Creator Economy vs Traditional Agencies: Coexistence, collaboration or competition?

In 2025, creator economy isn’t just a buzzword but a multi-thousand-crore industry reshaping how brands communicate. According to a recent WARC report, influencer marketing in India is projected to cross ₹6,000 crore this year, driven largely by short-form platforms like Instagram Reels and X/TikTok’s Indian alternatives. 

What was once considered “brand amplification” is now a creative engine in its own right: creators like Tanmay Bhatt’s Moonshot have built boutique agencies that generate award-winning campaigns for brands such as Amazon, Swiggy, and Zomato, leveraging a mix of agility, platform-native insights, and cultural nuance that large traditional agencies often struggle to replicate.

This surge has sparked a pressing question in India’s advertising corridors: are influencer-led shops becoming viable alternatives to creative agencies, or is the landscape evolving toward symbiotic collaboration? Traditional agencies are still the go-to for brand architecture, multi-platform campaigns, and long-term strategy, but they now increasingly hire in-house creator talent or partner with influencer networks to stay relevant. At the same time, creators are pitching directly to brands, sometimes bypassing agencies entirely, making the classic “agency pitch” more competitive and more collaborative, than ever before.

Are creator-led shops a real alternative?

Tusharr Kumar, CEO at OML Entertainment, sees the landscape less as a rivalry and more as complementary ecosystems. “Influencer agencies play a very specific role…they understand short-form content or creator-led long-form content and how audiences respond to it. But both can coexist,” he says. Kumar emphasizes that traditional agencies are evolving too: “You have agencies that are far more digital-first now. So, there is a difference within the creative agency universe itself.”

Bhushan Kadam, SVP - Creative & Strategic Initiatives, White Rivers Media, adds, “Agencies remain the default partner for most brands because of their ability to bring scale, structured processes, and end-to-end accountability. But creator-led shops are undeniably making their presence felt. The real shift is that the strongest partnerships are no longer ‘agency or creator,’ but ‘agency and creator’ working in tandem.”

Ayush Guha, Business Head at Creator18, notes that while creator-led shops are growing, calling them alternatives to agencies is “a stretch.” He explains, “Even when the creator economy was booming, brands used creators as their creative voice. Now that creator budgets are a large piece of marketing plans, it makes sense to seek advertising advice from creator agencies themselves.”

Campaign ideation: Scale vs authenticity

The distinction between agencies and creators becomes most apparent during ideation. Kadam explains, “Agencies are built to look at the full brand journey: consumer insights, cultural relevance, media orchestration, and creative execution at scale. A creator may spark a compelling idea rooted in authenticity, but agencies ensure that idea ladders back to brand purpose and holds up across multiple touchpoints.”

Guha highlights the balance brands are seeking: “The scale of operations defines which route to take. While creators are a big part of current media plans, bigger players still rely heavily on TV and digital. We are creator-first for authenticity, but Network18-backed for the distribution scale that only a few in the country can provide.”

Kumar emphasizes collaboration: “The larger ideas and the larger campaign idea need to lead creator content. When agencies and creators work together, you really see multiple touchpoint impact for consumers.”

Who absorbs whom?

The ecosystem is evolving on both sides. Kadam observes, “Agencies are actively bringing creator talent into their fold, whether through partnerships, in-house creator networks, or co-creation models. At the same time, many creators are professionalizing their setups…adding layers of account management, design, and production that look very much like agencies.”

Guha sees a slightly different trajectory: “It’s going the other way, talent management agencies will absorb and build influencer marketing verticals. Creators want teams built around content and programming, not business. Business stays with the agency they’re represented by.”

The agency pitch: Under threat or evolving?

With creators pitching directly to brands, some might assume agencies are under threat. Kumar disagrees: “Agencies shouldn’t look at it as a threat. It actually helps the campaign. Even the smallest influencer marketing campaign involves multiple stakeholders like creators, their management, agencies, and the brand itself. Each plays a unique role.”

Kadam concurs: “The agency pitch is becoming sharper and more collaborative. Today it is less about presenting a monolithic ‘big idea’ and more about showing how that idea can be built with creators, communities, and cultural triggers. Agencies bring data, consumer insights, and multi-platform strategy, things creators alone do not always have access to.”

Guha sums it up: “Creator dominance in media plans has increased, giving them more right to pitch directly to brands. But brands look for ‘creative’ solutions, not just ‘creator’ solutions. The pitch model isn’t threatened; it’s evolving into collaborative problem-solving where creators bring authenticity and agencies bring strategic scale. We’re not competing with agencies, we’re redefining what creator-brand collaborations look like by combining Network18’s infrastructure with creator-first authenticity.”

The creative advertising ecosystem is no longer a simple dichotomy of agencies versus creators. It’s a spectrum of collaboration, where authenticity meets scale, agility meets strategy, and creators and agencies increasingly operate in tandem. Rather than signaling the end of traditional agencies, the creator economy is prompting a rethink of how campaigns are ideated, executed, and measured.