On the contrary, the two years of the pandemic have fired up the segment strongly.
While influencer marketing by brands was definitely growing before the onset of covid 19, the pandemic led to an explosion. Most campaigns readied by brands for the summer of 2020 were rendered useless as they did not gel with the mood of the time and new ones could not be shot owing to lockdowns. So the best way to engage the audience was to create branded content with influencers sitting at home or in the studio, explained Sawant, and brands started using influencers big time.
Manoj Mansukhani, chief digital officer at Wunderman Thompson, South Asia, agreed: “Two years ago influencer marketing wasn’t a critical part of the digital strategy, now it is. You won’t see any digital piece without an influencer." Sawant said several brands have set up their in-house influencer marketing teams.
An influencer management firm such as The Girlfriend Box, which launched in Kanpur in 2020 with six people and is now a 60-member operation in Mumbai’s Andheri (West), is also a testimony to the heady rise of influencer business. Its co-founder Shubham Singhal said they are managing close to 100 social media influencers and working with creative agencies and brands.
In 2021, GroupM’s INCA report pegged influencer marketing business at ₹900 crore in India set to touch ₹2,200 crore by 2025. INCA, meanwhile, has a database of 40,000 creators and offers end-to-end solution to brands for influencer marketing.
It’s not hard to see why digital influencer business is booming. Sawant said India has 840 million internet users. Of these, 755 million are on some social media platform or the other such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Almost 60% of the 755 million follow one influencer and 50% follow five influencers. “So there are enough eyeballs. And wherever there are eyeballs, money will move in," Sawant said.
Why influencers get so much attention from brands is explained by the “trust" that their followers have in them. A new report released by Omnicom’s influencer platform Omnifluence and Qoruz, an influencer analytics firm, said that social media influencers are quickly turning into celebrities for GenZ. It is no surprise that fans of influencers readily buy into their opinions, putting a lot of trust in them for recommendations of all sorts. As a result, influencer marketing is becoming the go-to approach to reach a large consumer base, it added.
Influencer business is no way near stagnation, said Sawant. It is innovating in terms of platforms, formats and content. After TikTok’s exit, the influx of short-video sharing apps like Josh, MXTakaTak, Moj and Roposo filled in the void, especially in tier2 and tier 3 towns, targeting millennials and GenZ. Instagram launched Reels and YouTube came up with Shorts.
In terms of format, Mansukhani said podcasts picked up during the pandemic with influencers moving from video to audio to reach out to followers as they multi-tasked at home. “Podcasts have continued even as mobility is back and people are driving to offices," he said. Besides, even as new influencer categories emerged (gaming, stand-up comics, auto tech, fin tech), the industry saw the rise of regional language influencers, too, he said.
The next big thing in this business is influencers driving sales for brands. “As social media and e-commerce converge, you will see a lot of live streaming happen. It is already a huge phenomenon in China where one influencer sells billions of lipsticks in one live stream," Sawant added.
Finally, non-fungible token (NFTs) and the metaverse also hold promise for influencers. Right now, the two are dominated by big celebrities, said Sawant, adding: “But tomorrow, you might see, let’s say, a stand-up comedian hosting a comedy night in the metaverse, but the access to that is through an NFT. Or a big travel influencer offers a metaverse ride into how the Swiss Alps look like…I would want to see that."
