How social media is revolutionising old-school marketing

Social media has removed the barriers of geography, as well as the need for costly ads and brick-and-mortar stores. But is it the great leveller of the marketing world or a bubble waiting to burst?

Ting!” Another order has just come in for a T-shirt at Prdgy.in all the way from Jamjuri, a hamlet in Tripura. It’s 2,200 km from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, where Co-Founder Mrityunjay Jha will prepare and ship the order from. “There are no roads to that village and the courier agent will have to trek there,” says Jha. He knows this because they’ve received orders from there before. For the indie made-to-order apparel brand, this is not an inconvenience—it’s a matter of pride that they get orders from the farthest reaches of the country. 

“That’s the magic of the Internet and social media,” says Jha, “We’re an indie brand with no physical presence; we just have a web store and all our marketing is digital, largely through social media. It’s amazing that we have reached customers in not only metro cities, but also remote regions like the Northeast and Himalayan villages like Reckong Peo [Himachal Pradesh].”

Actor Vatsal Seth and his son in twinning kurtas from Tura Turi

Started out of the basement of one of four co-founders in 2022, the brand has built a customer base of 35,000 customers through its Instagram page @Prdgy.in. The brand is known for its edgy graphic designs emblazoned on oversized T-shirts, which they play up with inventive, and sometimes zany, posts and videos on Instagram. Customers, they say, often assume their designs and marketing are a “big-city” aesthetic. “Nobody even knows that we are running the business from Raipur. In fact, it doesn’t even figure among the top 10 cities when it comes to our buyers,” says Jha, “Social media has opened up the market for everybody. Whether it’s indie brands like ours, or customers, access is no longer limited by location. Jamjuri village may not have a road, but as long as they have Internet, they can order our T-shirts.”

A wider reach is not the only way social media (SM) marketing can help; the true blessing lies in its ability to target the right demographic. In the case of Bombay Hemp Company aka Boheco—whose products feature cannabis, a “highly misunderstood” ingredient—SM helps the brand reach a younger, more open-minded section of the population.

Founder Yash Kotak with his brand Boheco’s products. Pic/Nimesh Dave

“We knew from day one that this [cannabis] is not a mass play; it’s very niche,” says Yash Kotak, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, “It is going to appeal to a well-travelled, educated, informed consumer. Marketing via traditional media [such as print or TV] is more or less a shot in the dark; there is no way it can be hyper-targeted the way social media allows us to be.” 

As the country’s first hemp and medical cannabis company set up 12 years ago, a significant portion of their marketing is focused on educating people on the hero ingredient in their formulations. “Social media has probably been the biggest contributor to our efforts to educate the consumer segment. The largest number of people in the country being relatively young, they are predominantly very active on social media,” says Kotak, who was a media planner with US-based media investment company GroupM before co-founding Boheco.  

145 East, a design collective from Kolkata, is on a mission to make the humble gamcha an aspirational textile

As per a 2024 report by the United Nations Population Fund, 68 per cent of the population are in the 15-64 age group. Another report released by IIM Ahmedabad and Delhi NGO Esya Centre in 2023, titled New Age Digital Media Consumption, further states that Indians spend an average of 194 minutes on social media platforms on a daily basis.

It makes sense then that Boheco, headquartered in Andheri East, spends “Thirty to 40 per cent of their top line [gross revenue] on marketing”. Of that, “Seventy-five per cent is on social media alone”, reveals Kotak, adding, “Social media has been a touch-point for engagement, for us to break myths and taboo about the plant and normalise it.” 

Method has harnessed the power of social media to make art accessible to younger audiences, drawing them to the gallery

Sometimes this takes the form of user-generated content or influencer content, such as  Ranveer Allahbadia (@beerbiceps) explaining how the hemp plant is different from the recreationally used marijuana or “ganja”. Then there are paid advertisements which are based on metrics such as cost per thousand impressions (CPM), which means the brand will pay the platform—say Instagram, for example—for every 1,000 people that see the ad. This is called performance-based marketing. The third and final type of SM marketing is organically building engagement with existing followers by consistently posting on the brand’s own page—this is free content. In Boheco’s case, this includes videos where doctors and experts are brought in to explain how cannabis can help with pain or other medical conditions.

The stigma around cannabis is so strong that Meta did not even allow advertisements or sponsored posts/stories of such products until a year-and-a-half ago. The only option to grab more eyeballs at the time seemed to be via big influencers. But this tactic does not work in isolation, as the brand learnt to its cost. “In the initial days we had more misses than hits,” says Kotak, “We spent a significant amount of money on influencer marketing back then. But any content only has a shelf life between 48 and 70 hours. We couldn’t maximise on the investments that we made with these creators. So, the biggest learning was to ensure you have remarketing tools [showing ads to people who have previously visited a website or used a mobile app], and a well-rounded 360-degree strategy to get the maximum eyeballs on your content.” What’s worked for them? Their Share The Care campaign in July-August—which celebrates everyday heroes like our parents or friends and colleagues—got their highest views yet. “It struck a chord with people. That’s probably why it got over 20 million views on Instagram alone,” says Kotak.

A concept shoot of Prdgy’s best-selling design, Lone Wolf. Co-founder Mrityunjay Jha says,”Instead of feeling bad about loneliness, we wanted to show it as a strength. You are true to yourself when you are alone” 

It’s all about the story, says Pratibha Goel, Sales & Marketing, 145 East, a Kolkata-based design collective that’s on a mission to make Bengal’s humble gamcha a punk icon.

“The worst mistakes you can make are pour your resources, thought, and time into a massive shoot once or twice a month, and then hope and pray that it works, either for organic or paid. You have a chance to talk to a new customer every day. Low-cost, rich in story, playful as hell, and at scale, should be the strategy,” she says.

Mrityunjay Jha; Priyanka Dutt and Balram Vishwakarma

The indie brand has garnered quite the following on Instagram (@145east, 1.25 lakh followers) with its novel storytelling, which ranges from satire to downright thirst traps. Take for example a reel titled “Overheard at Durga Puja 2024”, which shows all the usual suspects at the pandal to great comedic effect, from the saree critics to VIP pass thieves. Most of this content is planned and shot in-house. 

“We write what we find funny, we compose what music we like to hear, we shoot the way we’d like to see it, and edit it with our own rhythm,” says Goel, “Create what you’d like to see out into the world. That’s our approach.”

And it seems to be working. Their Instagram reels and posts have given them an even wider reach than paid advertisements on the app. “Social media is free. It’s up to creators to be smart with the content they make,” says the gamcha proponent, adding that they are soon coming up with workshops to teach others how to harness the power of social media marketing.

SM posts may be free, but what about the ads? “Social media has definitely democratised advertising, especially when you compare the cost to print and TV ads. But SM ads, too, are getting expensive now,” says Prdgy CMO Jha.  “Back in 2021, we had to pay Rs 20-30 for every 1,000 impressions. Now, my CPM is Rs 200—it has increased 10 times,” says Jha, while quickly clarifying, “This is still very cheap compared to TV and radio.”

So how does the brand split its budget between paid ads and regular content? As of now, Prdgy spends about 30 per cent of the unit cost on SM marketing. “So, if a product costs Rs 100, I’m putting in R30 rupees to market that. Of that Rs 30, we put Rs 20 into performance marketing, and R10 on content creation and everything else,” Jha elaborates, adding that as the brand has grown, they have shrunk the budget on paid ads and reallocated it to organic engagement and content creation to retain their existing customers.

One of the pitfalls of social media is that paid ads can quickly become a black hole for finances if brands don’t figure out a well-rounded strategy, he says. “Ads will introduce new customers to your brand, but if you don’t engage them with effective and consistent communication, they won’t return. You will effectively end up paying just to make one sale at a time, instead of retaining your existing customers and paying only to bring in new ones,” explains Jha.

For Priyanka Bhattacharya Dutt, Co-Founder of children’s wear brand Tura Turi, SM marketing is about building community. Priyanka and her sister Payal Bhattacharya run the brand out of Madh Island. It’s best known for its muslin childwear with Indian motifs, as well as parent-child twinning sets. “Our audience is people like us—parents, uncles, aunts—anyone connected to children,” says Priyanka, “As moms ourselves, we relate to our audience on a personal level. We take a casual, informal approach, creating relatable content. It’s not just about advertising; it’s about building a community where parents feel they belong.”

This messaging has worked wonders for the brand, which has found fans among celebrities such as Sonam Kapoor, Genelia Deshmukh, Vatsal Seth, and their children, all without ever having to engage in any paid product placements. Piqued by the brand’s content, these celebrities have placed their own orders and posted pictures while twinning with their children, which has fed into the loop and further boosted Tura 
Turi’s reach. 

Community has been the keyword driving Suhani Batwara’s social media campaign for her jewellery marketplace, Tanzire, which sells demi-fine jewellery. Batwara is a third-generation jewellery business owner, but while the previous generations followed a B2B model, Tanzire is a B2C brand. “We connect directly with the customer, and I believe social media is the most powerful platform to build an accessible brand. It has become an universal language that everyone is speaking,” says Batwara, who uses social media to educate customers about demi-fine jewellery, its authenticity and how the pieces can be styled. 

Kala Ghoda-based Method art gallery, too, has used social media to great advantage, shaping conversation around art and making it cool and accessible for 
younger generations. “Social media has been extremely powerful for us in terms of getting the message out. Since we are a young gallery, working with young artists, it is the natural medium for us to connect and engage with young art enthusiasts and audiences,” says Sahil Arora, Founder, adding, “Also as a medium that we can control and curate, it is extremely powerful in sharing our perspective on the arts organically.”

But hitting upon one winning strategy is not enough. With changing algorithms, the goalposts keep shifting too, and brands must adapt quickly. “We’re heavily reliant on a few platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Their algorithms and policies change frequently, which can disrupt reach and engagement.” rues Priyanka, “Strategies that worked a few months ago might not work today. We constantly have to adapt and stay afloat in this ecosystem.” 

One of the ways SM marketing is shifting now is reducing reliance on performance marketing and switching to influencer campaigns driven by nano and micro influencers—a tactic that 47 per cent brands now prefer due to lower cost, states an April 2024 EY report titled The State of Influencers Marketing in India.

Multinational brands like Dove (Unilever) and Pantene (P&G) are now putting their considerable coffers to use with influencer marketing as well. Dove, in fact, has a separate cell dedicated to influencer marketing.

Balram Vishwakarma, Co-Founder of digital marketing agency Scroll Back Studios, says for smaller brands, the goal should be to get more for less, and influencer marketing is the way to get there. “Don’t do paid ads/performance marketing; it doesn’t have the same kind of reach. Low-tier brands hardly have a [marketing] budget of Rs 50,000-1 lakh per month; mid-tier has a budget of Rs 6 to Rs 7 lakh. For low-tier brands, we get hold of budding influencers who have about 5,000-6,000 followers but are making lots of good content,” he explains.

Small doesn’t necessarily mean low quality, though. “The content creator economy has become decentralised—brands are no longer dependent on the handful of influencers from the pre-Reels era who charged a bomb,” he says, “Now there are tens of thousands of small creators making lots of good, sometimes crazy content. Like, I saw a video of a guy who was about to collapse, with the siren of ambulances blaring in the background. Another guy holds up a wedding card from his shop and says that it was made so well that the first guy saw it and fell unconscious.”

“It does the job—now you’ll never forget this video made by a small shop in Chandni Chowk that makes cards,” Vishwakarma adds, “Compare that with some mid-tier card manufacturers who make businesslike videos in their suit and talk in English. That’s not as memorable.” 

Whatever strategy a brand chooses, one thing is for certain: “No brand can afford to ignore social media anymore,” says Vishwakarma, “It’s where all the eyeballs are. When was the last time you even raised your head up, away from your phone, and looked at a billboard?”

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