Are brands tapping regional creators to boost New Year campaigns?

With the festive season winding down and New Year just 42 days away, brands in finance, fitness and lifestyle are shifting their focus to creator-led communication. But this time, the demand is not centered around metros. It is regional creators who are driving discovery, influencing purchase intent and powering creator commerce across platforms.

Creators like Jasleen Arora from Punjab, Nainika Anasuru from Hyderabad, Yashi Tank from Jaipur and Sejal Gaba from Haryana have been working with brands through both festive and non-festive phases. Their consistent appearance in campaigns reflects how brands are now prioritising regional-language appeal over national celebrity-led visibility. Be it Black Friday Sale, or upcoming Christmas gifting, brands are already set with their campaigns.

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According to Snapchat, this shift is aligned with where India’s digital audience growth actually lies. India reached 886 million active internet users in 2024, with rural users forming 55 percent of the total base. Even within urban India, 57 percent of users prefer content in regional languages. These patterns have placed regional creators at the centre of brand communication strategies.

Read On: Regional influencers drive 10-25% higher purchase intent, 1.5-3x impact

Suyog Jhadav, CEO of B.I.G Media, shared that regional creators averaged 6 to 7 percent engagement this year compared to 4 to 4.5 percent for metro creators. During the festive window, regional formats delivered 30 percent stronger engagement. “There is always the boy-or-girl-next-door feeling with regional creators. That relatability drives higher interaction,” he said.

“Brands are leaning more heavily into regional creators because that is where audience growth and attention are concentrated. This is the tailwind driving the regional creator economy,” said Saket Jha Saurabh, Director and Head of Content and AR Partnerships at Snapchat.

The influencer marketing industry crossed nearly Rs 2,344 crore in 2024, and according to Saurabh, 70 percent of brands intend to increase or maintain their investments this year. Much of that growth is being driven by creators operating in non-metro geographies.

Engagement Rates Tilt Strongly in Favour of Regional Creators

Industry insights show that regional creators regularly outperform metro creators on engagement. Their use of local language, cultural familiarity and context drives stronger user affinity and participation.

Saurabh said regional creators typically deliver significantly higher engagement because their audience sees them as culturally aligned and more authentic. Some analyses indicate that vernacular content can generate up to seven times higher engagement and time spent compared to English-first content.

Snapchat’s internal data points to a doubling of content engagement on Spotlight, led by the rise in regional creators. Saurabh cited Maybelline New York’s MNY Look Studio campaign as an example, where AR-based regional festive looks inspired users across Diwali, Navratri and Pujo. The campaign saw strong creator adoption because it allowed audiences to engage with culturally specific beauty formats.

Industry numbers further support this trend. Piyush Agrawal, Co-founder of CREATE, said regional creator engagement has remained stable throughout 2025 because their advantage lies in hyper-geographical connection. For brands targeting local customers, allocating budgets for regional creators has become standard.

Brands Begin Allocating Dedicated Regional Budgets

The growth in performance has led brands to move away from bundling regional creators under single influencer lines. Instead, dedicated regional budgets are now being carved out.

“At the start of 2025, most brands still clubbed regional under a single bucket. By the end of the year, brands are setting aside 20 to 35 percent of influencer budgets specifically for regional mandates,” said Jhadav. He added that the change reflects a shift in internal intent. Brands are no longer experimenting with regional content; they are planning for it as a core strategy.

Saurabh said brands are building two-lane regional strategies. The first is an always-on creator lane to maintain long-term cultural presence. The second is moment-based bursts, where Spotlight and AR lenses are used during festivals or regional events to unlock user-generated content and mass participation.

Platforms are also seeing the benefits of this shift.

Read On: Regional creators gain ground as marketers seek vernacular voices in 40% of campaigns

Neha Markanda, Chief Business Officer at ShareChat, said recent regional campaigns delivered up to three times higher completion rates and engagement levels beyond 14 percent, compared to typical averages of 4 to 7 percent. She added that brands observed 10 to 15 percent higher purchase intent in certain regions during festivals.

Short-form regional storytelling formats like microdramas now drive more than 55 minutes of daily watch time on the platform and receive 150-million-episode views per day, largely fuelled by Tier-2 and Tier-3 audiences.'

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Creator POV

Niranjan Mondal shares that brands have shifted from large festive films to more focused briefs. He said brands are now asking for quick, relatable microdramas that speak to niche regional audiences. According to him, “Instead of big budget festive campaigns, I’m seeing more focused briefs. A lot of brands now get that people connect better with everyday humour than with glossy festival ads. We’ve moved from Diwali greetings to characters like ‘that Bong aunty at every family function.’”

Mondal added that regional content continues to deliver stronger engagement because it speaks in the audience’s native language. His Bengali reels often attract comments such as “This is exactly like my home” or references to relatives, which he says brands have begun to recognise. He cited a recent example where a skit about a Bengali aunt showing off her in-laws went viral because “it didn’t feel like an ad, it felt like a story.”

Goa-based creator Rudr Ghotge reported a similar pattern. He said brand enquiries have remained consistent after the festive season, especially for Konkani-based skits. “Whenever I create Goan mother advice or market aunty drama, people immediately see their own parents and neighbours,” he said, adding that local references make branded content more memorable. He also mentioned his collaboration with Parul University, where he played a “foreign-return uncle” with a fake accent. The skit performed strongly because Goan audiences instantly recognised the character. Ghotge said brands are now asking for specific Goan personas he has created, including the “NRI cousin” and “taxi uncle,” instead of generic briefs.

Regional Creators Expand Beyond Lifestyle and Beauty

While regional creators have built strongholds in beauty, lifestyle and daily-use categories, a new question being tested by the industry is whether they can influence high-consideration categories such as finance and fitness. The answer, according to new platform data, is yes.

A Meta study showed that 81 percent of consumers use Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook to discover financial products, 79 percent during evaluation and 83 percent at the purchase stage. This applies across categories like loans at 86 percent, investments at 84 percent, insurance at 78 percent and savings at 82 percent.

Instagram is used by 57 percent of respondents and Facebook by 53 percent for informed financial decision-making. Reels emerged as a key format for simplifying financial products and driving discovery.

“Financial planning is integral for Indians across income groups and the process is evolving with digital. Reels, creators and business messaging are reshaping how financial products are bought,” said Shweta Bajpai, Director for Financial Services, Media, Travel, Real Estate and Services at Meta.

Axis Bank has already seen the impact. Its Open Experience 2.0 campaign generated better discovery for credit card products and resulted in a 26 percent cost saving on performance marketing. Its recent Made on Instagram creator-led campaign strengthened its belief in short-form video formats.

The study highlighted that 75 percent of respondents trust financial podcasts and 67 percent rely on influencers or subject matter experts for advice, surpassing celebrity endorsements.

According to Madison Media’s Group CEO Vikram Sakhuja, creator-led Reels delivered a 129 percent lift in savings leads and a three-point increase in unaided recall for a brand campaign.

Publicis Media’s Lalatendu Das said AI-powered ad solutions on Meta improved high-net-worth individual leads by 53 percent for ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and delivered seven times more leads at 81 percent lower cost per acquisition for a large bank in the Philippines.

The research also shows a shift in gender dynamics. Nearly 80 percent of women reported making independent financial decisions and are spending more time than men on Instagram and WhatsApp for financial knowledge, community support and content discovery.

Read On: Regional creators shine bright on Dhanteras as brands connect with culture

Post-Festive Demand for Regional Creators Stays Strong

Contrary to perceptions that the demand for creators drops after festivals, agencies report that the interest in regional influencers has sustained and strengthened.

“From what we’re seeing, demand hasn’t dipped after the festive season. It has grown,” said Jhadav. He said the festive quarter saw a 30 to 40 percent rise in influencer collaborations and that momentum continues. During this period, regional content delivered nearly 30 percent higher engagement than English content.

According to him, brands are increasingly seeking creators who speak Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and other regional languages because India’s next wave of internet growth is coming from Indic-language audiences. He said regional creator demand is now structural and not seasonal.

Rahat Khan, Co-Founder of Fame Keeda, said regional influencer campaigns often deliver better unit economics in Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets compared to national spends. Local creators bring cultural fit and trust, which reduces costs and improves conversion. He said campaigns frequently show engagement 1.3 to 2 times higher than national creatives and often outperform costlier national buys when communication is hyperlocal. He added that measurement must now include local attribution models such as region-specific codes, UTM links and creative relevance metrics.

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In 2026 E-commerce Platforms Bet Big on Regional Creators

E-commerce platforms are seeing some of the strongest shifts toward regional creators.

Zahid Khan, Director of Shopping Experience at Amazon India, said nearly two-thirds of Amazon’s creators now come from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Around 70 percent of creator-driven sales originate from non-metro regions. He said the trend is accelerating and that regional creators drive deeper trust and stronger purchase intent across categories like lifestyle, beauty and home essentials.

Flipkart has also scaled up its regional creator ecosystem. The company said its creator production hubs support more than 300 production experts and 200 creators each month.

Flipkart’s Creator Hub has been introduced to help emerging creators from Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets with monetisation opportunities, tools and training. The platform is seeing strong traction in categories like fashion, beauty, personal care and home décor where shoppers seek demonstrations and practical guidance.

Industry leaders say the rise of regional creators marks a structural change in the creator economy. As India moves toward 900 million internet users, the demand for content that reflects local language, cultural context and regional identity is becoming the default preference.

Entertainment formats, festive bursts, retail campaigns, finance education, fitness challenges and daily discovery journeys are all being shaped by the regional creator space. Brands are allocating dedicated budgets, platforms are expanding their tools and agencies are restructuring teams to support this rising cohort.

With engagement, discovery, and purchase intent trending higher across regional formats, the creator economy entering the New Year is likely to see a growing role for the country’s regional creator base alongside metro influencers.