Brands
Micro-influencers – for brands, smaller can be bigger!
Mumbai: What an interesting time to not have enough money to have Kim Kardashian do the marketing of your brand! With every endorsement, the persona of the celebrity goes larger, and so does their wallet, but using a big ticket money is not just money out from wallet, but may just be the noise of the noise bar.
What brews better is catering to those who have a very niche followership – those who engage better with a smaller dedicated group!
Sources like Emplifi have reported that micro-influencer-based sponsored posts on Instagram have an engagement rate as high as 91 percent. Micro-influencers may have ball park reach, but their relevance to the brand and to their audience builds the bridge of trust that no celebrity with millions of followers can.
Celebrities including movie stars and sports stars may have a range of followers, but the demographics is better set for micro-influencers. Another aspect to consider is the fact that celebrities work with tons of endorsements, often many of them in the same time frame. But influencers are more tiered in that particular manner. Hence micro-influencers do not have to be people pleasers, because they just do not have to be.
There is a certain wholesomeness that a public figure has to maintain that is not the shade to be followed by micro-influencers. It is practically given that these people may also be doing certain other side jobs to finance themselves. Another issue is that one can trust any micro-influencer faster than a celebrity. It is a known gimmick that the celebrity may not even be an actual user, or may not even have tried the product he or she is so enthusiastically promoting. Ultimately, no one believes that the beauty bar of film stars may actually be the ones used by them to actually take a bath. But seeing a how-to video of cheek contouring by a micro-influencer is believable and more credible. The fact that lot of micro-influencers also accept payment in goods improves the belief that they are users too.
Marketers can articulate returns so much better with a micro-influencer than with another public figure. It can be counted transaction to transaction, with lot more effort expended on the big ticketers.
Another beautiful thing about micro-influencers is that while brands will like to work with known names, and celebrities want to work with brand names, micro-influencers can work with brands, irrespective of their status and position in the market. Legacy and heritage need not be the deciding factors because finally Victoria’s Secret and Mamaearth will all be needing a little help from these folks. Micro-influencers are special because they are with the common man, and yet a pedestal above. They are like the boy/girl next door who are just like you but can teach one skill better than that inaccessible distant star you know. Reachable, snuggly and credible, they create aspirations for people to build a community that loves what they themselves love doing!
The article has been written by School of Commerce, SVKM’S Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Indore Campus Associate Professor Dr Shilpa Sankpal.
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
