Influencer marketing has become a core part of every brand’s marketing. But does it benefit brands?
New Delhi: For Gurugram-based audibles and wearables brand Boat, choosing Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh as its brand ambassador was easy as the actor resonates with audiences across all age groups.
“Ranveer’s portrayal in our campaign was unlike anything seen before, aligning with our vision of making Nirvana both approachable and premium,” said Aman Gupta, chief marketing officer (CMO), of Boat.
The Trend
Today, influencer marketing has become a necessity for brands as customers spend a lot of time on social media. By working with influencers, brands tend to reach new customers more effectively.
People trust recommendations from influencers more than traditional ads. Plus, influencers know the latest trends, helping brands stay current. Influencer marketing has become an important part of brand marketing and is the need of the hour, said different brand representatives.
Today, Vicky Kaushal, Ranveer Singh, Shilpa Shetty, and Soha Ali Khan along with a couple of Instagram influencers and YouTube celebrities are prominent names that retailers and D2C brands in India have tied up with to increase sales, and presence and capture more market share in their specific niches.
Representatives of different brands also added that Gen-Z and customers aged between 18-35 remain the target audience for these brands before investing in influencer marketing and celebrity collaboration.
“Our main target audience is Gen-Z and millennials, young Indians who are health-conscious and seeking nutritious options,” said Chetan, chief executive officer (CEO), of Alpino Health Foods.
The Surat-of based food and beverage brand has partnered with Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty who is also a key investor.
The marketing mix
For every campaign and influencer collaboration, brands tend to go for a tailored marketing mix to guarantee maximum efficiency and effectiveness, said brand representatives.
“In India, two things still sell the most: Cricket and Bollywood. We wanted to have a brand ambassador that could help us gain the trust of the Indian market,” said Udita Bansal, founder, Truebrowns Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd, a women’s fashion brand based in Gurugram.
The company has collaborated with actress Chitrangada Singh as its brand ambassador.
For Boat, the company chose not to rely on a single channel and implemented a strategic marketing mix instead that included connected TV (CTV), digital ads, out-of-home (OOH), and print.
“Our approach is always omni-channel—ensuring we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket,” added Gupta.
The spends
Investment in celebrity and influencer collaborations varies by campaign. This includes fees for the celebrity, production costs for promotional content and a budget for paid advertising to amplify reach, said different brand representatives.
“We allocate resources carefully to balance influencer fees and expected returns. By analysing past campaign performance, we optimise our budget allocation to maximise impact and engagement, ensuring each campaign aligns with our brand goals,” said Ganesh Kamath, chief executive officer (CEO), Earthraga.
“We allocate 10% of our marketing budget to influencer collaborations. This includes creating content with influencers for more reach and brand awareness. There are many different expenses such as influencer fees, logistics and ad spends,” he said.
Earthraga has tied up with actresses like Soha Ali Khan, Shehnaz Sheher and Deepali Vashishtha.
Womenswear brand Truebrowns spent about Rs. 2.5 crore towards onboarding Chitrangada Singh. “This includes everything from the entire collaboration with Chitrangada Singh and also the branding spend that we did on the content that we created,” said Bansal of Truebrowns.
How much a brand spends per campaign or on the overall influencer branding also depends on how big the celebrity or influencer is in terms of popularity, followers or reach and the frequency of the activity. However, big or small, every brand today has a budget for influencer marketing.
Return on investment (RoI)
Analysing the importance of such collaborations also plays a significant role considering the large amount of money invested on such campaigns.
“For Earthraga, the ROI from collaboration has been significant, showing a 20% increase in brand visibility,” added Kamath.
For Truebrowns, the celebrity collaboration resulted in new consumers coming to the brand in terms of new traffic to the website.
“Our brand search multiplied by three times post-campaign and the return on ad spends (ROAS) on performance campaigns was two times higher than the other campaigns,” said Bansal.
With collaboration with Ranveer Singh, Boat also saw a search lift of 645% and sales approximately increasing by 30% during the campaign period.
For health brand Alpino, the campaign with Shetty only launched recently and the company is still gathering data on the ROI and ROAS.
“Right now, we’re focusing on key indicators like reach, engagement, website traffic, and early sales. The initial response has been positive, with high engagement and impressions,” added Chetan.
