Last Updated on May 14, 2021
Allison Gappa is a sports reporter, sideline reporter, entertainment host and influencer on Intellifluence. Allison is the pregame host of OSU football’s Coaches Cabana and the host of Tulsa Custom Homes in addition to being a freelance sideline reporter for Fox Sports Southwest. You can watch Allison’s reel at allisongappa.com or visit her blog at aoksocial.com for content focused on home design, fashion trends and health tips to name a few.
Tell us what led you to get into fashion blogging and influencer marketing…
Yeah! Well I was in sports broadcasting for years. I mean over ten years and still freelance and I host a home design TV show now and so I’ve been in broadcasting but fashion has always been kind of a huge part of television, a huge part of my life, I’ve always loved it, my mom’s always loved it, and so starting influencer marketing was kind of a way for me to be able to express that fashion side. Especially, cause in sports and in TV you’re in such a male dominated industry and so that was kind of my way I guess of expressing myself in that certain passion I had.
As a sports reporter, entertainment host, blogger and influencer, how do you structure your average day?
Well they’re all different that’s the thing. My days are all different so one day I will be out filming the TV show and I’ll be on set and I’ll be in full hair and makeup and then, you know, one day I will be in mt sweats writing like five different blog posts for my website and for the TV show’s website and I’m also a producer on the show so I do a lot of producing and stuff like that. And then one day I might do a ton of batch content for influencing and then the next day I might, you know, write those things and then the next day I’ll be like oh yeah I forgot to water my plants for the tenth day in a row, so and it’s stinking hot here in Summer, so. No I’m just kidding but yeah. So every single day is different which I kind of love because I’m not a person that would be okay with – I like my office changing everyday I guess
What have been some of your favorite brand partnerships to-date?
I recently worked with KeraTherapy out of Miami and I love Miami it’s one of my favorite places to go so I was excited just the fact they’re from there but it’s a hair care collection and they do keratin infused all their products are. And it was just like I love when you are able to form really good relationships with the brands and I just loved working with them. I mean they posted my blog on their website and all their products were amazing and so that was actually my most recent one and now I love like my long term brand partnerships too. Flying Colors Apparel is one that they sponsored me doing a lot of like game day stuff but they also have a boutique side so they’re able to kind of help ut that way. And then kind of something different which is also really cool is I collaborated with a local I guess you can call her a fashion designer but essentially what we did is we collaborated on taking different pieces and her totally remaking them So I kind of designed them and then she like, you know, would like cut up denim jeans and bleach them and throw like staples all over and they were just like gorgeous. It looks like something you would see on Justin Bieber and stuff like that.
So, you know, I always joke with her that one day we’re going to have an AOK line or something like that because my blog is AOK Social so, yeah. So I joke with her that one day we’ll go all out and do it but she’s amazing and exactly what I see in my head happens which is crazy and it’s even better than what I imagined, so. Those collabs are cool too kind of like using an artists and yeah just kind bouncing it off them.
What is the weirdest request you have received from a brand?
It’s funny because actually this morning I got an email from a fast food company and they are bringing back an item that used to be popular and they asked if they could come and cater an event for me with just this specific new item. Which is kind of a cool idea but it’s also like if I told you the name of the place and told you what the item was it would like make this story even more kind of bizarre but I was like what am I supposed to do with this. I was like thinking about it and I was like well maybe, you know, like I could have them show up on like a shoot day or, sorry I try not to say shoot day but film day just because of yeah but in TV everyone still says shoot days but I try, I was like are all the guys going to like it or are they going to be like oh yay she brought this random, weird item.
Not weird but this random item catered or are they all going to look at me like what are you doing Allison what is happening right now. So I’m in my head I’m kind of brainstorming because I try and stop open-minded I’m not one of those people that are like “oh, you know, I have this category and I just work with these brands and I turned down so many people” and not that I don’t turn down people but sometimes there’s products out there that I didn’t even know existed and I’m actually like “what is this. Like I do want to try this like this is so random”. Like there’s this blow-dryer and it’s like a reverse blow-dryer and it’s kind of like a vacuum, it literally looks like a vacuum. So you put wet hair inside of this tube and it sucks up your hair and blow dries it and then straighten it all the way down and like had I not said yes to that I wouldn’t have ever, you know, known how cool it was but does it sound bizarre coming in, probably. So I mean I’m just kind of one of those people that probably go for a lot of things and say a lot more yeses than nos.
Can you offer some advice to influencers who might be uncomfortable in front of a camera? What are some of the things you’ve learned along the way in broadcasting?
Well I don’t think you come off uncomfortable so rule number don’t say you feel uncomfortable. No I‘m just kidding. My mom one time – I said I was like “mom I was really awkward” she’s like don’t be saying that, you can’t say that so now I don’t say I’m awkward anymore but that was my mom’s advice to you for the day. I don’t I have a mom blog or I a mom but ton of reps. I mean if you want to be the starting quarterback you want to get the most reps, right and so it’s just over and over and over and over again. And, you know, starting our you can have natural talent but nobody’s going to be amazing starting out.
It’s a craft that you have to hone just like anything else. It’s a process, it’s a lot of hard work, it’s hustle, it’s yeah. I’m a big believer in God and I think that was my weird thing that I was supposed to do because I was just kind of like good at everything else and then this really worked for me. I was like oh I’m actually going to be like really good at something instead of just like okay good at something. And then like tons of mentors but I mean the biggest thing I would say is getting reps and I had a mentor tell me one time too. I was hosting a thirty minute live TV show that had a live audience, I was young, it was ad-lib, I didn’t have a teleprompter, and he was like go to the bathroom, practice that show in the mirror, look in the mirror and do it because sometimes you don’t realize it but you have these weird things that you do. You can say it and talk it but you don’t realize what you’re doing until you watch yourself in the mirror. I used to do something that I call “swimming” and I’d like duck my head kind of back and forth like that and I would’ve, you know, never known had I not practiced in the mirror so, yeah
Where do you see influencer marketing in the next five years or so? Specifically, how will video evolve?
I kind of think it’s a lot like TV and thew fact I mean nobody really knows where it’s going just because things are changing and happening so fast. I mean in the television industry we’ve seen networks go back and forth between figuring out if they want to do this mix of streaming and how much money they want to put into streaming and if it’s actually going to work and how they’re actually going to sell ads and stuff like that. And so I think that there’s a lot of supply, obviously, for influencers and a lot of demand for influencers so by no means going away but it is not going to look anything like I looks now in five years.
And video content wise I think that Gen Z, the generation below Millennials, I think they will have the biggest impact on it because I think how they consume video is very different than even how Millennials and the other generations consume it. So I think that we’ll a blow-up and kind of like a saturation of like any type of video that you could ever possibly want. Like you would have behind the scenes, you would have how to’s, you would have really high-quality videos and like hype videos but you’d also have really kind of raw videos and your unboxing videos. And then you would have all these other types of videos that don’t, you know, that continue to happen and that either continues to happen and, you know, different types of videos continue to trend or, you know, like a TV show did for the longest time one video kind of takes rule or precedents or we see something like Facebook it’s just everything is video. I mean think about it your comments could be video, your statuses could be video, everything to be video. I mean it could get to that point so I mean like you don’t really know where it’s going but you know that video is huge and you know that it’s growing. It’s a growing market for sure.
Note: Influencer Spotlight interviews are edited for time and clarity.
Andrew is the Head of Client Services for Intellifluence and has a background in communications. He is committed to helping brands get the most out of their campaigns and is the co-host of the Influencer Spotlight series.
