Routed Media Builds for the Next Phase of India’s Creator Economy

The democratisation of content has broken down geographical and linguistic barriers, allowing a creator from a small town to build a national audience without moving to a metro or conforming to mainstream narratives. As the next wave of creator growth emerges from Bharat, Routed Media sees regional relevance as more than translating a campaign. It requires an understanding of local  humour, cultural nuances and community behaviour, supported by insight into who consumes a creator’s content and why.

For brands, the conversation is shifting from how many views a creator can deliver to whether a partnership builds trust, influences consideration and contributes to business outcomes. Routed Media brings together influencer marketing, music, meme marketing, production and intellectual property development, selecting formats and distribution according to the challenge each brief presents.

For the FIFA World cup launch campaign, a rapid turnaround and changes to streaming and pricing required an approach that could build awareness while reassuring viewers about the improved viewing experience. Routed Media deployed football creators, Gen Z influencers, regional voices, mega creators and celebrities, alongside match-led content seeding across meme pages and football communities. Running from June to July, the campaign engaged 164 creators and amplified content across 3,814 pages, generating over 3 mn subscribers for Z5 during the most testing matchday timings.

For Zomato, the objective was to tell delivery partners’ stories from their own perspective. Routed Media brought together composer Amit Trivedi and lyricist Mago, supervising the creative process and producing a brand song in Hindi and Tamil. Digital distribution supported the song’s reach and discoverability, keeping the lived experiences of delivery partners at the centre of the narrative.

Its Durga Puja film Aagomoni for TATA.CARS drew on Bengali music, family rituals and a mother-daughter reunion to build emotional affinity. Featuring the red Sierra as the central vehicle alongside the wider portfolio, the film integrated cars into journeys home for the festival. It was distributed to internal teams and trade partners, published on the brand’s regional social handles and screened at Red FM’s “Dugga Dugga” event.

Technology supports this approach by informing creator discovery, audience evaluation, content design and campaign optimisation. The focus extends beyond follower counts to audience demographics, geography, language, engagement quality, content affinity and brand relevance. Routed Media’s approach to cultural intelligence powered by technology is intended to improve decisions and visibility into performance, content, campaign economics, deliverables and outcomes while keeping human creativity and cultural understanding central.

Its client portfolio includes ZEE5, JioStar, Godrej, Mother Dairy, Malabar, Lenskart, Bajaj, Zomato, INOX Air Products and Titan, among others.

Anandini Goenka, Co-founder, Routed Media, said:

“For the longest time, access to national audiences was concentrated among a relatively small set of creators, languages and markets. That is changing. The democratisation of content means that a creator from a smaller town, speaking their own language, can build an audience across the country without losing their cultural identity. We believe the next wave of creator growth will come from Bharat. For brands, the opportunity lies in understanding these audiences at a much deeper level. At Routed, our focus is on combining cultural intelligence with technology and audience insights to break language barriers and make creator-led marketing more relevant, inclusive and effective.”

Kirthi Shridhar Rai, Co-founder, Routed Media, said: “Too often, the industry starts with the creator and then looks for a role for the brand. We believe it should be the other way around. Start with the business problem, understand the cultural context, and then build the idea—whether that means creators, memes, music, entertainment or an original content property. Having helped build Zee Music Company from the ground up and worked across acquisition and marketing for 1000+ film and music campaigns, I’ve seen how the right content can move beyond visibility to shape conversations, influence choices and create lasting relevance. At Routed, we’re bringing that entertainment-first mindset to brand building. We don’t believe in forcing every brief into the influencer marketing playbook; we believe in finding the right cultural solution for the problem a brand needs to solve.”

Alongside its brand-facing work, Routed Media is focused on talent management and creator development across languages, genres and markets. Through content strategy, brand partnerships, original IPs and cross-platform growth, it aims to help creators diversify revenue beyond one-off paid collaborations, including opportunities in social commerce and knowledge commerce. Its long-term vision is to build sustainable creator businesses, connecting brands with culturally relevant voices while giving creators more ways to grow.