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Session 1 of 2
Aditya V Jain · 9 May 2026
Think of a recent purchase where you went more premium than you usually would. Not your default brand or default price.
Keep your list. We come back to it later.
A customer:
Two things moved at once.
How we got here, next.
Brands bought attention from broadcasters, newspapers, magazines, radio, outdoor.
Audiences consumed media at predictable times, through a few channels, alongside millions.
Everyone watched the same cricket matches, soaps, news. The same ads reached the country at once.
This favored Coca-Cola, HUL, Nestlé, P&G, Pepsi.
A prime-time TV spot bought reach, repetition, and institutional legitimacy. The broadcaster's credibility reinforced the brand.
Dominant tools: banner ads, display, portals, search ads, early ecommerce.
Consumers were in browsers instead of living rooms. Brands still bought:
For the first time, marketers could capture:
Searches like:
Google captured existing demand. The model was still publisher-driven, keyword-driven, centralized.
Success depended on placement, media spend, optimization, creative execution.
The institutional structure largely survived.
These systems were built around:
Your feed showed friends, family, colleagues, pages you followed.
For the first time, marketers could target with extraordinary granularity:
A Mumbai marketer could target:
Revolutionary at the time.
Brands were still buying:
Facebook and Instagram became the new broadcasters. Targeting got more efficient.
Discovery itself had not yet changed.
Instead of distributing content based on who you know, platforms distributed based on:
This is the interest graph.
Algorithm-selected video outperformed friend-selected updates on watch time, retention, engagement, ad revenue.
By 2021, Reels, Shorts, and recommendation engines dominated nearly every major platform.
Today, most "social media" is:
Earlier systems used demographics, identity, declared interests. Now platforms optimize around:
The system watches what you pause on, replay, share, save, binge-watch.
Behavior beats demographics.
Two people with identical demographics may now inhabit:
weakened.
exploded.
became economically viable.
| Metric | What it tells us |
|---|---|
| 4h 50m | Average daily smartphone time among Indian users, mostly inside social and entertainment apps |
| ~70% | Mobile time concentrated in feeds, video, messaging, creator platforms |
| < 90 min | Average daily TV viewing among urban consumers under 40 |
| −35% | Decline in English newspaper readership in major metros since 2019 |
| 53% → 64% | Premium FMCG digital media allocation, 2022 to 2026 |
| Millions | Of micro-feeds. Consumers no longer share the same media environment |
optimized for
optimizes for
That shift is why creators matter, communities matter, D2C brands emerged, and trust flows through networks.
The trust shift is what we look at next.
Two minutes. A recent premium purchase: headphones, skincare, pet food, a phone, fitness equipment.
Now remove the ads from the story.
What actually changed your mind?
We come back to this when we discuss distributed authority, creator ecosystems, and modern trust networks.
For most of the twentieth century, trust was institutional. Broadcasters, newspapers, banks, doctors, large retailers. A prime-time TV spot bought reach, repetition, and the broadcaster's credibility.
Brands rented trust; they didn't build it.
A pet parent may trust a Labrador-focused creator with 8,000 followers more than a brand campaign that cost a hundred times more.
Earlier:
Now:
The networks are fragmented: thousands of creators, micro-communities, regional ecosystems, recommendation loops, algorithmic feeds.
The work shifts from buying reach to cultivating credibility, sustaining relevance, participating in communities. Organizational, not creative.
One of the biggest mistakes brands make is treating "Indian consumers" as a single digital audience.
| Internet Layer | Dominant Platforms | What Drives Attention | Brand Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urban premium | Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn | Identity and aspiration | Apple, Nike, Forest Essentials |
| Aspirational mass | Shorts, Moj, ShareChat | Upward mobility and value | Mamaearth, Meesho |
| Bharat internet | WhatsApp, ShareChat | Familiarity and community trust | Patanjali, local brands |
| Gen Z culture | Reels, meme pages | Trends and social velocity | Boat, Zudio |
| Knowledge economy | LinkedIn, YouTube, X | Expertise and authority | Zerodha, CRED |
A campaign for English-speaking metro Instagram users may completely fail with Hindi-speaking Tier-2 YouTube audiences. The internet in India is not one culture. It is multiple overlapping attention systems.
People scroll Instagram in idle moments. The feed mixes friends, creators, brands, ads. Corporate-style creative reads as out of place.
The platform premium marketers in India most underestimate. The search box does real work. A 12-minute "best dog food for golden retriever puppy India" video keeps earning views and purchases for years. Long-form lets a creator argue; viewers self-select for depth.
Indian commerce has always been conversational. Premium purchases ran through family, dealers, salespeople. WhatsApp ports that pattern onto a phone.
"Dog food for a 3-month-old labrador."
The flow asks breed, age, allergies, budget. Recommends an SKU. Sends a vet quote and reviews. Offers a free 15-minute video consultation. Drops a one-tap checkout link. Schedules a refill reminder for week 4.
Open rates run 4-5x email. A ₹4,000 first bag becomes a ₹50,000+ LTV customer over 24 months. That retention loop runs through WhatsApp, not Instagram.
Influencer marketing is one column. Platforms are the rows. Most teams confuse the two.
| Paid ads | Organic content | Influencer partnerships | Community / conversation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strong: feed, Reels, Stories ads | Strong: Reels, Stories, posts | Strong: dominant influencer platform | Moderate: Close Friends, Broadcast Channels | |
| YouTube | Strong: pre-roll, mid-roll, Shorts ads | Strong: long-form authority content | Strong: long-form sponsored integration | Weak: comments only |
| Limited: Click-to-WhatsApp ads on Meta | Limited: broadcast lists, Status | Limited: direct partnerships rare | Dominant: the platform's actual purpose | |
| Moderate: sponsored posts, InMail | Strong: thought leadership, articles | Strong: creator economy emerging | Moderate: Groups (uneven quality) |
Most teams shortlist by audience size. The sharper filter: what kind of trust does this creator carry, and does it match the decision your customer is making?
Credentialed authority. Best for premium considered purchases.
Dr. Devanshi Desai (@dr.devanshidesai, ~11K). Certified dog trainer and behaviourist, founder of Wagtoschool, Mumbai. Trust transfers because the credential is verifiable.
Visible practice. Highest trust per impression. Hardest to scout.
A Bangalore dog parent with 8K followers who posts her actual feeding routine, vet visits, breed-specific decisions. Scouted in campaigns. Trust transfers because the practice is lived.
Moral authority. Best for category legitimacy.
CARE / Charlie's Animal Rescue Centre (Bangalore, ~59K). 30+ years rescuing animals. Brand partnerships read as values alignment, not advertising.
Entertainment, aesthetics, vibe. Weak at conversion for considered categories.
POSTO the Zippy Puppy (@postothezippypuppy, ~49K). Bangalore pet model, 80+ brand partnerships. Trust transfers as category vibe, not decision authority.
The most leveraged cell for premium pet food is upper-left. Most of those creators have fewer than 25,000 followers.
Audience size is the wrong first filter. Business overlap is. A celebrity endorses your brand because it pays well and doesn't threaten her primary career. A creator's primary career IS her audience. If she can monetise that audience better through her own product than through your brand fee, she has every incentive to launch one.
You're competing with comedians, memes, and creators for the same attention. The attention budget that used to go to ads now goes to them. Brand content has to compete in that arena.
That distinction (one-off campaign vs continuous brand world) lands differently in premium than mass.
Premium and mass categories work differently at the decision stage.
Ticket size around ₹200. Search, price comparison, marketplace ratings, Reels.
One or two touchpoints suffice.
Reach is the problem to solve.
Ticket size ₹2,000 to ₹50,000. Industry research puts premium journeys at 8 to 12 touchpoints. All of the mass-market plus expert validation (vet, breeder, specialist) and community discussion (WhatsApp groups, forums, breed communities).
Each touchpoint accumulates trust or leaks it.
Touchpoint design is the problem to solve.
Tactics that work in mass categories destroy trust at the premium end. A premium brand running a mass-style discount campaign is dismantling its own pricing power.
Founded 2008. Seventeen years of operation.
Started in Delhi by Rashi Narang. The first product was a custom-made dog bed sold from her home, because Indian retailers stocked imported sizes that did not fit Indian breeds.
| 115+ | Stores across 18+ cities |
| 95+ | Pet spas |
| 13,000+ | Products from 250+ brands |
| ~₹400 cr | Annual revenue run rate |
| ~$75M | Total raised |
| ~350K | Instagram followers, no paid acquisition |
Five operational facts.
Three questions. Work through them in this order.
What HUFT shows about the new marketing economy in a category close to yours.
Trust is built slowly, through community, content, and physical presence feeding each other.
Ninety minutes ago we agreed distributed authority is the new commercial advantage. Then we looked at HUFT building it slowly, deliberately, expensively.
Here is the problem that follows.
HUFT's marketing investment looks messy on a central dashboard. Stores, spas, events, content, community management, educational explainers, rescue partnerships. None produces a clean ROAS number. Some produces no measurable return for years.
We work through the answer next session.
Four claims to take into the evening.
For the time, the attention, and the rigour of the discussion.
See you at the next session.
Aditya V Jain