How Apple and OnePlus are using different influencer strategies with celebrities in India

Influencer marketing is the most organic approach used by every leading brand online today.  Pepsi, Flipkart, Nike, OnePlus and many more brands, are using platforms such as Instagram for not only building engagement and increasing their follower base but also to segregate and tap into the right target group by getting the right influencers onboard. 

This is a fast emerging trend where leading brands now prefer paying and spending money on bringing celebs, artists, bloggers and models with great influential capabilities to be the face of their brand online. 

Brands nowadays don’t just have a single face as a brand ambassador but prefer having multiple known faces to do the job. 

The OnePlus strategy 

Electronic systems maker OnePlus has been following this trend of using an array of celebrities since the past two years now by using artists and celebrities from the television industry to help tap the economy-minded range of users. They have a very well segregated strategy using faces from the TV daily soap industry, actors from Bollywood who are not from the ‘A’ listed category and TikTok artists. 

This is because OnePlus's likely target audience is everyday TV viewers who are either homemakers or those who would prefer buying devices that are pocket-friendly yet top-notch with strong smartphone features, especially cameras. 

Just to name a few influencers they have been tapped recently for OnePlus 7T promotions are Avneet Kaur, Nora Fatehi, Neha Sharma, Awez Darbar and Ritika Badiani. 

The unusual Apple celebrity approach for India

Traditionally, Apple has always been away from marketing that involves having a face or brand ambassadors. Apple's belief has been that its main selling point is the brand name and their product. 

For the first time in India, Apple has been seen participating in the digital trend by bringing in influencers onboard but still keeping their brand at a superior level and not competing with others. Therefore they brought in all the ‘A’ listed actors from Bollywood to be their influencers since the kind of target group they cater to demands luxury and class.

They took the newly launched iPhone 11pro as an entry into the influencer marketing race by bringing the biggest names of Bollywood like Shahrukh Khan, Farhan Akhtar, Karisma Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Gauri Khan and Sonam Kapoor.

Shabbir Hussain is co-founder and creative head, Hats-Off Digital Pvt Ltd.