Why the attention economy demands brands be interesting, not just useful

A few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine an insurance brand posting memes, a mattress company collaborating with lifestyle creators, or a finance firm building a social media personality around everyday money struggles. Yet today, some of the most traditionally functional categories are increasingly behaving like media brands.

Scroll through Instagram or YouTube and the distinction between a creator, an entertainment page and a brand is becoming harder to spot. Insurance companies are partnering with comedians and finance influencers. Mattress brands are creating relatable content around sleep, stress and modern lifestyles. Appliance manufacturers are showing up in food, home and creator-led content rather than relying solely on product demonstrations.

The reason lies in the changing dynamics of digital platforms. Algorithms reward engagement, personality and cultural relevance, not category importance. As a result, brands operating in sectors that consumers rarely think about are being pushed to compete for the same attention as creators, celebrities and entertainment publishers.

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In the attention economy, being useful is no longer enough. Brands increasingly need to be interesting too.

Insurance, mattresses, appliances and finance brands are among the latest categories embracing creator-led, entertainment-first and personality-driven marketing strategies. Industry experts say the shift reflects a broader evolution in digital marketing, where brand personality has become a key driver of visibility, engagement and cultural relevance online.

Insurance brands are increasingly partnering with financial educators, personal finance creators and comedians to make complex products more relatable, while home appliance brands are moving beyond product demonstrations to collaborate with food, home décor and lifestyle creators who showcase products in everyday settings. Across sectors, marketers are finding that creator-led storytelling and entertainment-first content help brands remain visible and culturally relevant even when consumers are not actively in the market for their products. 

The shift is particularly visible in finance and housing finance, categories traditionally associated with trust, expertise and rational decision-making rather than entertainment.

Read more: How brands are finding the right creator collaboration 

Noel Mascarenhas, Head of Marketing at Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd (AHFL) said, “While functional messaging for certain categories will always be of importance, the way we consume content has now changed in a big way. With attention spans now merely a few seconds and humour becoming a very strong pull in an otherwise busy life, marketers / brands need to find innovative ways to integrate product benefits and features into entertainment led messaging.”

He added that the creator ecosystem now spans national, regional and hyperlocal influencers, alongside celebrities, startup founders and CEOs. As the definition of celebrity evolves, brands are increasingly prioritising personalities with established credibility and audience trust. Given its strong presence in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, the brand focuses on culturally nuanced regional content, including a recent entertainment-led campaign inspired by 1990s Bollywood. It is also expanding partnerships with regional creators to amplify campaign messaging and strengthen local relevance. 

Read more: As attention spans shrink, retention becomes marketing’s biggest metric

While finance brands are using creators and entertainment-led content to simplify complex products and build trust, mattress brands are approaching the trend from a different angle, turning conversations around sleep and wellness into cultural content. 

Mattress makers are no longer just selling better sleep. They are building online personalities around the rituals, habits and anxieties that surround it, from doomscrolling and work stress to wellness trends and self-care, transforming a traditionally functional category into a source of relatable lifestyle content. 

Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, Co-founder and Executive Director, Wakefit, explained that the brand has anchored its content strategy around conversations on sleep and its declining quality, using storytelling, humour and cultural moments to make the subject more engaging. He pointed to initiatives such as the Wakefit Sleep Internship, the annual Great Indian Sleep Scorecard and larger brand campaigns as efforts to spark dialogue around sleep deprivation while building relevance for an often-overlooked issue. 

“In recent times, creator-led-content has become a popular device for brands to tell their stories, because they reflect a lifestyle audiences aspire for or connect with. We have used strategic collaborations to connect with these audiences and creators have become an important part of our content mix,” he said, adding that the brand takes a balanced approach, combining creator collaborations, digital storytelling and traditional media channels rather than relying on any single format. The focus, he said, is on strong storytelling that not only captures attention but also builds long-term consumer affinity and trust. 

The trend is visible across the sleep and home categories, where brands are increasingly looking beyond functional benefits to build emotional distinctiveness and cultural relevance. 

According to Ullas Vijay, CMO, Duroflex Group, functional messaging addresses a consumer need, but as categories become more crowded, product-led communication alone is often insufficient to create brand distinctiveness. He noted that brands increasingly need to build emotional and cultural relevance to stand out in a competitive market. 

He said, “The playground of persuasion needs to appeal to the consumer first and evoke feelings even before trying to solve a problem, exactly where persona driven, emotion first creators and influencers are changing the game for many brands. Consumers don’t open their social media apps with the sole intent of commerce, their expectation predominantly is entertainment, hence giving the relevant dose of dopamine becomes a bare minimum for every brand today.” 

Vijay added that Sleepyhead's playful and satirical brand voice, combined with accessible pricing and design-led products, helps create more engaging consumer communication. He pointed to a recent creator-led campaign that used hip-hop artists and dance performances to showcase the stain- and water-resistant features of its Bite sofa, integrating product benefits directly into the storytelling. 

He said creator and culture-led content has long been central to the brand's marketing approach and has contributed to long-term growth, while digital advertising continues to play an important role in targeting specific consumer cohorts. The brand, he noted, focuses on maintaining a balance between creator-led content and performance-driven digital marketing. 

Why creators are becoming the new trust builders 

For agencies tracking the evolution of consumer behaviour, the shift is not merely about making traditionally low-interest categories more entertaining. It reflects a broader change in how consumers discover, evaluate and trust brands online, particularly in sectors where purchase decisions are infrequent and confidence plays a crucial role. 

Ankit Shastri, Senior Group Director, Gozoop Creative, said the shift reflects changing consumer attention patterns, with trust increasingly built through people, communities and content rather than brand messaging alone. He noted that categories such as insurance, finance, mattresses and appliances face the challenge of infrequent consumer engagement, prompting brands to move from being present only at the point of purchase to becoming part of everyday cultural conversations. 

According to Shastri, brands are increasingly favouring creator ecosystems over traditional celebrity endorsements, as creators offer greater relatability, authenticity and audience trust. He added that the most effective marketers use entertainment and creator-led content to drive attention while relying on expert voices, customer stories and product demonstrations to build credibility. 

“The biggest shift is that brands no longer evaluate creators purely on follower count. They evaluate them on trust, expertise, and audience fit,” Shastri said. 

He further noted that expertise-led creators are proving particularly effective in finance, insurance and appliances by simplifying complex topics and demonstrating real-world value. According to Shastri, content is increasingly shifting from feature-led messaging to problem-solving formats such as explainers, comparisons, myth-busting and creator-led storytelling that answer consumer questions directly. He added that while Instagram drives discovery and creator collaborations, YouTube plays a key role in education and trust-building, with short-form video remaining the strongest attention driver across platforms.

Shastri also highlighted a shift from one-off influencer activations to always-on creator ecosystems, with brands increasingly forging long-term partnerships and repurposing creator-generated content across channels. He noted that many fintech and insurance brands now work with a consistent roster of financial educators, reflecting a broader move from borrowing reach to building sustained trust and consideration. 

“Ultimately, in categories where decisions are driven by confidence and reassurance, creators have become one of the most effective bridges between brand credibility and consumer consideration,” he concluded.