Influencer marketing sees dip
- According to digital marketing agency AdLift, India’s influencer market is estimated at $75-150 million a year, as compared to the global market of $1.75 billion
NEW DELHI: As SOS calls for beds, medicines, and oxygen took over social media platforms, influencer marketing witnessed a sharp decline amid the second wave of covid infections which hit India in April. The accounts of big influencers across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter have been transformed to amplify covid related resources and leads.
Since April, influencer marketing activities have fallen 40-70% as brands paused their campaigns and postponed new product launches keeping in mind the dip in consumer sentiment, said digital marketing experts.
"Our business has taken a hit after the second wave. For instance, we did 35 big influencer campaigns in February which has now dropped to just five,” said Neha Puri, founder and chief executive at influencer marketing agency Vavo Digital.
Agreed Rahul Singh, founder of Winkl, a platform that helps brands execute, manage and track influencer marketing campaigns: “In April and May we saw a 60% dip in business.” Winkl works with brands such as Amazon, Flipkart and Dabur, among others.
Brands are definitely staying away from promotional activities with influencers at this moment, said Ashutosh Harbola, founder of influencer marketing company Buzzoka. “I have not received a single client brief in the last three weeks or so. There’s a fear among top advertisers of being trolled for being tone deaf to the worsening state of the pandemic in the country if they indulge in promotions.”
Big spenders such as fashion & lifestyle, cosmetics and travel categories have paused their promotions. “Any company which cares about the image of its brand has delayed promotions. Brands are a lot of perception, after all,” said Singh.
Personal care and hygiene related brands are carrying out low-scale campaigns though. On Sunday, content creator Kusha Kapila, with over 1.7 million Instagram followers, shared a post sponsored by P&G owned beauty brand Olay India.
Prashant Puri, co- founder and chief executive of digital marketing agency AdLift, said few big brands which have a long-term contract with tier I influencers are still executing campaigns as a part of their contract.
"Although they are far and few. Influencers have monthly commitments (posts or video content) with certain brands which they are executing keeping in mind the current state of nation. These posts are somber in tone keeping in mind the current mood of the country. Largely, the overall influencer activity is on a big pause. Hopefully, it will pick up by July which also marks the onset of the festive season,” he added.
According to digital marketing agency AdLift, India’s influencer market is estimated at $75-150 million a year, as compared to the global market of $1.75 billion.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty brand, Plum, which works with a variety of influencers, has taken a conscious decision to slow down campaigns and promotions.
"We did slowdown in terms of influencer marketing campaigns especially in May. We respected the wishes of those influencers who were choosing not to partner at this time. So, there were several promotions and campaigns that were pushed out,” said Arushi Thapar, senior marketing manager at Plum.
Thapar, however, added that the brand continued to create beauty content with small scale influencers whose livelihood was being impacted. “We decided to not bring things to complete standstill,” she added.
On the other hand, renowned chef Tanaz Godiwala had to pause all influencer collaborations with food bloggers as her cloud kitchen venture A Parsi Affair was impacted by the second wave. With state-imposed restrictions in Maharashtra, there have been multiple challenges in sourcing ingredients, delivery as well as staff safety.
"Owing to the fact that there is no business happening, we are tight on the money to spend on influencers. We are doing bare basic postings on social media platforms and promoting safety and well-being messages. Nobody is going to spend money on luxury items in the current scheme of things,” Godiwala said.
There has been a massive cut in entertainment-led promotions such as dance challenges and music videos. “We used to leverage thousands of influencers to create video challenges for our snack and beverage brands. Currently, we have held back our influencer marketing spends until the pandemic situation becomes better especially in urban areas,” said an executive from a FMCG firm on the condition of anonymity.
However, there are exceptions like online gaming category that continues to leverage influencers to drive engagement and new sign ups on their platform. YouTuber Ajay Negar, better known as Carryminati with over 30 million subscribers, has partnered with social gaming platform WinZO urging people to download the app.
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First Published:25 May 2021, 06:04 PM IST
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