Festive Season 2020: Brands Are Taking The Route Of Influencer Marketing For Their Branding And Promotions Online

Hitarth Dadia Nov 09, 2020

Festivals in India are a testimony to our diverse tradition and culture. Irrespective of which festival, it’s almost always a getaway from the mundane. Celebration culture and celebrating culture are not just a tradition in India. It’s deeply rooted in our DNA.

Every year, starting from August, Indian festive season is a 4 month long celebration. We as a society are super culture and status driven. Apart from the culture revolving around this season, brands in and itself work towards establishing their own culture latching it on to the festive season.

Offline marketing is not disappearing anytime soon. However it’s not the most obvious choice anymore. Let’s take billboards for example. Apart from the multiple metrics involved with the measurement dependent costs, it also depends on a plethora of other factors. Visibility being one of them.

Let’s say a brand spends a good chunk on a billboard and places it in the middle of an extremely busy intersection. The brand obviously expects most of the cars, bystanders, pedestrians, residents in the vicinity etc, to look at the billboard, read the messaging, form a thought, then take action on it. The only way that billboard’s visibility even gets close to being accurately quantified is if a marketing page/KOL picks it up, uploads it on their socials and starts a conversation around it. If that happens, the numbers/reach/interactions are self explanatory.

Now let’s take 1IG story for example. It's one of the most organic ways to promote anything and everything online. It serves like a sneak peak into the day of any influencer/celebrity you follow.

Brands are now starting to realise that offline marketing has a lot of moving parts involved to get it right. Influencer marketing or any form of online promotion on the other hand, is easier to execute, more quantifiable and cost effective. Apart from the most obvious - likes and comments, there’s reach, referrals, bounce rate, follower growth rate, engagement, audience demographics, and much more. These metrics make it incredibly easy for brands to measure their ROI on any campaign.

The lockdown hasn’t changed anything when it comes to marketing. It just hit fast forward on the industry’s development. Almost every brand has adapted to the new way of life and is moving online. When we take the festivals into account, nothing will stop Indians from celebrating. Mixing these festive emotions with the fact that the world is dealing with a pandemic and everyones restricted to the confines of their own home, customers will choose the more convenient option. Any form of offline marketing warrants a customer to go home, research more on it, decide if he/she wants to buy it or not, go through reviews etc before making a purchase.

Today, people also don’t trust ads. They trust people. This is where influencer marketing comes into the picture. Any customer is more likely to buy your product if he/she sees their favourite celebrity/influencer use that product. There are a lot of elements that make influencer marketing extremely efficient. However, social proofing is at its core.

Influencer marketing takes care of all these pain points and more. Since your favourite influencer is promoting the product, you trust the product to be good enough for you. If you see an influencer promote something on their story that you’d like to buy, you just have to swipe up. If you see an influencer promote something on youtube, you just have to click the link in description. You can buy whatever you want, without getting up from your couch. It’s as easy as it gets. It’s a more convenient option. It's a more efficient option.

Brands can leverage this and maximise their visibility and sales. Influencers are always looking for more organic ways to connect with their audience. Brands are always looking for more organic ways to reach customers. It’s only logical for brands and influencers to work in synergy. It becomes extremely easy for a brand to carve their brand image in the way they want if they attach a face to it. Since festivals are a major influence towards India's spending, brands have to make efficient use of their marketing budgets and have to decide which form of marketing would be best suited for the results they are looking for.