In this episode, we're delving deep into the world of the 'born on Insta' generation, specifically focusing on Gen Z characteristics and how they differ from their millennial counterparts.
We have an exceptional conversation lined up with Shreyas Hegde, the co-founder & CEO of Viral Fission, a company that is at the forefront of catering to Gen Z influencers and audiences. Viral Fission is dedicated to enhancing the experiences and skill sets of India's Gen Z population while partnering with brands to deliver innovative and creative solutions for otherwise complex marketing challenges they may face.
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Saikat Pyne: Hi, I'm Sekar marketer, creative and media nerd. Welcome to
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Saikat Pyne: the you incorporated podcast On this show, I catch up
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Saikat Pyne: with some of the most bad ass founders, business leaders
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Saikat Pyne: and content creators in the whole wide world. Whether you're
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Saikat Pyne: a marketer, creative or a budding founder, if you want
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Saikat Pyne: to build your brand your voice your way, you are
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Saikat Pyne: in the right place.
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Saikat Pyne: Join me on the you incorporated podcast and start building
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Saikat Pyne: your empire. Here we go.
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Saikat Pyne: Please join me in welcoming Shreya Segre, the Co-founder and
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Saikat Pyne: CEO of viral fishing. A digital agency that bridges the
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Saikat Pyne: gap between India's most capable youth and the brands they love.
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Saikat Pyne: Viral fishing has worked with several Well-known brands such as
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Saikat Pyne: Min Spotify, an Academy one plus and Mia by Tani
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Saikat Pyne: to know only a few. Welcome to the show stre
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Shreyas Hegde: Thank you so much. I thank you for the glamorous
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Shreyas Hegde: introduction fortunate enough to being blessed by publishers like you
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Shreyas Hegde: and also like brands that we worked with so far.
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Saikat Pyne: During the course of this episode, we are going to
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Saikat Pyne: speak about the rise of the genie influencer and India's
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Saikat Pyne: Genz audience. Let's break down this audience a bit.
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Saikat Pyne: What is so unique about India's Gen
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Shreyas Hegde: audience that the whole logic of our companies around JEI
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Shreyas Hegde: community and we learn from them every single day in
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Shreyas Hegde: a broad theme. It's more of life versus lifestyle. If
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Shreyas Hegde: I were to put it traditionally, influencers or millennials how
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Shreyas Hegde: they endorsed brands, it was more towards lifestyle or and
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Shreyas Hegde: this is the jacket,
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Shreyas Hegde: or this is a product and or or this is
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Shreyas Hegde: something that I am personally vibing in my style versus
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Shreyas Hegde: this is my life, right? That is, I think, in
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Shreyas Hegde: in in Gen Z like a very broad theme, which
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Shreyas Hegde: they incorporate more in a couple of surveys that we
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Shreyas Hegde: have ourselves around now because we can continue to talk
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Shreyas Hegde: to these audiences. Like more than 80% of the
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Shreyas Hegde: Gen Z audiences, they have a higher relatability with Gen
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Shreyas Hegde: Z Influencers rather than celebrities or characters from content versus
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Shreyas Hegde: these guys, right? So in vibing life, right blog culture
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Shreyas Hegde: also became more relevant with Gen Zs and then blogging
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Shreyas Hegde: is essentially loving
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Shreyas Hegde: the life of an influencer via your screens right and
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Shreyas Hegde: trying to imbibe that in your own lives and saying
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Shreyas Hegde: that OK, if I'm using this brand as cool because
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Shreyas Hegde: this person has inculcated that into their lives and are
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Shreyas Hegde: not merely endorsing it.
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Shreyas Hegde: So that was a major breakthrough point between life versus lifestyle,
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Shreyas Hegde: which Gen. Z latched on to but all due credit
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Shreyas Hegde: to also Gen Z Influencers, who've also picked it up
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Shreyas Hegde: from that sport, that this is something that's resonating most with.
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Shreyas Hegde: And I would rather be who I am than tune
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Shreyas Hegde: myself according to what the market wants and create a
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Shreyas Hegde: market for our own self. And that's stuck really well
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Shreyas Hegde: moving to the Indian audiences, the Indian landscape, one of
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Shreyas Hegde: the biggest factors. And this is something that is not
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Shreyas Hegde: brought into the limelight. Much is the pure data rates
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Shreyas Hegde: that we have is probably cheapest in the world, right?
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Shreyas Hegde: So with the cheapest data and the largest population, what
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Shreyas Hegde: you are going to growingly see is the exposure to
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Shreyas Hegde: social media. The exposure to personalities is far wide right
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Shreyas Hegde: things like demographic, language, aesthetic culture and affinity. These things
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Shreyas Hegde: are in the land like India,
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Shreyas Hegde: you know, affinities change cultures change literally every street Forget
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Shreyas Hegde: about that changing every city. This is where there is
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Shreyas Hegde: going to be this rise of influencers who are that
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Shreyas Hegde: niche and that entrenched to being as broad as the
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Shreyas Hegde: Bollywood of the world. So if I were to put
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Shreyas Hegde: Indian influencers, they've imbibed whatever the West is doing very fast.
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Shreyas Hegde: What we know was a one year, two year syndrome
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Shreyas Hegde: has come to literally one R two rs when something
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Shreyas Hegde: that's done in the West has been aped like within
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Shreyas Hegde: one hour trends. We are not just following trends. We're
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Shreyas Hegde: also set
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Shreyas Hegde: trends when it comes to Indian influences because of the
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Shreyas Hegde: geographical and demographic splits of it. So I think one
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Shreyas Hegde: plus one. So it's a inculcating life into trends along
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Shreyas Hegde: with that the biodiversity. And along with that, the demographic
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Shreyas Hegde: split and cultures have played in fantastically well in giving rise.
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Shreyas Hegde: To this, I would say a new occupation and not
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Shreyas Hegde: just the trend in
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Saikat Pyne: itself to us. I loved what you mentioned about life
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Saikat Pyne: and lifestyle. Let's dig a bit deeper into that.
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Saikat Pyne: Why do you think the Gen Z are identifying more
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Saikat Pyne: with influencers who are showcasing their life and not lifestyle?
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Saikat Pyne: What's unique in their upbringing or their media habits that's
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Saikat Pyne: leading them towards people who endorse a life that they
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Saikat Pyne: aspire towards.
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Shreyas Hegde: It's more about growing with these celebrities or growing with
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Shreyas Hegde: these characters. The relatability is significantly high with age because, traditionally,
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Shreyas Hegde: when millennials saw content or woman saw content, if your hero,
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Shreyas Hegde: hero and your actor is your content, everyone had a
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Shreyas Hegde: typical age. You would see somebody in their mid thirties
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Shreyas Hegde: and then the mid thirties to mid fifties, and that's
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Shreyas Hegde: what your average age of a creator
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Shreyas Hegde: was. And that is something that everyone had to watch
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Shreyas Hegde: because that's how content was produced, and that's how content
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Shreyas Hegde: was consumed. But when it moves to say, Force 2015,
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Shreyas Hegde: right where you have a version of content for every
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Shreyas Hegde: age group, right, you have a teenage actor, you have
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Shreyas Hegde: a child actor. You have a middle age actor and
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Shreyas Hegde: right going up to the baby boomer actor. So you
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Shreyas Hegde: have an actor for every single age group,
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Shreyas Hegde: purely and purely because of the relatability that they bring
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Shreyas Hegde: about with this audience. So increase in social media consumption,
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Shreyas Hegde: which is one plus one, is a due to growth
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Shreyas Hegde: of digital media, electronic devices, et cetera and b also,
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Shreyas Hegde: with data being that affordable, accessible and also at lightning speeds.
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Shreyas Hegde: Content consumption has become very friendlier, very more much acceptable.
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Shreyas Hegde: So when it's about growing with your creator or growing
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Shreyas Hegde: with someone who you are, you know, relatable. So it
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Shreyas Hegde: all starts with. I am entertained by this creator's content.
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Shreyas Hegde: I'll start watching it, but I want to know what
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Shreyas Hegde: he is behind the curtain, right? That's what leads me
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Shreyas Hegde: to from watching content of a creator to actually go
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Shreyas Hegde: on their social media handles on their stories, on their videos,
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Shreyas Hegde: watching them, doing their daily struggle, right? So if a
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Shreyas Hegde: creator is catching a R when I catch a r,
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Shreyas Hegde: I'm not feeling OK that I am not, as you know,
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Shreyas Hegde: well off as most creators are so certain relatability or
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Shreyas Hegde: certain struggles that you know that creator somebody who you
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Shreyas Hegde: are inspired by on screen.
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Shreyas Hegde: It makes life much more acceptable, much more doable in
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Shreyas Hegde: its own wholesale generic sense. So the relatability portion, coupled
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Shreyas Hegde: with relatability on the age factor, is, I think, one
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Shreyas Hegde: of the most striking features, which is striking the chords well, right,
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Shreyas Hegde: its by Jez. Audiences are watching Gen Z influencers and
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Shreyas Hegde: not millennial influencers. It's not that they're not following
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Shreyas Hegde: millennial influencers. They would follow millennial influencers for content. But
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Shreyas Hegde: for relatability continuity and, say, a vlog format, which is
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Shreyas Hegde: long form video, they would follow Gen Z influencers right,
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Shreyas Hegde: and they are setting up trends. And how what do
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Shreyas Hegde: you
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Saikat Pyne: think is going to happen to celebrity? And I'm so
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Saikat Pyne: fascinated by the answers I get for this question. So
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Saikat Pyne: I'm doubly excited to ask this question to you because
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Saikat Pyne: I think the first generation of digital native stars came
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Saikat Pyne: up
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Saikat Pyne: after the boom of Geo
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Saikat Pyne: and the mass of millennials and boomers who came to
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Saikat Pyne: the platform right. You saw the first crop of digital
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Saikat Pyne: superstars who are now potentially either moving into the mainstream
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Saikat Pyne: or creating ventures of their own as a new crop
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Saikat Pyne: of Gen Z influencers come with their own loyal following.
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Saikat Pyne: Do you see Gen. Z Influencers wanting to integrate into
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Saikat Pyne: the mainstream the same way that millennial influencers have? Or
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Saikat Pyne: do you see this as an alternate celebrity,
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Saikat Pyne: an alternate channel going forward
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Shreyas Hegde: as well? It's not one straightforward answer to this question,
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Shreyas Hegde: because you're increasingly seeing content being leveraged by creators, right
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Shreyas Hegde: and vice versa. Right creators leveraging content which they create
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Shreyas Hegde: and content how partnering up with or inculcating these niche
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Shreyas Hegde: creators into set specific roles within their content in a
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Shreyas Hegde: way that they can tap into the audiences which they
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Shreyas Hegde: don't naturally have or could organically tap into
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Shreyas Hegde: but also in a reverse way. Give this creator a
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Shreyas Hegde: platform to reach out to mass audiences and probably grow right.
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Shreyas Hegde: So it's a win-win situation for both, but what it
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Shreyas Hegde: does in in a larger share, it's smart on the
00:09:04
Shreyas Hegde: content platforms or the content distribution strategy to integrate them
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Shreyas Hegde: into their universe rather than take them head on and
00:09:12
Shreyas Hegde: challenge them and say that, Oh, these people are not
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Shreyas Hegde: worth
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Shreyas Hegde: the or these are they are. Competition is because they
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Shreyas Hegde: can still maintain the sanctity and the greatness of content
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Shreyas Hegde: by having these creators inculcated into their content but also
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Shreyas Hegde: drive that wholesomeness that there is still a way up
00:09:30
Shreyas Hegde: for creators just beyond roid numbers on social media, they
00:09:34
Shreyas Hegde: could become actors, they could become whatever they aspire to be. Unfortunately,
00:09:38
Shreyas Hegde: we see creators only from
00:09:39
Shreyas Hegde: content perspective, but they do a lot more and you
00:09:42
Shreyas Hegde: like the podcast that we are speaking on it by itself,
00:09:44
Shreyas Hegde: it is a platform. It is a service. It is distribution.
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Shreyas Hegde: You're talking various niches, from gaming to finance to many others.
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Shreyas Hegde: Right creators are going there out of fashion and having
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Shreyas Hegde: audiences who consume content, which is driven by passion and
00:10:00
Shreyas Hegde: not necessarily entertainment. Right content. How you answer to your
00:10:03
Shreyas Hegde: question will not
00:10:04
Shreyas Hegde: feel the threat of creators, but they will obviously be
00:10:07
Shreyas Hegde: continuously push to. How do we smartly integrate them into content?
00:10:11
Shreyas Hegde: Or maybe for some reasons, also design our content around
00:10:15
Shreyas Hegde: creators right where these people can become the mainstream creators,
00:10:19
Shreyas Hegde: just to name a few. I don't know if you
00:10:20
Shreyas Hegde: follow this artist. I know Jen, right? He's somebody who
00:10:23
Shreyas Hegde: just put up a song on Instagram. The song got violent,
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Shreyas Hegde: and now he's a full blown artist and this all
00:10:28
Shreyas Hegde: happened
00:10:29
Shreyas Hegde: The pandemic. In fact, because of the gens affinity towards
00:10:33
Shreyas Hegde: someone like him, we did a gig with him performing
00:10:36
Shreyas Hegde: for our students, right, because we have to give what
00:10:38
Shreyas Hegde: the audience is asking for us. Maybe more often than not,
00:10:41
Shreyas Hegde: you are going to be educated by them on what's
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Shreyas Hegde: the next big thing. Rather than bring the next big
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Shreyas Hegde: thing to them.
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Saikat Pyne: Absolutely. I'm sure you had a chance to engage and
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Saikat Pyne: collaborate with multiple of these Gen. Z creators.
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Saikat Pyne: How is their perspective on content creation fundamentally different from
00:11:00
Saikat Pyne: millennial creators?
00:11:02
Shreyas Hegde: Millennial creators were more aligned to brand ideologies, more aligned
00:11:08
Shreyas Hegde: to brands more aligned to economics, right? So there's a
00:11:12
Shreyas Hegde: pro and con to that. The pro to that is
00:11:14
Shreyas Hegde: it became easier for brands to
00:11:16
Shreyas Hegde: work with millennial creators because millennial creators were the first
00:11:20
Shreyas Hegde: string right or the first crop, as you were just
00:11:22
Shreyas Hegde: mentioning to come onto this and create an economy out
00:11:26
Shreyas Hegde: of it right, which was outside the TV but on
00:11:28
Shreyas Hegde: the Internet. And there are no boundaries as to who
00:11:31
Shreyas Hegde: is a creator, right? There's a good content with loyal audiences,
00:11:35
Shreyas Hegde: and you're good to endorse brands. But then
00:11:38
Shreyas Hegde: creators of the millennial era, I would say, or the
00:11:41
Shreyas Hegde: millennial age group had the brand saliency and grain into
00:11:45
Shreyas Hegde: them because of their upbringing or because of how they
00:11:48
Shreyas Hegde: saw ads or because of how they saw bottom funnel
00:11:51
Shreyas Hegde: conversions like this a right. However, when it comes to
00:11:55
Shreyas Hegde: Genz creators and Gen. Z audiences, they know that their
00:11:58
Shreyas Hegde: audience is here for them and their lifestyle and their story.
00:12:02
Shreyas Hegde: So there is lesser flexibility in terms of what you
00:12:06
Shreyas Hegde: can ask them to do or what you can make
00:12:08
Shreyas Hegde: them do, irrespective of what the brand is, brands are
00:12:11
Shreyas Hegde: continuously forced to. How can I incorporate myself into this
00:12:16
Shreyas Hegde: person's aesthetic? I really like that person's audience. That person's
00:12:19
Shreyas Hegde: audience is loyal. If this person says something, I know
00:12:22
Shreyas Hegde: it's got to be out of genuineness, so it cannot
00:12:26
Shreyas Hegde: look too
00:12:26
Shreyas Hegde: ID in nature. It cannot look to endorse. But at
00:12:29
Shreyas Hegde: the same time, there has to be some level of
00:12:31
Shreyas Hegde: creative output that gives it brand saliency and at the
00:12:35
Shreyas Hegde: same time does not dilute the creator's audience. And this
00:12:39
Shreyas Hegde: is what they are extremely sensitive about their aesthetic eye
00:12:42
Shreyas Hegde: for hygiene, eye for branding and also how they would
00:12:46
Shreyas Hegde: rather let go of an opportunity than compromise
00:12:50
Shreyas Hegde: on hygiene. Like if that. If that was a sentence
00:12:53
Shreyas Hegde: to Putin, I would say it that way. So a
00:12:55
Shreyas Hegde: lot of it's a shared responsibility between both the creator
00:12:59
Shreyas Hegde: and the brand to respect each other towards the entire
00:13:02
Shreyas Hegde: integration process than it was with the medallion universe that
00:13:06
Shreyas Hegde: is one of the more striking differences between
00:13:09
Saikat Pyne: the two. When you look at the long tail of creators,
00:13:13
Saikat Pyne: it's extreme,
00:13:14
Saikat Pyne: extremely difficult for creators to come across brand deals, right?
00:13:19
Saikat Pyne: There's a power echelon of creators that have the problem
00:13:23
Saikat Pyne: of too many and then a long tail. Do you
00:13:25
Saikat Pyne: think that this the shift of Gen z influencers, where
00:13:30
Saikat Pyne: their content is not so easily brand? Do you think
00:13:34
Saikat Pyne: that will create problems in terms of monetization for them?
00:13:39
Shreyas Hegde: It's a fantastic question to ask. This is something that
00:13:42
Shreyas Hegde: we keep asking ourselves, Where is the end of this right?
00:13:44
Shreyas Hegde: Because you know that only these many movies can be
00:13:47
Shreyas Hegde: made in a year, because only these many things can
00:13:49
Shreyas Hegde: be watched. But you can't see the end of how
00:13:51
Shreyas Hegde: many creators can be accommodated This ecosystem, right, because everyone
00:13:54
Shreyas Hegde: is a creator in their own right, because they are
00:13:56
Shreyas Hegde: putting their heart
00:13:57
Shreyas Hegde: work out. They're putting their thought, their energy colouring audience,
00:14:00
Shreyas Hegde: no matter if it's in thousands or millions or whatever.
00:14:02
Shreyas Hegde: That or technologies. But in their own right, they are
00:14:05
Shreyas Hegde: creators and they want to feel respected. And one of
00:14:09
Shreyas Hegde: the ways of being respected is definitely getting endorsements and
00:14:12
Shreyas Hegde: appreciations from time to time.
00:14:14
Shreyas Hegde: But from brand perspective, I would still say it's early
00:14:18
Shreyas Hegde: days and currently we might be towards the middle or
00:14:21
Shreyas Hegde: the end of the tail when it comes to Let's
00:14:23
Shreyas Hegde: experiment with influencers because of forward. You saw a lot
00:14:27
Shreyas Hegde: of regular marketing going out and a lot of influencer
00:14:30
Shreyas Hegde: marketing coming in. So we went from 0 to 100
00:14:32
Shreyas Hegde: pretty quick. That fatigue leads brands to this question. Now
00:14:36
Shreyas Hegde: I will start evaluating on R O I right that
00:14:40
Shreyas Hegde: will put pressure
00:14:40
Shreyas Hegde: on define r o I. Is it tangible? Is it trackable?
00:14:44
Shreyas Hegde: These questions will then force brands to probably shuffle between
00:14:48
Shreyas Hegde: influencers and then say, This one's good. This one's back.
00:14:50
Shreyas Hegde: I'm a huge fan of game and demand because it
00:14:53
Shreyas Hegde: holds true in any and every situation. It's just that
00:14:56
Shreyas Hegde: you have to wait to see where the curve starts happening.
00:14:58
Shreyas Hegde: So I would say when the curve starts happening on
00:15:01
Shreyas Hegde: let's push it towards r O I influencers with higher
00:15:04
Shreyas Hegde: r o I s will automatically start
00:15:06
Shreyas Hegde: charging higher monies right, and that will force brands to
00:15:10
Shreyas Hegde: then look for yes, r. I is important, but it
00:15:13
Shreyas Hegde: cannot be at the cost of my entire budget being
00:15:16
Shreyas Hegde: exhausted by one or two influencers. That's what probably also
00:15:19
Shreyas Hegde: happened with the Bollywood celebrities or Hollywood celebrities, for that
00:15:23
Shreyas Hegde: matter of. And when it got too expensive, we turned
00:15:25
Shreyas Hegde: to influencers. And when influencers get too expensive, we turn
00:15:28
Shreyas Hegde: back to celebrities and vice versa. I don't want to
00:15:31
Shreyas Hegde: let go of my,
00:15:33
Shreyas Hegde: but at the same time I have an definite budget
00:15:35
Shreyas Hegde: to spend. So when this keeps happening, the long tail
00:15:39
Shreyas Hegde: of smaller influencers, the entire ecosystem will come up. Currently,
00:15:44
Shreyas Hegde: we are all seeing creators as a one man show.
00:15:47
Shreyas Hegde: But as you mentioned when the call started, there is
00:15:49
Shreyas Hegde: like an entire team. There is. There are engineers, there
00:15:52
Shreyas Hegde: is editing, there is videography, There's photography, there's scripting, there's
00:15:56
Shreyas Hegde: writing and there is so much more.
00:15:58
Shreyas Hegde: And the most interesting thing that's going to be about
00:16:02
Shreyas Hegde: these guys compared to any other occupation is because creators
00:16:06
Shreyas Hegde: are hustling from day one. So they're doing everything from
00:16:10
Shreyas Hegde: editing to scripting to writing to understanding analytics to digital marketing,
00:16:13
Shreyas Hegde: which in their own right are significantly large job opportunities
00:16:19
Shreyas Hegde: for the jobs of tomorrow.
00:16:21
Shreyas Hegde: So they start seeing. I am not being appreciated by
00:16:24
Shreyas Hegde: audiences or by brands, and I have wasted my time.
00:16:28
Shreyas Hegde: This is not a statement that they would have probably
00:16:30
Shreyas Hegde: millennials or baby boomers in a lot of the other
00:16:32
Shreyas Hegde: career options if they pursued something did not reach their
00:16:35
Shreyas Hegde: end goal, they would regret that decision. But here, because
00:16:38
Shreyas Hegde: you are upskilling yourself on so many different fronts and
00:16:42
Shreyas Hegde: each one of them is a job, opportunity, opportunity which
00:16:45
Shreyas Hegde: could
00:16:46
Shreyas Hegde: very well support their journey on being a creator on
00:16:49
Shreyas Hegde: the economical front, but also give them access to things
00:16:54
Shreyas Hegde: that they would want to have access to, be it
00:16:56
Shreyas Hegde: in terms of content, production houses, be it in terms
00:16:58
Shreyas Hegde: of brands, be it in terms of creators themselves, also
00:17:02
Shreyas Hegde: that ecosystem when it comes to full blow. That's when
00:17:06
Shreyas Hegde: I think the true value of this entire creator ecosystem
00:17:09
Shreyas Hegde: is going to be unlocked, because at this
00:17:11
Shreyas Hegde: point in time, it is still a race between who
00:17:14
Shreyas Hegde: has the largest following and how do I get the
00:17:16
Shreyas Hegde: largest conversion and engagement. But when that conversation moves to,
00:17:20
Shreyas Hegde: we are all part of an ecosystem, some of us
00:17:23
Shreyas Hegde: will become the superstar creators. Some of us may become
00:17:25
Shreyas Hegde: superstar writers, scripts, strategists, analytics, because before we jump the
00:17:30
Shreyas Hegde: gun and say that if this is going to fade away,
00:17:32
Shreyas Hegde: I would say this is definitely here to stay and
00:17:35
Shreyas Hegde: we
00:17:35
Shreyas Hegde: just seeing the first versions of it where we are
00:17:38
Shreyas Hegde: seeing celebrities being created. But when the ecosystem is going
00:17:41
Shreyas Hegde: to be there to support them, then creators will be
00:17:45
Shreyas Hegde: created at scale. And it would all still be in
00:17:48
Shreyas Hegde: a very holistic, wholesome manner and not as competitive as
00:17:51
Shreyas Hegde: it is today. Sure,
00:17:51
Saikat Pyne: let's speak a bit about the kind of sectors that
00:17:54
Saikat Pyne: are more likely to have Gen Z Influencers as a
00:17:59
Saikat Pyne: part of their marketing mix.
00:18:01
Saikat Pyne: Because not every sector might be, at least as of now,
00:18:06
Saikat Pyne: open to creators who are not that flexible in terms
00:18:09
Saikat Pyne: of placing branded messages, the
00:18:12
Shreyas Hegde: stickiness that gaming brings about and the retention that it
00:18:14
Shreyas Hegde: has is paramount. And and that's the reason why it's
00:18:17
Shreyas Hegde: blowing up how Gen. Z influences and I think even
00:18:19
Shreyas Hegde: a few millennial influencers are placing themselves is absolutely brilliant, right?
00:18:24
Shreyas Hegde: You don't need to be a pro gamer to be
00:18:28
Shreyas Hegde: a gaming creator. It could be
00:18:29
Shreyas Hegde: anyone playing the game, right? So somebody as broad as
00:18:33
Shreyas Hegde: a creator who went on to also do gaming and
00:18:35
Shreyas Hegde: gaming commentator, right, like gaming, casting and hundreds of thousands
00:18:39
Shreyas Hegde: of people are watching it or a is going to
00:18:42
Shreyas Hegde: come is collaborating with global sports, which is another gaming outfit, right?
00:18:46
Shreyas Hegde: All of your creators are smartly plugging themselves in and
00:18:49
Shreyas Hegde: around the entire gaming ecosystem is because everyone supportive of it.
00:18:53
Shreyas Hegde: The attention span is pretty high, and it is not
00:18:57
Shreyas Hegde: a sector that has widely been
00:18:58
Shreyas Hegde: you abroad. F MC G brands are having gamers as
00:19:03
Shreyas Hegde: brand influencers. Who would have ever thought that right? If
00:19:06
Shreyas Hegde: N is going out there and having Jonathan as a
00:19:08
Shreyas Hegde: brand ambassador just to talk to gamers, that these F
00:19:11
Shreyas Hegde: MC G products are also available for gamers, right, Because
00:19:14
Shreyas Hegde: that's a huge cohort. It also transcends many age groups, right?
00:19:18
Shreyas Hegde: So from millennials to Gen. Z. And I would say,
00:19:20
Shreyas Hegde: if Gen. Alpha also is part of the gaming bandwidth, right,
00:19:23
Shreyas Hegde: because there's no restriction on age when it comes to
00:19:26
Shreyas Hegde: who's gaming and who
00:19:27
Shreyas Hegde: a gamer and who do I follow? So I think
00:19:29
Shreyas Hegde: 11 of those sectors would definitely be gaming where you
00:19:32
Shreyas Hegde: would see these content creators being in and around and
00:19:36
Shreyas Hegde: also exploding the other is cultures. And when I say cultures,
00:19:40
Shreyas Hegde: I mean everything from hip hop to Korean cultures to food,
00:19:45
Shreyas Hegde: which is ramens of the world and also sneaker culture.
00:19:47
Shreyas Hegde: Each one of these are part of, say, either a
00:19:51
Shreyas Hegde: hip hop culture or a country culture which Genz content
00:19:55
Shreyas Hegde: creators are. The
00:19:56
Shreyas Hegde: masters act right. They bring these cultures in a very
00:19:59
Shreyas Hegde: seamless fashion into our lives, and we latch on to
00:20:04
Shreyas Hegde: it and before we know it, it's the next biggest
00:20:06
Shreyas Hegde: thing that we are consuming from Korean content to Korean food,
00:20:09
Shreyas Hegde: from sneaker culture just being let's buy sneakers to let's
00:20:12
Shreyas Hegde: watch content on sneakers or also hip hop. For that
00:20:15
Shreyas Hegde: matter of fact, cultures have again come back into our
00:20:19
Shreyas Hegde: daily lives, which, you know. It only happened last in
00:20:22
Shreyas Hegde: the Y two K era, right where we saw
00:20:25
Shreyas Hegde: Western culture having that much of an influence on our lives.
00:20:28
Shreyas Hegde: But now it's not restricted to only one culture. It's
00:20:31
Shreyas Hegde: any and every culture utilising smart in creators to bring
00:20:36
Shreyas Hegde: in or introduce something that has not been seen so
00:20:40
Shreyas Hegde: that the expectation setting is happening on Day one and
00:20:44
Shreyas Hegde: not after it. To say some days or months are fast, right?
00:20:48
Shreyas Hegde: So in other times we would probably not highly rate
00:20:52
Shreyas Hegde: Korean on 10
00:20:54
Shreyas Hegde: as much as we do today is because of smart
00:20:57
Shreyas Hegde: integrations into our lives. Why are key opinion leaders? I
00:21:01
Shreyas Hegde: would say What
00:21:02
Saikat Pyne: is the fact that these creators bring to the table?
00:21:05
Saikat Pyne: Is it retention, or is it something else?
00:21:08
Shreyas Hegde: One is definitely higher engagement when we are talking in
00:21:12
Shreyas Hegde: terms of engagement. It's not just numbers. It's about understanding
00:21:16
Shreyas Hegde: how brands are plugging themselves into their lives. There are
00:21:19
Shreyas Hegde: two ways that one is featuring creators in content that
00:21:23
Shreyas Hegde: has been created and second is branding content. Branded content
00:21:27
Shreyas Hegde: is done very brilliantly, where a brand is seamlessly part
00:21:30
Shreyas Hegde: of the conversation. And this is what Genz is doing
00:21:33
Shreyas Hegde: really well. And this is something that you analyse, right
00:21:36
Shreyas Hegde: all your If you watch promote something on his, you know,
00:21:39
Shreyas Hegde: hand or anywhere else. 95% of the feedback, or 95%
00:21:44
Shreyas Hegde: of the engagement, is around Shahrukh the artist. 5% is
00:21:49
Shreyas Hegde: what gets ricocheted onto the brand of the product that
00:21:51
Shreyas Hegde: he's endorsing right, And this is tangible in today's era
00:21:55
Shreyas Hegde: of what are the comments? What are the impressions? What
00:21:57
Shreyas Hegde: likes Now you take this to Genz audiences, Gen. C
00:22:01
Shreyas Hegde: content creators there the conversation is about
00:22:04
Shreyas Hegde: why is this creator using this product? Is this product
00:22:07
Shreyas Hegde: actually really good? What is the price point? Why can't
00:22:10
Shreyas Hegde: he use this product instead of this product? The conversation
00:22:13
Shreyas Hegde: is strictly and strictly around what the product is, what
00:22:17
Shreyas Hegde: the brand is, and a little bit of all around
00:22:20
Shreyas Hegde: that or this content in this creator is now also
00:22:23
Shreyas Hegde: getting bad deals, right? So it's all right conversations that
00:22:27
Shreyas Hegde: you are able to drive. So even though they may
00:22:29
Shreyas Hegde: not be at your millions in the
00:22:32
Shreyas Hegde: numbers today, they are in the direction or impact right
00:22:36
Shreyas Hegde: impact that is, being driven to last mile consumer probably
00:22:40
Shreyas Hegde: would be worth taking a look at before we say
00:22:43
Shreyas Hegde: that our numbers more important than impact. That is what
00:22:47
Shreyas Hegde: is more brilliantly being brought out by Gen Z creators.
00:22:52
Shreyas Hegde: Here's
00:22:52
Saikat Pyne: the other criticism of Gen Z creators is that they
00:22:57
Saikat Pyne: are appealing to a mass of the audience,
00:23:00
Saikat Pyne: doesn't have a high enough disposable income. Any founder who
00:23:04
Saikat Pyne: has created a digital first brand has Dandi stats about
00:23:08
Saikat Pyne: millennial disposable income and how it's on the rise. What's
00:23:11
Saikat Pyne: your take on that? Can a creator really effectively monetize
00:23:15
Saikat Pyne: their art? If the audience does not have enough disposable
00:23:20
Saikat Pyne: income or is perceived to have not have enough disposable income,
00:23:23
Saikat Pyne: the disposable
00:23:24
Shreyas Hegde: income may be on the rise. But the question is
00:23:26
Shreyas Hegde: for today and today.
00:23:28
Shreyas Hegde: Your answer is that definitely millennials do have a higher
00:23:30
Shreyas Hegde: disposable income because of how the gig economy is still
00:23:34
Shreyas Hegde: shaping up. It's not in its true form and scale
00:23:36
Shreyas Hegde: that it should be, and your disposable income will be
00:23:39
Shreyas Hegde: higher in terms of millennials or be or other compared
00:23:43
Shreyas Hegde: to Gen Z. However, when we're talking to this audience,
00:23:46
Shreyas Hegde: it's about two things. That what is most founders or
00:23:49
Shreyas Hegde: entrepreneurs in the Gen. Z universe would say that you
00:23:51
Shreyas Hegde: are shaping the buyers or jobs of tomorrow today, right?
00:23:55
Shreyas Hegde: So you have a huge
00:23:56
Shreyas Hegde: sources of audiences coming in and you want to catch
00:23:59
Shreyas Hegde: them in early because all the brands that we consume
00:24:02
Shreyas Hegde: today all products that we consume today were set with
00:24:05
Shreyas Hegde: us probably a decade. So if you want your brands
00:24:07
Shreyas Hegde: or products et cetera, to live for decades from now
00:24:10
Shreyas Hegde: or tomorrow, you have to set it today with the
00:24:12
Shreyas Hegde: right audience that the people who are going to have
00:24:14
Shreyas Hegde: disposable income tomorrow I'm not saying lose the ball on millennials.
00:24:17
Shreyas Hegde: But if you don't have the ball in your hand
00:24:20
Shreyas Hegde: in terms of Gen. Z, it's going to be a
00:24:21
Shreyas Hegde: very difficult, uh, you know, next decade per se.
00:24:24
Shreyas Hegde: So that's number one is catching the spenders and buyers
00:24:28
Shreyas Hegde: and jobber of tomorrow today and secondly, and most importantly,
00:24:32
Shreyas Hegde: it's per it's perspective building, right. If we are saying
00:24:35
Shreyas Hegde: that Gen. Z is driving trends if Gen. Z is
00:24:38
Shreyas Hegde: setting brand. If Gen. Z is driving the Internet also
00:24:42
Shreyas Hegde: per se right because they are the largest sector on
00:24:44
Shreyas Hegde: the Internet, born on Instagram as a campaign right because
00:24:47
Shreyas Hegde: there's the audience is born on social media, right?
00:24:49
Shreyas Hegde: So if they are the ones who are setting perspective, right?
00:24:52
Shreyas Hegde: And I often say this when I was slightly younger,
00:24:54
Shreyas Hegde: I used to probably highest influence all the purchases in
00:24:58
Shreyas Hegde: my house, right, because I was more hands on with
00:25:01
Shreyas Hegde: what brands to buy. I was more hands on with
00:25:04
Shreyas Hegde: what is cool or what is not cool, right? So
00:25:06
Shreyas Hegde: perspective setting is, I think, intangible, but also highly valuable.
00:25:12
Shreyas Hegde: So what brands? Or I would say the entire ecosystem
00:25:15
Shreyas Hegde: should look at Gen Z as an audience is
00:25:18
Shreyas Hegde: the ability to reposition. Realign yourself because they come with
00:25:22
Shreyas Hegde: clean stage about your brand or your offering, and you
00:25:25
Shreyas Hegde: have the ability to rebrand yourself and reposition yourself their
00:25:29
Shreyas Hegde: eyes and automatically get the premium ness via millennials. Because
00:25:34
Shreyas Hegde: if Gen. Z has said it's cool and if they
00:25:36
Shreyas Hegde: drive it, if they believe it, if they take it
00:25:38
Shreyas Hegde: to the Internet, it will automatically become cool.
00:25:41
Shreyas Hegde: And it would come back into its true form and
00:25:44
Shreyas Hegde: life right to stand out. Cultured brands in India, Rotas
00:25:47
Shreyas Hegde: and Vira, right? They really did this entire exercise with
00:25:51
Shreyas Hegde: the when they were Jay or even they are still
00:25:53
Shreyas Hegde: doing it with Gen Z every time rebranding every 10 years,
00:25:56
Shreyas Hegde: getting the messaging, getting the lingo right and making sure
00:26:00
Shreyas Hegde: that they become younger with the day and not folder
00:26:03
Shreyas Hegde: with their consumers.
00:26:05
Shreyas Hegde: So incorporation of lingo, incorporation of smaller elements of culture
00:26:09
Shreyas Hegde: and understanding the audiences and repositioning is what the power
00:26:14
Shreyas Hegde: of Gen. Z is today in the Internet era.
00:26:16
Saikat Pyne: Sure, my last question shares would be primarily targeted at
00:26:22
Saikat Pyne: helping Genz creators, which is what are a couple of
00:26:26
Saikat Pyne: the upcoming Gen Z content creator niches that you're seeing
00:26:31
Saikat Pyne: on the horizon? Because
00:26:32
Saikat Pyne: this segment is only going to grow going forward. There
00:26:35
Shreyas Hegde: are glitches as far as Internet is concerned. There are
00:26:38
Shreyas Hegde: a few creators who are setting up content around smart financing.
00:26:42
Shreyas Hegde: Finance is definitely
00:26:44
Shreyas Hegde: a large sector, which has not been attended to as
00:26:47
Shreyas Hegde: much as it can be. It should be financial literacy.
00:26:50
Shreyas Hegde: Driven by a smart content is something that is sought
00:26:53
Shreyas Hegde: after and is something that is going to tremendously grow.
00:26:56
Shreyas Hegde: You're seeing a massive shift in the kind of people
00:27:00
Shreyas Hegde: who are even buying your stocks and shares on N. S. C. NBC.
00:27:03
Shreyas Hegde: I mean that there was an entire article that came
00:27:05
Shreyas Hegde: out that said that the average age is consistently coming
00:27:08
Shreyas Hegde: down at a rapid pace. So you have your people
00:27:10
Shreyas Hegde: who are participating
00:27:11
Shreyas Hegde: and money market So smart finance content delivered to Jez
00:27:15
Shreyas Hegde: is one big niche, definitely followed by that is something
00:27:19
Shreyas Hegde: like around Tech, because we all talk about platforms. We
00:27:22
Shreyas Hegde: all talk about digital marketing. We all talk about impressions,
00:27:25
Shreyas Hegde: but very rarely do we talk about the technology behind
00:27:28
Shreyas Hegde: it and engineers right, which still form like a huge
00:27:31
Shreyas Hegde: percentage of the student population, right? It's something that's not
00:27:34
Shreyas Hegde: been spoken about as much not been heard about that much,
00:27:37
Shreyas Hegde: but them
00:27:38
Shreyas Hegde: having to put out like base understanding of what goes
00:27:41
Shreyas Hegde: on behind the technology. And increasingly, when we are being
00:27:44
Shreyas Hegde: introduced to Web three, we are forced to learn about
00:27:48
Shreyas Hegde: technology and the basics of it and date. It was
00:27:51
Shreyas Hegde: only about do you know how to use a phone
00:27:53
Shreyas Hegde: you didn't care about what the technology behind it was,
00:27:55
Shreyas Hegde: what the OS behind it was or what the other
00:27:57
Shreyas Hegde: things were. But with Web three. With the increasing versions
00:28:00
Shreyas Hegde: of Web two, and with so much of technology around us,
00:28:02
Shreyas Hegde: basic tech is something that is expected, created,
00:28:06
Shreyas Hegde: who have the confidence, aesthetic and knowledge in that domain
00:28:10
Shreyas Hegde: are going to really well because everyone wants to have
00:28:13
Shreyas Hegde: information on which they can have conversations right. That's what
00:28:17
Shreyas Hegde: makes them more relevant. Based on my analysis of gender.
00:28:20
Shreyas Hegde: They follow creators to have conversations which are relatable to
00:28:24
Shreyas Hegde: their friends or circles. And I think tech as a
00:28:27
Shreyas Hegde: space is not as explored as it is perceived to
00:28:30
Shreyas Hegde: be on the creation
00:28:31
Saikat Pyne: side. So we are speaking about
00:28:33
Saikat Pyne: take and finance first as the two big niches coming up, right?
00:28:39
Shreyas Hegde: Yeah. So two big niches around which content is not
00:28:42
Shreyas Hegde: currently in its true shape and form. It's very early days.
00:28:45
Shreyas Hegde: There is finance with there's A There's a lot of
00:28:48
Shreyas Hegde: other creators who are doing stuff, but it's far lesser
00:28:50
Shreyas Hegde: than what it can, and it should. No one saw
00:28:53
Shreyas Hegde: finance being delivered to Gen Z audiences in the way
00:28:56
Shreyas Hegde: they are doing it right now. They're doing a fab job. Absolutely.
00:28:59
Saikat Pyne: And with that,
00:29:00
Saikat Pyne: it's a wrap. Thank you so much for being on
00:29:03
Saikat Pyne: the podcast. We really loved having you on the show.
00:29:07
Saikat Pyne: Thank
00:29:07
Shreyas Hegde: you so much. My pleasure.
00:29:14
Saikat Pyne: Thank you for tuning into the U incorporated podcast with me.
00:29:19
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00:29:24
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