The shape of the influencer economy

WITH THE RISE IN SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE, INFLUENCERS ARE BECOMING KEY TO REACHING CONSUMERS. THE FIRST OF A TWO-PART SERIES DELVES INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE OF THIS ECONOMY

- VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR

Mortal, GamerFleet, LolzZz, and Dobby - India's largest gaming influencers challenged gamers to reach 125 finishes in 125 minutes while playing on Rooter, a gaming platform early this year. The three-hour event was live-streamed from Hero's Centre for Innovation and Technology in Jaipur.

The ₹37,456 crore (revenues FY24) Hero MotoCorp is the world's largest manufacturer of two-wheelers. The idea, executed by Publicis Play (a part of Publicis Groupe), was to gamify the launch of Hero Xtreme 125R by challenging players, who are also a large chunk of the bike's target audience, to outperform its features.

"Influencer marketing is good old word of mouth, on steroids," says Harikrishnan Pillai, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), TheSmallBigIdea, a digital marketing agency.

Across categories - ranging from consumer products and financial services to cars and education - influencers are emerging as a parallel media ecosystem.

The Advertising Standards Council of India defines an influencer as "someone who has access to an audience and the power to affect their purchasing decisions or opinions about a product, service, brand or experience, because of the influencer's authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their audience."