How brands are rethinking creator discovery

More than 100 beauty brands and over 6,000 creators and influencers gathered at Flipkart’s Glam Up Fest in New Delhi. However, social media chatter focused less on content and collaborations and more on the event itself, with posts highlighting long queues, overcrowding and logistical confusion, raising questions over whether large-scale creator gatherings are being strained by their own popularity.

The criticism arrives at a time when brands are investing more heavily than ever in creator-led discovery. Yet the backlash also highlights a growing reality for marketers: in the creator economy, scale alone does not guarantee meaningful engagement.

As brands increasingly look to creators to drive product discovery and influence consumer decisions, industry executives say the focus is shifting away from viral moments and towards sustained visibility, trust and repeated exposure.

Read On: Why brands and creators are prioritising credibility over virality

Discovery Is No Longer a One-Time Event

For years, brands treated creators as amplification channels, partnering with them to generate reach and awareness. Today, marketers recognise that consumers rarely discover a brand in a single interaction. Long-term partnerships and hybrid affiliate structures are also becoming more common as brands prioritise continuity over isolated activations. Categories such as beauty, fashion, fintech and lifestyle are among the biggest adopters of these models.

Whether it is beauty, travel or fintech, purchase decisions are shaped through repeated exposure across platforms and creators, with social media often acting as the starting point.

Neel Gogia, Co-Founder and CEO of IPLIX Media, said, “Consumers rarely discover something once and act immediately. More often, they encounter a brand across multiple interactions over a period of time, and that is changing how brands approach creators.”

As a result, brands are building what he describes as layers of exposure rather than relying on a single creator activation. According to Meta and RAI's latest research, 77% of retail brand and product discovery in India now happens on social media, while 84% of Gen Z consumers discover new brands through these platforms.

Sudeep Subash, CEO of Big Bang Social said, “Brands are increasingly investing in long-term creator partnerships because meaningful consumer relationships are built through consistency, emotional resonance, and sustained storytelling and not one-off campaign bursts. When creators become genuine advocates for a brand, they help build communities, deepen audience loyalty, and create stronger cultural relevance. For creators, these partnerships offer the freedom to tell richer stories and integrate brands more authentically into their content. Long-term collaborations also make strong business sense, delivering greater cost efficiency, consistency in messaging, and stronger audience recall than standalone activations. What we're witnessing is deeper engagement, higher brand affinity, and consumer trust that grows over time, making these partnerships feel less like advertising and more like genuine relationships.”

One such example is Durex collaboration with Mallika Dua, Purav Jha, and Srishti Dixit of an upcoming campaign that introduces ‘AH'gasm-a term used to describe a moment mistaken for pleasure but actually signalling discomfort due to vaginal dryness.

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Ravi Iyer, CFO, Flipkart Group, said, “Two years ago, Flipkart recognised that GenZ was rewriting the rules of Indian retail. That discovery was moving from search bars to social feeds, and that creators were becoming the new storefront. This partnership is a natural extension of that conviction. It gives creators a direct path from influence to entrepreneurship and offers brands a way to reach consumers through content that feels real, not advertised.” 

According to Bain & Company’s How India Shops Online 2026 report, Gen Z now accounts for 40%-45% of India’s e-retail shoppers and drives nearly half of incremental e-retail orders. Influencer-led discovery and social content are playing an increasingly important role in purchase decisions across categories such as fashion, beauty, gadgets and lifestyle, spanning both metro and non-metro markets.

Those numbers explain why brands are treating creators differently. If discovery is happening across multiple touchpoints, the role of creators is also evolving.

Read On: Creators drive social commerce in India, but earnings lag behind

Kompal Matta Kapoor, founder of BrewSkin, a personal care product manufacturing owner explained why brands bet big on long term collaborations, “Creators are much more aware of what brands are looking for. Instead of only talking about their followers, they also highlight the kind of audience they have and the type of content they create. On the brand side, the approach has also changed. We don't just look at the size of a creator's audience; we look at whether their content and audience are relevant for the brand. Ultimately, the best partnerships are the ones where the creator genuinely connects with the product and can talk about it naturally.”

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Brands are increasingly moving away from viewing creator partnerships as standalone campaigns designed to create a spike in attention. Instead, many marketers are trying to build repeated exposure over time.

Story placements continue to attract strong investment as they keep brands present in everyday content consumption. At the same time, affiliate ecosystems are becoming more sophisticated, linking discovery more directly to action. Meanwhile, podcasts, long-form videos and recurring creator formats are emerging as strong recommendation spaces, as they let audiences revisit content multiple times instead of consuming it just once.

"What’s interesting is that brands are not necessarily looking for the biggest moment anymore. They’re looking for repeated familiarity," Gogia said.

A travel creator who consistently influences itinerary planning, a fitness creator whose audience repeatedly discovers products through workout content or a finance creator who becomes part of someone's monthly money conversations may ultimately create more value than a single viral campaign.

Aanam C, Creator and Founder of cosmetic brand Wearified, said, "I've become increasingly interested in affiliate-led marketing because it allows us to measure the entire conversion journey. It shifts the focus from just views and engagement to actual sales, which is ultimately what any marketing investment is trying to achieve. At Wearified, affiliate marketing has been one of our strongest discovery channels since more than 90% of our sales come through our own website."

Beyond digital, Aanam is also seeing brands invest more in offline community-led engagements. "Whether it's sales-driven events, subscriber communities or intimate awareness-building experiences. Those formats create stronger connections when executed thoughtfully. While the way brands and creators approach each other hasn't fundamentally changed, meaningful partnerships still happen when there's a campaign with genuine relevance rather than an expectation of always-on collaborations," she said. 

Read On: Creators to influence 30% of retail spend by 2030: Google-Deloitte report

The follower-count game is losing relevance

As brands become more selective about influence, creators are also changing how they position themselves. A few years ago, conversations revolved around follower counts. Today, agencies and marketers are asking different questions: Who is the audience? How engaged are they? Do they trust the creator? Can the creator influence decisions within a specific category?

According to creator Dasoham, that shift has fundamentally changed brand expectations.

"I think the industry has moved beyond the follower-count game. Today, brands are paying much closer attention to audience quality rather than audience size," he said. He points to a growing trend where creators with smaller but highly relevant audiences are outperforming larger creators when it comes to campaign effectiveness.

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"We've seen creators with millions of followers who may not necessarily fit a brand's target demographic. At the same time, a creator with 50,000 or 100,000 followers can be far more valuable if they have the right audience in the right geography and category."

Trust, he argues, has become one of the most valuable currencies in the creator economy. That is also why many brands are becoming more comfortable giving creators creative freedom.

Based on the briefs he receives, Dasoham said marketers are moving away from heavily scripted integrations and towards content that feels native to a creator’s platform and audience. The goal is simple: audiences respond better to branded content that feels authentic rather than promotional.

"Brands are becoming more open to creative freedom because they understand that creators know their audiences best," he said.

Even creator pricing is changing

The changing nature of discovery is also reshaping creator economics.

While follower count remains a consideration, it is no longer the primary determinant of value. Engagement quality, audience alignment, category relevance and influence within a community are increasingly driving pricing conversations.

"In many cases, a creator with a smaller but highly engaged and relevant audience may command higher rates than someone with a much larger following," Dasoham noted.

Gogia says the market is already reflecting this shift.

Story integrations by mid-tier creators generally range between ₹20,000 and ₹1 lakh, while dedicated content pieces can command anywhere between ₹75,000 and ₹5 lakh depending on audience profile, category and creator equity.

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Discovery is becoming smarter, not just bigger

The evolution of discovery is not limited to creators alone.

Increasingly, brands are combining consumer insights, cultural observations and creator ecosystems to create conversations that travel organically.

Flipkart itself has demonstrated this through campaigns such as SASA LELE. The campaign drew inspiration from Kodinhi, a village in Kerala known for its unusually high number of twin births, to build a nationwide narrative around double discounts and double offers.

"Sometimes a data point gives you an idea like no other. It was almost like Kodinhi was waiting for a sale like SASA LELE to come along," said Vishnu Srivatsav, Chief Creative Experience Officer at 22feet.

The campaign reflected a broader trend in marketing. Rather than simply buying visibility, brands are increasingly looking for unique consumer insights that can naturally fuel conversations across social media and creator communities.

The criticism surrounding Glam Up Fest ultimately highlights a contradiction within the creator economy.

At a time when brands are investing heavily in authenticity, trust and creator relationships, success is still often measured through the scale of an event, the number of attendees or the volume of content generated.

Yet the industry's own leaders suggest the future may look very different.

Sharath Dasari, Co-Founder and COO of Flutch said, "Creators are no longer just content publishers or media channels, they have become discovery engines that influence consumer consideration much earlier in the journey. For brands, the opportunity lies in partnering with creators who can build genuine credibility and context, not just deliver reach."

Discovery is becoming cumulative rather than instantaneous. Brands are prioritising familiarity over virality. Audience quality is becoming more valuable than audience size. And creators are increasingly being evaluated based on their ability to influence decisions, not simply generate impressions.

In that environment, meaningful interactions matter far more than crowded halls.

The next phase of creator marketing may not belong to the creator with the biggest audience or the campaign with the loudest buzz. It may belong to those who consistently earn trust and remain part of consumer decision-making long after the campaign has ended.