serve up the most relevant influencers to match a brand’s campaign objectives. Companies will have the opportunity to search for influencers across global regions – EMEA, APAC and North America – with over 120 influencers included from launch and more being added constantly.  

Finfluence is underpinned by Cognito’s sector expertise in financial services and its work helping a wide range of financial services clients with their communications strategies. Cognito’s clients have increasingly asked about influencer marketing, a trend that has been spurred on both by a shift to digital communication accelerated in part by Covid-19.  

“Finfluence was conceived based on conversations with many of our clients telling us that while they understood influencers as a ‘concept,' there was a knowledge gap in how to activate this channel within their communication plans, and what the attributable KPIs would be,” says David Simpson, director at Cognito. “With Finfluence opening up this credible route to market for brands in financial services, we feel the sector will follow the trend of other B2B verticals in their adoption of influencer marketing, delivering more authentic audience engagement and business impact.” 

Finfluence is the first project to launch from the newly established Cognito Labs. Cognito Labs is a division of Cognito EMEA led by Simpson in London. 

“Cognito Labs is the innovation engine of Cognito and was established as part of our drive to develop the communications approach for brands and to further connect our service offering to deliver full funnel solutions,” says Sebastian Mathews, managing director for Cognito EMEA. “With a mantra of ‘global innovation, central enablement,' Cognito Labs connects the global offices of Cognito to deliver innovation excellence for its clients in all regions.”