Studies show big-ticket celebrity advertising is slowing in India, marked by a measurable dip in traditional media. So brands are quietly cutting back on long-term collaborations and reallocating budgets to influencers and creators who bring trust, context and community, not just reach.
Little wonder, Amazon is throwing its weight behind creators. Ahead of the festive shopping season, it has rolled out Creator Connections, a programme designed to connect eligible creators with relevant brand campaigns, and reward performance based on clicks and conversions. For instance, a tech creator will be recommended a brand campaign for a newly launched smartphone and so on.
India is the first market outside the US where Amazon has introduced its Creator Connection programme to fortify its larger influencer ecosystem. Its motto: The smaller, the better. The reason: At the moment 70% of Amazon’s sales through affiliated influencer links come from non-metro cities. Given the scale of Amazon’s influencer programme, the move is meant to benefit nano and micro creators.
For context, nano influencers are those who have less than 10,000 followers while micro influencers are those who have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers.
The initial phase launched with over 50,000 participating brands and 5,000 engaged creators. Amazon plans to gradually expand the rollout to its broader ecosystem of more than 165,000 creators. The threshold to register as an influencer is modest. A creator needs to have a designated social media handle with just 2,000 followers.
“Historically, it was the larger creators who had the best opportunities in the Indian creator ecosystem. This will surely democratise the system and create opportunities for nano and micro creators,” says Raj Mishra, MD & CEO, Chtrbox.
Experts say Amazon’s Creator Connections has significant potential to disrupt and reshape the creator economy. Rather than the standard influencer sponsorships that rely on upfront flat fees, Amazon’s model will connect creators to campaigns using performance-based monetisation. “More creators means more content, better quality content, better shopping experience, more discovery, and more sales. If there are more sales, we will be able to give better payouts to our creators and the influencer programme becomes more lucrative for creators to join. So this is how the flyweel works,” says Nidhi Thakkar, head of social commerce, emerging countries, Amazon.
The math behind this is easy to understand. About 66% of India’s active creator base of 4.1 million comes from non-metro cities and about 80% of non-metro city creators are either nano or micro creators, as per a report Understanding the Canvas of India’s Creator Economy by the Indian School of Business and Hashfame. The report also says that the top 10% of creators capture more than 50% of the campaigns. On top of that, 85% of non-metro creators have zero campaigns in their bag. “For them, content creation remains primarily an audience-building activity rather than a source of regular income,” the report stated. This programme throws them a clear opportunity.
A win-win situation
Creator Connections will work as a great customer acquisition engine for Amazon, say experts. The company gives credit for at least 60 million unit sales on the platform this year to its current influencer programme.
Amazon’s goal is simple — turn social media scrolling into immediate sales while building a massive, decentralised army of everyday reviewers. But why would brands on the platform actively seek out small influencers?
Mega-influencers’ mass-market endorsements can feel like traditional TVC, say experts. While nano-creators have tight-knit communities, their engagement rates can be up to 60% higher than larger influencers, as per recent research.
The ISB-Hashfame report on Indian creators states that creators from non-metro cities — which comprise a big share of nano and macro creators — scored higher against creators from metro cities across all engagement metrics. Which means that while that creator’s reach is small, because the engagement with the audience is much stronger, affiliated brands have a higher chance for conversions through the campaign.
If that is the case, small and local brands stand to gain much with access to a pool of deserving creators. “There are so many startups, D2C brands, SMEs and local regional brands that might not have a dedicated marketing department or work with independent agencies for such performance/ influencer marketing. They can get access to these creators to build reach and growth,” shares Sanjeev Shukla, business advisor, Vinusto.in.
Anirudh Sridharan, co-founder & head of product, HashFame, Brand-Creator Network Platform, believes Amazon’s model can easily be replicated and many other e-commerce players could throw their hats in the ring. Will that weaken traditional agency partnerships? Not immediately at least. Chtrbox’s Mishra from says while such creator-brand networks will take care of the creators operating at the bottom and the middle of the creator economy, long-term and high-value deals will still require agency expertise. “The agency’s role will further evolve to become an intelligence layer for brands to give them better results,” he adds.