Digital
Nearly 60% of Indian CMOs have dedicated budgets for influencer marketing, study finds
NEW DELHI: The growing affinity of consumers towards digital platforms to connect with brands has elevated the popularity of influencer activities in India. Moreover, the Covid2019 outbreak has made brands focus more on affirming their online presence, and it has made influencers a part of the mainstream marketing plans. And now, a new study conducted by AI-driven influencer marketing platform ClanConnect.ai has found that more than half (58.7 per cent) of Indian CMOs have dedicated budgets for influencer marketing in 2021.
According to the report, 78 per cent of marketing leaders leveraged influencer marketing in 2020, while a little over 13 per cent dabbled in the segment for the first time last year. Interestingly, 52 per cent of brands engaged more than 10 influencers in 2020, which coincides with the accelerated growth of the sector in the last year.
The study found that budgets allocated to influencer marketing grew significantly in 2020 as compared to 2019. In fact, 39.13 per cent of the CMOs mentioned an increase in spends on influencer marketing. The other 60.87 per cent saw no change in spends between 2019 and 2020. Furthermore, more than 50 per cent of the respondents increased their marketing spends in 2020, a clear indication of the growing trust that industry-leading brands are placing in influencers for bolstering their brand message among the target audience.
58.7 per cent of CMOs are allocating separate budgets for influencer activities in their 2021 marketing plans. Simultaneously, 52.17 per cent have decided to increase spends in 2021 as compared to 2020. It is not surprising, then, that almost 90 per cent of CMOs are considering aligning up to a quarter of their entire marketing budget towards influencer-led activities in the current year. Moreover, over half of the respondents are interested in increasing budgets by up to 25 per cent in 2021.
While 50 per cent of the respondents find Instagram to be the most effective platform for these campaigns, 23.91 per cent prefer LinkedIn, and 15.22 per cent identify YouTube as their go-to platform.
In another interesting finding, the survey revealed that almost 87 per cent marketing heads prefer to conduct up to 25 per cent of their influencer campaigns with micro-influencers. This proves that brands prefer to engage with influencers who have a dedicated, loyal following even if the number of followers does not go into the millions.
Over 41 per cent of brands have taken the onus of managing influencer marketing mandates. On the flipside, 15 per cent of them are employing dedicated influencer marketing platforms and marketplaces to create and manage highly targeted and impactful campaigns. However, 89.13 per cent of CMOs are concerned about influencer fraud in the form of fake followers and engagement.
"Influencer marketing is at the cusp of exponential growth. It is the veritable future of marketing, a fact that is evident from this first-of-its-kind survey report," said ClanConnect.ai co-founder and COO Kunal Kishore Sinha.
Digital
Ethical AI must benefit society, not dominate it, says WFEB chief Sanjay Pradhan at IAA event
At Mumbai event, ethics expert urges businesses and governments to shape AI responsibly
MUMBAI: Artificial intelligence may be racing ahead at lightning speed, but its direction must still be guided by human conscience. That was the central message delivered by Sanjay Pradhan, president of the World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB), during the latest edition of IAA Conversations held in Mumbai.
The session was organised by the International Advertising Association (IAA) and the Artificial Intelligence Association of India (AIAI) in association with The Free Press Journal at the Free Press House on 7 March. Addressing a packed audience, Pradhan called for stronger ethical leadership to ensure AI remains a tool that benefits humanity rather than one that governs it.
“Artificial intelligence has rapidly become one of the most powerful technologies humanity has created,” Pradhan said. “It is unlocking breakthroughs in medicine, science and creativity at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago.”
But he warned that the same technology carries serious risks. AI, he noted, can amplify disinformation faster than facts can travel, compromise privacy, deepen discrimination and disrupt millions of livelihoods. Referencing concerns raised by AI pioneers such as Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI, Pradhan stressed that the real challenge is not whether AI will shape the world, but whether humans will shape it with ethics and wisdom.
Structuring his talk around four guiding questions, why, what, how and who, Pradhan introduced the audience to WFEB’s emerging AI Ethics Partnership, a global platform aimed at advancing responsible artificial intelligence. He outlined four priority concerns that demand urgent attention: disinformation, bias and discrimination, data privacy and job security.
To make the idea of ethical AI easier to grasp, Pradhan offered a simple metaphor. Ethical AI, he said, is like a three layered cake. The outer layer represents the visible value ethical AI creates for businesses and society. The middle layer is organisational culture that moves ethics from written codes to everyday practice. The innermost layer, however, is the most crucial, the conscience of individual leaders.
Drawing from Indian philosophical thought through WFEB co-founder Ravi Shankar, Pradhan noted that while artificial intelligence can reproduce stored knowledge, true intelligence is boundless and rooted in conscience, creativity and compassion. Practices such as breathwork and meditation, he suggested, can help leaders develop the calm clarity needed for ethical decision making.
The event also featured a discussion with Maninder Adityaraj Singh, chief of staff and head of innovation at Rediffusion Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd, and Yash Johri, lawyer, Supreme Court of India.
Opening the session, IAA India chapter president Abhishek Karnani, highlighted the need for industries to understand and engage with AI responsibly.
“AI has to be befriended and understood,” added Rediffusion managing director and AIAI national convenor Sandeep Goyal. “Its ethical use will determine whether it becomes a friend or a foe.”
As AI continues to reshape industries and societies, Pradhan ended with a simple but powerful call to action. Businesses, governments and individuals must work together to ensure that the algorithms shaping the future reflect human values rather than just cold logic.
