The macro, micro, and nano world of influencers

THE CONCLUDING PART OF THE TWO-PART INFLUENCER ECONOMY SERIES DELVES INTO HOW MARKETERS CAN USE INFLUENCERS FOR A BRAND AND WHAT THE CHALLENGES ARE

- VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR

Kriti Sanon (Bareilly Ki Barfi, Mimi) became the first Indian to be global brand ambassador for Pepe Jeans in September this year. Sanon, however, is not the only face of the brand.

Shakti Mohan, a dancer and TV personality, who has been a judge on Zee TV's Dance India Dance pirouettes to display how flexible the jeans are.

"You cannot make Sanon pirouette or do headstands and things like that. She is about carpet bombing while Mohan has high affinity in niches that matter," says Harikrishnan Pillai, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), TheSmallBigIdea, the agency behind the influencer campaign.

He adds, "I cannot get Shakti (who has 17.6 million Instagram followers and would be expensive) to post too many times, so I get micro and nano influencers for frequency. They also masquerade as an audience." (See box)

Pepe illustrates the first point in understanding how the influencer economy works—the difference between a brand ambassador and an influencer.

"A lot of marketers are confused between the two. Amitabh (Bachchan) may be an ambassador but he will never use Cycle Agarbatti. There is an inverse correlation between the size of the influence and credibility of influence," says Kalyan Kumar, co-founder and CEO of KlugKlug, an influencer marketing platform.