How everyday creators now shape what India discovers, trusts and buys

New Delhi: Indian consumers are quietly rewriting the path to purchase, and it increasingly runs through influencers’ feeds.

From discovering a new brand to checking reviews and finally hitting “buy,” more Indians now rely on creators than on traditional ads or celebrity endorsements.

That was the clear takeaway from the Market Research Society of India’s (MRSI) Wednesday Webinar on November 27, titled “Attention to Action: How Influencers Shape Consumer Behaviour”, held in Mumbai.

The session brought together three vantage points of the creator economy:

● Kalyan Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO, KlugKlug

● Kunal Sawant, Business Head, GroupM WPP (Content and Influencer Marketing), Goat Agency India

● Pramod Pawar, Vice-President, Quantitative Research, Hansa Research Group.

Influencer spending is rising fast, and the real market is much bigger

Sawant shared data from a WPP report that pegs India’s influencer ecosystem at Rs 3,600 crore last year, projected to reach Rs 4,400 crore in 2025, growing at a 25% CAGR.

Crucially, he said, 92% of brands intend to increase influencer marketing spends, and 71% plan to use influencers through the year instead of in isolated campaign “bursts.”

The study covered sectors such as FMCG, BFSI, manufacturing, and utilities, and included senior marketers from legacy players like P&G and Tata, as well as D2C brands.

It analysed 60,000 influencers and posts from 52 brands across eight categories, along with qualitative inputs from followers, marketers and agencies. A new measurement framework, being co-developed with IIT Mumbai, is also being built into the work.

Kumar argued that official estimates still understate the market.

He said the influencer-led content marketing industry is already at “Rs 10,000 crore,” with only about 25% of that managed via organised agencies. Several brands now spend Rs 20 crore or more annually on influencers, while D2C brands are putting in upwards of Rs 6 crore, levels that used to be typical digital budgets for FMCG.

He added that more than 14,000 brands on Amazon have used influencer-driven content to quietly shift market share, underlining how deeply creators are now embedded in commerce.

Who is an influencer now?

The panel began with a basic question: Who counts as an influencer? Kumar said influencers sit on a different spectrum from traditional celebrities; they are individuals who create content to appeal to audiences on social platforms.

Pawar simplified it further: influencers are people who impact decision-making and are accessible through digital platforms.

Sawant said the definition today is driven by influence rather than fame: anyone who, through social media, has the power to shape opinions or purchases can be considered an influencer.

This broader lens has helped the ecosystem spread across more than 70 categories, from BFSI and fintech to agriculture tools and healthcare.

Why they work: Relatability, trust and reach across India

Pawar presented findings from Hansa Research’s “Brand Endorser” syndicated study, which covers over 500 respondents across 36 Indian cities and evaluates more than 350 celebrities and influencers across sports, cinema, television and social media.

He said influencer recognition among consumers has grown by nearly 50% in recent years, showing that audiences are not just consuming digital content but are increasingly aware of who creators are.

Relatability remains the key driver.“Consumers find influencers more relatable than celebrities, as they share everyday experiences and accessible content,” Pawar noted, adding that this relatability translates into trust.

Earlier Hansa data presented in the session showed that two in three followers depend on influencers when forming a product preference, and 63% discover brands and products through them.

Regional and demographic patterns are sharpening these trends. Recognition has grown fastest in western India (about 67%), followed by the north. In the south and east, growth is slower, but there is a strong preference for local-language creators, making regional relevance critical.

While influencers are strongly associated with Gen Z, recognition among millennials has also risen sharply.

Content genres are evolving, too. Comedy and entertainment remain the largest and fastest-growing buckets. Beauty and fashion continue to rise among metro women; food and cooking content is booming in smaller cities; podcasts are gaining traction among younger metro men; and tech creators, although niche, command very high trust.

Pawar stressed that “India has many markets in one,” and that brand–influencer fit must reflect category codes and regional nuance. Consumers want stylish, creative influencers in apparel; trustworthy, practical voices in finance; and warm, relatable personalities in food.

From vanity metrics to engagement and long-term partnerships

Sawant said brands are moving decisively away from vanity metrics. “Engagement is going to be our success metric; follower count is no longer enough,” he told the audience, noting that 51% of brands now prefer micro-influencers for their tighter, more trusted communities.

Long-term relationships are also becoming the norm. According to Sawant, 72% of brands and 95% of manufacturing companies, now prefer ongoing partnerships with a limited set of creators rather than scattered, one-off collaborations.

Kumar warned that many campaigns still suffer from audience misalignment. In beauty, for instance, only 14% of female beauty influencers have follower bases where women make up more than 50%, leading to wastage when brands assume they are talking primarily to women.

He added that when multiple intermediaries sit between brand and creator, only 30–50% of budgets actually reach influencers. This is pushing many D2C brands to work directly with creators to improve efficiency.

Measurement and attribution are catching up

On measurement, Sawant said only about 23% of brands currently track direct conversions from influencer campaigns, but this share is expected to rise as commerce integrations deepen and better tools enter the market.

Kumar argued that traditional attribution models like swipe-ups and “link in bio” capture just 8–12% of true influence, since much of the impact shows up later in branded search, marketplace share and offline sales.

He said agile brands are already using smarter influencer deployment to outperform larger rivals on platforms like Amazon, especially in categories such as beauty and home and kitchen, where earned media value multipliers of 2x–7x are visible when campaigns are executed correctly.

Both speakers agreed that data infrastructure and attribution frameworks will determine how fast influencer budgets grow within the broader media mix.

B2B influencer marketing: under-explored but high value

Responding to a question on B2B, Kumar said influencer marketing in B2B looks very different from B2C.

He pointed out that B2B influence existed even before digital, through subject-matter experts and niche industry channels. Today, platforms like LinkedIn are natural homes for B2B influence, given their targeting precision and CXO-heavy audiences.

However, credibility is the biggest barrier. Highly credible voices rarely endorse brands unless they genuinely believe in them, and lower-tier influencers have almost no sway in this space. As a result, B2B influencer marketing remains under-explored but high-value, demanding both precision and consistency.

A Rs 10,000-crore opportunity, but execution will decide the winners

The panel closed with a clear message: influencer marketing in India has moved from the fringes to the centre of the marketing mix. With 43% of India’s internet users now Gen Z and 67% when combined with millennials, Kumarsaid traditional media has limited relevance for these cohorts, who show significantly higher recall for social-first content.

He noted that many founder-led brands are prioritising authenticity and performance over polished “big film” creative, using creators as the primary bridge between content and commerce.

For marketers, the speakers said, the next phase will be less about whether to use influencers and more about how to use them well, choosing the right creators, fixing audience mismatches, tightening measurement and treating influencer work as a core brand channel rather than an experimental add-on.

In a Rs 10,000-crore-plus ecosystem where millions of creators now shape what Indians watch, trust and buy, the stakes and the opportunities have never been higher.