For Gen Z, Instagram influencers have greater pull than celebrities: Omnicom report

Omnicom Media Group India recently launched ‘Omnifluence Report’, powered by Qoruz. The report highlights the key differences between how different generations consume social media content, and brings to light some key influencer marketing insights.

It states that social media influencers are quickly turning into new-age celebrities and it would not be a stretch to say that the Gen Z crowd finds them more appealing than actual celebrities.

Speaking to afaqs! about what is guiding Gen Z’s social media habits, Shailja Saraswati Varghese, chief content officer, Omnicom Media Group India, says that being unapologeticaly themselves and speaking their mind are some of Gen Z’s guiding principles.

“This generation tends to align with creators and brands that walk the talk, because they focus on quality and authenticity, from marketing standpoint. When compared to big celebrities, influencers don’t just indulge in outer packaging, and pomp and show. Creators are more transparent, while creating content. That is what makes them click with the Gen Z crowd,” adds Varghese.

As per the report, influencer marketing is rapidly becoming the go-to approach, when it comes to reaching a large consumer base, and all businesses need to pay attention to it. Word of mouth promotion is an effective strategy in today's undeniably digital world and influencers just happen to be the perfect medium for this purpose.

Varghese elaborates that the content that influencers create, resonate way more with the Gen Z crowd than the content that a bigger celebrity is creating. While it might get larger reach, but in terms of engagement with the Gen Z crowd, influencers are more preferred, even as a source of entertainment.

Gen Z constitutes 32 per cent of the world's population and are true digital natives: from their youth, they have been exposed to the Internet, social platforms and technology. In fact, 98 per cent of Gen Z worldwide, own a smartphone, reveals the report.

“The self-expression of this generations is at an all-time high. Brands and creators who ignore preferences and these changing attitudes of Gen Z’s, will be left behind,” says Varghese.

This rapid adoption of social media has, in turn, led to the growth of social commerce in India. As per the report, social commerce platforms like Trell, Roposo and Meesho are leading the game in India.

In the past, e-commerce major Flipkart collaborated with Moj for its social commerce outing. Fashion e-commerce player Myntra also forayed into the social commerce at scale with the launch of its platform M-Live to cater to the rapidly evolving content consumption patterns and shopping preferences of consumers.

Some key insights revealed by the report about Gen Z consumer behaviour include:

• Only 13 per cent follow celebrities, while about 86 per cent prefer to follow Instagram influencers.

• Influencers were segregated into different tiers based on their follower count, and the study showed that mid-tier (50k-500k) and nano tier (5k-50k) had the largest Gen Z following.

• After delving into the different categories, it was revealed that Gen Z were more drawn toward fashion, travel and cinema-based pages.

• When comparing the millennial and Gen Z demographics, the latter follow about 98 per cent of Instagram influencers and 13 per cent of celebrities. On the other hand, millennials follow 52 per cent of Instagram influencers and 47 per cent of celebrities.

The study revealed that platforms that actively engaged in influencer marketing include Roposo, Trell and Meesho. For creators, focusing on short video content, MX TakaTak, Josh and Moj were the most popular, each racking up huge numbers content-wise.