Anastasia Braitsik stands at the intersection of data and creativity, guiding global brands through the volatile waters of the creator economy. With a background deeply rooted in SEO and high-level analytics, she brings a clinical yet visionary perspective to the current debate sparked by the decision of brands to pivot away from traditional influencer marketing. As the industry grapples with the transparency of “renting” attention versus owning an audience, Anastasia helps us decode whether we are witnessing a fundamental shift in strategy or simply a necessary evolution in how we measure success in a fragmented digital landscape.
How do you distinguish between a failing marketing channel and a failure in attribution, especially when founders feel they are just “renting attention” without clear returns?
The frustration felt by founders like Kiran Shah is a symptom of a deeper measurement crisis rather than a flaw in the influencer model itself. When a brand decides to shut down its influencer budget to hire two in-house creators, they are reacting to the opacity of the “rented” audience, but they might be misdiagnosing the problem. As experts like Ashish Singh have noted, the fix is often not to cut the budget entirely, but to track every rupee of it through more robust frameworks. We see many brands struggling to connect creator campaigns with actual business outcomes because their measurement systems are too weak to capture the full customer journey. If you cannot see the direct line between a creator’s post and a conversion, it is easy to assume the channel is broken, but in reality, the attribution model is simply failing to account for the complexity of modern discovery.
Many brands currently treat in-house content and influencer collaborations as an either-or choice, but why is it essential to view them as complementary products?
We have to look at these two elements as “chalk and cheese,” as Varun Oberoi famously put it—both are essential, yet they serve entirely different nutritional purposes for a brand’s health. Owned content is a long-term investment that compounds over time into a controlled asset, whereas influencer marketing provides immediate, high-velocity access to audiences that a brand could never reach on its own. If you rely solely on in-house talent, you are essentially talking to your own echo chamber and missing out on the organic trust built within external communities. The most successful strategies I see are those that use influencers to bridge the gap into new demographics while using internal creators to cultivate deep-rooted brand loyalty. Treating them as substitutes rather than partners is a strategic mistake that limits a brand’s total reach and growth potential.
What are the hidden risks for a brand that decides to replace a diverse network of external influencers with a small, specialized in-house team?
The most immediate danger is the stagnation of audience diversity, a point that Anoo Bhuyan has quite rightly highlighted. While having a dedicated internal team provides consistency, it can inadvertently create a creative silo that fails to resonate with newer, more diverse segments of the market. Influencers act as cultural translators who can take a brand’s message and adapt it for specific subcultures in ways an in-house team simply cannot replicate. By narrowing your focus to just a couple of internal voices, you risk your content becoming repetitive and losing the “discovery” element that drives top-of-funnel growth. To maintain a competitive edge, brands must continue to broaden their creator mix rather than retreating into the safety of a small, controlled environment.
If the medium itself isn’t the problem, what specific tactical changes should brands implement to move beyond promotional content that feels like conventional advertising?
The execution of these campaigns needs a radical overhaul because modern audiences are incredibly quick to sniff out anything that feels like a “paid ad.” Instead of repeatedly working with the same high-profile names, brands should be building a much wider mix that includes macro, micro, and nano influencers, as well as community pages. Gautam Madhavan suggests that the real power lies in producing a high volume of diverse content and then using paid media to amplify only the absolute best-performing assets. We need to move away from the “post and pray” method and start treating creator content as a dynamic laboratory for what actually works. By diversifying the creator pool and focusing on authentic storytelling rather than rigid scripts, brands can turn “rented” attention into genuine engagement.
How is the rise of quick commerce platforms like Blinkit or Zepto changing where discovery actually happens and what does that mean for social media strategy?
The shopping landscape has shifted so dramatically that for many brands, the moment of discovery now happens directly within the search bars of platforms like Blinkit or Zepto. As Palal Bhattacharjee pointed out, when consumers are looking for immediate solutions, social media content becomes just one of several assets driving that crucial repeat purchase. This means your social media strategy cannot exist in a vacuum; it must be tightly integrated with where the transaction actually occurs. If a customer sees an influencer’s video and then goes straight to a quick commerce app to buy, the social platform might not get the credit, further complicating the attribution problem. Brands need to realize that their social presence is often a supportive layer for discovery that concludes in these high-speed retail environments.
What is your forecast for the creator economy?
I believe we are heading toward a much more disciplined era where the “Wild West” of influencer spending is replaced by a hybrid model of “own and rent.” Brands will increasingly follow the lead of those who share their data transparently, quarter by quarter, to see if shifting budgets in-house actually delivers the promised ROI or if it leads to a decline in brand awareness. We will see a surge in sophisticated analytics tools designed specifically to bridge the gap between social engagement and quick commerce conversions, making the “rented” audience much easier to value. Ultimately, the brands that win will be those that stop viewing influencers as a simple advertising channel and start seeing them as essential partners in a multi-layered ecosystem. The focus will shift from reach for the sake of reach to building sustainable, measurable communities across both owned and external platforms.
