Influencer marketing gaining momentum during the festive season

Festive season in India is the biggest time of the year as customers splurge and brands go in guerrilla mode. Last year, Covid-19 disrupted sales volume for brands as people resorted to meagre forms of expenditure owing to a cut in paychecks and rising inflation. Especially for influencer marketing as brand spending was less than Rs 20-25 lakh on an average for influencer campaigns. However, this festive season people were more than ready to spend on festivities due to the resurrection of offline momentum of this and the inherent global shift to the online world during the lockdown. With customers being habituated to online shopping and coming to terms with offline ones, brands are working round the clock to aggressively brand their campaigns and incur huge profits covering previous losses and more. 

The Covid-19 restricted our movement to closed quarters but it allowed us to spend even more time online. As a result, lockdown saw an 87% increase in social media usage and with an average retainment of 4 hours on both Facebook and WhatsApp for Indian users. Influencers who grabbed this opportunity at the right time managed to not only increase online engagement but also acquire a huge following with a shift to celebrity status. Influencers had a windfall of growth that led to a severe transformation of influencer marketing in 2020-21.

Influencers are now ruling the social media courtyard and brands this year went heavy with influencer marketing during Diwali. From startups to established companies everyone bagged an opportunity to work with influencers to promote their festive launches. Facebook’s Festive Marketing Guide reported that social media is the fuel to drive brand discovery during the festive season and influencers are an aid to 45% of people in discovering new products and making ultimate purchase decisions. INCA’s reported that the Influencer Marketing industry is all set to grow at a CAGR of 25% with a boom of  Rs 2200 crore by 2025. Brands even managed to retain 30% of their overall budget for influencer marketing with as much as Rs 600 crore industry spending on influencer marketing alone. 

Social media has given brands a global forum to reach audiences anywhere in the world with the help of influencers who are able to brand their messaging through snackable content. Startups like MamaEarth and even FMCG giants have all leveraged influencer marketing for better digital visibility during this festive season and not just for brand awareness but also for performance marketing and driving their customer conversion through detailed ad targeting. 

Brands have trusted influencers to be creative with their brands as their niche allows them to connect with target audiences more up and close. Smaller brands are also partnering with nano-creators and micro-influencers to amp up their game for a higher rate of engagement. Instagram is the parent of influencer marketing as GenZ and millennials consume a lot of their free time scrolling on social media. The core offering of influencer marketing is authentic and trending content that has become a pivotal marketing tool for brands with an imperishable scope in the future. Influencers are here to take the internet by storm and brands are ready to tap in through however means possible.  

The article is authored by Sahil Chopra, Founder & CEO, iCubesWire