Mumbai: In India, where music plays a huge role in the daily lives of the people, influencer marketing has emerged as a game-changer, offering artists a powerful tool to amplify their voices and reach new heights of fame and success. From Bollywood superstars to emerging indie musicians, artists of all genres and backgrounds are harnessing the reach and engagement of influencers to connect with fans, break down cultural barriers, and expand their audience reach.
The essence of Hindi cinema music intertwines harmoniously with the vibrant rhythms of regional folk melodies, creating a symphony of sound that echoes across the Indian subcontinent. Music industry is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by the rising tide of digital influence and the power of social media. At the heart of this revolution lies influencer marketing, a phenomenon that has redefined the way artists connect with their audience and promote their music.
In this article, Indiantelevision.com caught up with Everest Entertainment CEO Sanjay Chhabria, where he explained the profound impact of influencer marketing on the Indian music industry, examining how it has transformed the way artists promote their music, engage with their audience, and navigate the landscape of digital media.
Edited excerpts
On influencer marketing shaping the music industry
Nowadays the trends have changed. Early days we used to just launch a song on YouTube and then the song used to perform if you have a certain number of subscribers. It used to perform on its own depending on the merit and demerit of the song. Things have changed now. Now it’s very important that music should have a hook step. It should have some sort of portion in the lyrics which has the potential to go viral. So it’s completely changed the way we started curating music.When we are trying to compose a curator song from a movie, we make sure we try our level best because it has to fit with the film. If you find some sort of a Way in which you can achieve both then great. So what we do is then you have that hook step, we get influencers on board like micro influencers, macro influencers etc. We deal with them sometimes paid, sometimes free. We get these hook steps recorded, reels made by them and then you have to plan it out at the end of the day. Before releasing a song, you need to have 40-50 reels ready and release those reels simultaneously so that the song catches everybody’s attention. That’s the way we try and create awareness so then it reaches the maximum number of people. That’s one way, doing the reels, having the hook step. Many times our songs don’t have a hook step. What we do is from a song, we give it to our choreographers maybe connected to the film or not connected to the film. We ask them to create a hook step out of it. So basically the idea and objective is to try and make the song as viral as possible on social media platforms, the upper platforms, the more urban platforms being Instagram and other ones like Moj, Chingari, Josh which caters to tier three audiences. It’s not easy now to just launch a song unless you have big names.
On your music label and YouTube channel
We have a music label Everest. We have a good library of about six seven hundred songs. These comprise film music and independent music. 25 per cent of my library is independent music. The rest is film music. We will touch about four million followers now on our YouTube channel Everest Marathi which is one of the leading platforms today. We have the best quality content on this thing. We may not have the numbers, but our focus has always been quality over quantity.
On the type of content consumers look for
New trends are set with new innovations. Music has evolved over a period of time. You don’t know what works today. You have to keep on reinventing yourself, innovating yourself. It’s a constant process. But usually I’ve seen in the marathi space songs, which are connected to a little bit of folk. It helps a lot. The bigger numbers come from the smaller towns. The more grassrooted your music is, the more it penetrates into a larger number of audiences. I had released a film last year called Boys 4 that had a song, which was Gaav Sutana. It basically means a man is remembering his village life. That song was a slow starter but it has now crossed millions and it is growing steadily. It’s a song which every guy who’s come from the village resonates to. So if you have these kinds of themes then it will immediately strike a chord with the audiences. We do a lot of film music and you need to find that song in film music or you create independent songs around these popular themes. The music has to be good at the end of the day, just the thought alone is not enough. You need the music to be good enough as well.
On content and music degradation been witnessed in recent times due to influencers
Them being influencers, they manufacture all these reels. They have a very close-knit community. They support each other a lot. Like if you’re releasing a song I’ll create a reel of it and vice-versa. So the songs get that initial push, but I think what will happen is eventually it will become a case of too much. It will reach a saturation point. People eventually will get bored of it. Today look at Instagram reels. Everybody’s filming something or the other, everybody is not getting used to being earlier. It was bound to happen. Now it will become worse with AI tomorrow, with the kind of tools which will be available to people, they will shoot more songs. So you know this trend is going to become bigger. The question at the end of the day is you need good music. Your music needs to have a soul at the end of the day.
On TV, digital and OTT market
India is a diverse Market. Both these will coexist. Digital of course, is a rising market. More and more people are now consuming content on digital. Be it films, sports or daily soaps. A lot of people are now even watching daily soaps on OTT platforms. So that trend is of course there. But TV will not lose its value. TV is there to stay. There will be a strong market for TV. There will be a strong market for OTT also. In OTT, the challenges are getting money out of people. The subscription model is always a challenge. AVoD is strong for India. The advertising revenues on digital are growing on a year-round basis very fast. So AVod will always remain a good market. SvOD is where the challenges are. That all depends on the content offering of that platform. If the content offerings are compelling enough for people to subscribe they will. Just subscribing once is not enough. Retention is a bigger challenge for the same consumer not to leave the service. So customer acquisition and then customer retention are the challenges which are there and will always remain there. The TV audience is always there. The biggest fastest growing trend now is Fast TV, CTV or fast channels. We are by default habituated. We like to just press that plus button on the minus button on the remote to move channels. So that’s the advantage fast TV has. Most of the news channels are now available on fast TV.
On the future of the influencer marketing
At the end of the day content scores over everything else. Today if you have a bad film you may take the best of influencers and try to publicize it, it’s not going to work. People are going to sample the film and then reject it if your film is bad. It’s always content which rules everything. Influencers, according to me, are good for the advertising industry. In fact, I feel some of them are so overhyped today. People should actually properly do research. If I am taking an influencer, is he matching my profile? Just because he’s got two or five million or ten million followers. That doesn’t mean that profile matches the kind of profile my movie demands at the end of the day. So first, we need to do that exercise.
