India’s film marketing playbook is undergoing a structural transformation as creator-led digital ecosystems emerge as the primary drivers of discovery, engagement, and cultural relevance. Across platforms and meme communities, creators are no longer simply amplifying movie promotions—they are shaping how films enter everyday conversation.
According to ChanaJor OTT, creator-driven movie conversations in India now operate at a massive scale, generating millions of posts and billions of cumulative impressions annually. This reflects a decisive shift away from trailer-first marketing towards participatory, community-led discovery models.
“Creator-driven movie conversations in India have reached mass scale, running into millions of posts and billions of cumulative impressions annually across Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Moj, ShareChat, and meme ecosystems. This volume reflects a clear shift in audience behaviour—from passive consumption of trailers to participatory discovery, where audiences engage through memes, reactions, recreations, reviews, and cultural commentary. Movies today don’t trend because they are announced; they trend because creators make them part of everyday digital conversations, especially in vernacular and hyperlocal contexts,” says Mr. Pratap Jain, Founder and CEO, ChanaJor OTT.
The shift has been accelerated by sheer content volume. With more than 1,500 films releasing every year across languages, reliance on celebrity-led promotions is proving increasingly inefficient and difficult to scale.
“With 1,500+ films releasing every year across languages, celebrity-led promotions alone are no longer scalable or sufficient. Distributed creator networks have effectively become the baseline marketing layer—not an add-on. Instead of one high-cost celebrity pushing a uniform message, brands and studios now activate hundreds of creators across genres, languages, and cities, ensuring sustained visibility before and after release. At ChanaJor OTT, especially for emerging or digital-first content, creator-led discovery often outperforms celebrity bursts in terms of recall, relatability, and cost efficiency,” Jain notes.
From a performance lens, micro and mid-sized creators are emerging as the most influential cohort. Together, they now drive over half of all movie-related posts and engagement, largely due to their credibility, posting frequency, and cultural alignment with audiences.
“Micro and mid-sized creators now drive over 50% of movie-related posts and engagements because they operate with trust, frequency, and cultural proximity. Their audiences view them as peers rather than promoters, which results in higher engagement rates, stronger comment sentiment, and organic sharing. Unlike limited high-profile collaborations that peak quickly, a network of smaller creators sustains momentum across weeks—critical for films competing in crowded release windows,” he adds.
Marketing strategies are also evolving towards modular, data-led creator spends, with a growing emphasis on regional and hyperlocal ecosystems. Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, in particular, are proving decisive in building early traction and word-of-mouth momentum.
“Modern movie marketing is shaped by modular creator spends, where budgets are distributed intelligently across regions, languages, and creator tiers. Regional creator ecosystems—especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities—play a decisive role in early traction and word-of-mouth, often determining whether a film breaks out nationally. City-wise engagement patterns allow marketers to identify where content is resonating culturally, not just numerically, enabling real-time optimisation. For platforms like ChanaJor OTT, this approach helps build cultural relevance before scale, ensuring films feel discovered, not advertised,” Jain says.
As the Indian entertainment industry becomes more cost-conscious and performance-driven, ChanaJor OTT believes creator-led marketing will continue to move from an experimental tactic to a foundational layer of film promotion—particularly for digital-first and emerging content competing in crowded release windows.
