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Ah A group of people gather in a small studio to brainstorm a content strategy for an influencer client. They comb through endless reels, YouTube videos, and the occasional “lol.” But while the office looks like a university lounge, it’s a serious business for IPLIX. Rupees of rupees are at stake here. This is his one of the top influencer spotting and marketing agencies in India.
Creators such as Shlok Srivastava, better known as Tech Burners, Thugesh or Mahesh Keshwala, Ritvi Shah, Saloni Gaur and others rely on IPLIX to land lucrative deals and rise to the top of their game.
The space occupied by model/talent agencies in the 2000s is now occupied by influencer marketing agencies. Everyone wants to be a creator or a collaborator, be it barter or paid. The returns are high and the work she does is not “boring” from 9 to 5. But in the end, it’s these agencies that make the most profit.
Influencer marketing is booming. Indians are grappling with the huge amount of money influencers and creators are making. IPLIX and Vavo Digital are still unstructured but game changers in the industry dealing with tens of millions of rupees, multiple talents and brands.
Vavo Digital’s Delhi office has three employees, all in their early twenties, sitting in a coworking space at Connaught Place. Two of his, Shreyansh Jain and Namrata Manchanda, were classmates at the Delhi University College of Vocational Studies. He did an internship at Vavo for a year before they became full-time employees and is now pitching large-scale campaigns for various brands. They are just one of many young people joining the influencer world, including creators and brand his campaign designers.
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Upcoming game changer
Content creation is no longer limited to popular platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Through platforms such as ShareChat and Telegram, brands are targeting low-income people, whose access to the internet has surged with cheap smartphones and data plans. Groups are created to promote products from bread masalas to clothing.
“It is a misconception that only Gen Z and millennials consume content online. He recounts an incident when an Uber driver asked, “Can we count on someone who is making videos about sales at various outlets in Delhi?” “You see, he didn’t know he was consuming creator-made content. But he was influenced by it.”
LinkedIn is now one of the fastest growing content creation platforms, and Vavo has already captured a slice of the pie. She manages LinkedIn influencers such as Palak Rathi, Punita Parekh and Siddhant Garg.
“LinkedIn seems more ‘verified’ or trustworthy because the authors are already doing well in their respective fields. So the brand placement feels more authentic,” he says Jain.
But the bigger game changer is the regional audience in Tier 2 and 3 cities. From OTT shows and platforms to creators, region is the new buzzword. This is fueled by growing interest in the South Indian film industry.
Also read: From cellulite to sex — Gen Z influencer Aaliyah Kashyap, Sayanti makes money by ‘keeping it real’
young workforce
Big brands, top talent, and the content-creating game are dominated by avid content consumers, Gen Z and millennials.
According to the ‘Youth in India 2022’ report released by the Ministry of Statistics Program Implementation, the 15-29 age group makes up 27.2% of India’s population. It’s no surprise that brands want to target Gen Z whenever possible, and companies want to recruit younger guns to lead their campaigns.
IPLIX has 70 employees with an average age of 23 to handle the business. CEO and co-founder Neel Gogia spends his time setting up a training school for influencers, especially Nanohis influencers. “I want to help the industry grow, and I want future prospects to understand the tools that will help them grow,” he says.
Gogia started diving into influencer marketing in 2015 while pursuing his BTech degree. While in college, he became his influencer manager at his YouTube fitness and offered to help him deal with brands. “I charged 5,000 rupees every month,” he adds.
In 2019, he launched IPLIX with entrepreneur Jag Chima. And from Rs 5,000, the company’s growth skyrocketed. The current growth rate is 400% and the expected revenue for the next financial year he is Rs 7.5 billion.
Radhika Agrawal and Neha Puri launched Vavo Digital in 2020. The then 28-year-old duo found content creation booming. “We had a gift-giving brand that we had to close due to Covid. It was also when content creation peaked and we focused on We decided we could build something in ,” he says Agrawal.
Creators rely on these agencies to build engagement, presence and endorsements. Influencer marketing firms have departments that are also responsible for managing personal brands, in addition to the “traditional” departments found in advertising agencies such as operations and talent management. Entrepreneurs such as his Ghazal Alagh, founder of Mamaearth, and Arjun Vaidya, founder of the Ayurvedic brand Dr Vaidya’s, are on board to build their social media personas.
money problem
Case studies related to influencer marketing are part of the business school curriculum, under the Digital or Internet Marketing module. “Influencer marketing is not a new form of marketing, it is a new means of communication,” said Anirban Chakraborty, a faculty member of marketing at IIM Lucknow.
Influencers are getting attention, whether B-schools are paying attention or not. Last November, the creator of financial content, Sharan Hegde, was invited as a guest speaker at his IIM-Bangalore. catch? Hegde, now one of India’s top financial influencers with two million followers on Instagram, failed to secure a seat at that very university four years ago.
But while it may be easy to gain name and fame by being influential, making money is hard. No fixed income, no matter how many followers you have or how high your engagement rate is. As a rule of thumb, a nano-influencer with 5,000 to 20,000 followers can earn around 15,000 rupees per post, while a macro-influencer (with more than 1 million followers of his) can earn 5 million rupees per post. can earn
This is where influencer marketing agencies come into play. They act like an intermediary between brands and creators to get the best deal for both parties.
As the industry is still unstructured, governments are just beginning to introduce amendments and guidelines. The first step was his 10% withholding tax (TDS) on any “freebies” or PR gifts the influencer receives. It entered into force on July 1, 2022.
On January 20th of this year, the Department of Consumer Affairs released new guidelines for influencers. These include disclosure of ‘material’ guarantees from gifts to hotel accommodation, and fines that can go up to Rs 50,000 for non-compliance.
So what does that mean for this industry, which is projected to reach a valuation of Rs 2.2 crore by 2025? As a result, it is becoming increasingly important for these influencers to comply with ASCI. [Advertising Standards Council of India] guidelines and best practices to maintain reliability and effectiveness,” says Puri, co-founder of Vavo.
Also read: Featured influencer.False advertising, or failure to disclose paid content, can quickly result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines
capricious loyalty
Brands are keen to enter the field of influencer marketing. “This is the form of marketing that startups typically use because it allows them to get started with minimal fees,” he says.
When advertisers realized that content creators had gained an audience, they decided to adapt. The simplest metric is advertising budget allocation. Earlier TV ads accounted for almost all of it. “Now 50% of him is allocated to traditional advertising and the rest is taken up by influencers and his marketing,” said Divyansh Gala, the outreach group head of his agency Socheers. say.
But it’s a fickle world to make an impact. The maximum royalty period is three to four months for him, ”he says Gogia. The same goes for the audience.
“Our lives are ruled by numbers. It can be really stressful,” Gen Z influencer Srishti Garg told ThePrint in a previous interview.
For brands, loyalty is similarly temporary. Samiksha Mehta, business development manager at marketing agency Pollen, said:
Even if individual influencers and brands are ephemeral, influencer marketing agencies are here to stay.
Social media drives us. So, whether it’s cosmetics or a credit card, you’re buying products recommended by your favorite creators. But does that mean the good old TV ads are going away anytime soon? Gala doesn’t think so.
He believes there is still an “trust factor” in traditional advertising, as influencers often endorse products from competing brands. “People are still watching a lot of TV, but that means they are also watching ads. It is not.”
(edited by Teres Sudeep)
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