The new talent agency: A good time to seek fame and fortune online

As the nature of content and creativity is changing, it is forcing traditional talent agencies to evolve and also spawning a whole new variety of them

Prajakta Koli was an intern at Fever 104 FM in 2015 when Sudeep Lahiri of One Digital Entertainment bumped into her. He liked her sassy style and showed a video she had done to Gurpreet Singh, the firm’s co-founder. Singh liked her work. One Digital offered to represent her. Her YouTube channel, MostlySane, became a hit almost immediately and stands at 6.64 million followers now.

Koli has since performed at the YouTube Fan Fest, been on several power lists, done two Netflix series (Mismatched and Comedy Premium League) and is now shooting for Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions’ Jug Jugg Jeeyo. She is also an advocate for girls’ right to education. A 2021 special episode of YouTube’s Creators For Change with Liza Koshy (US), Thembe Mahlaba (South Africa) and Michelle Obama won Koli a Daytime Emmy.

From building her up, diversifying her brand across social causes and films, commercials (like the WhatsApp one on fighting misinformation), web series and now even investing for her, One Digital has been with her throughout. “It began with understanding her personality, her likes and dislikes and then writing her career blueprint,” says Singh.

One Digital began sourcing and identifying creators in 2013. It now has 6,000 creators on board. “For us, the centre is creators,” adds Shabir Momin, co-founder and chief technology officer, One Digital.

Welcome to the new talent agency. As the nature of content and creativity changes, the talent agency is no longer about a 15 per cent business where a star’s manager tries to get him or her the best deal. It is about discovering and handholding established and upcoming creators, influencers, film stars, singers and other talent through the bewildering array of platforms, apps, formats, devices, brands, and figuring out what works for, say, CarryMinati or Rachana Ranade. This is forcing the traditional talent agency to change and is also spawning a whole new breed of them. 

“After 2015, the market has exploded. There are more than 200 influencer agencies. This is the next level where you need to be a creative advisory, help investment, manage money,” says creative entrepreneur and investor Roshan Abbas. “Over the next two or three years, the influencer marketing business alone could be worth around Rs 2,000-3,000 crore. Add the creator commerce and we are looking at a multi-billion-dollar opportunity. Over three years, we have almost doubled our revenue,” says Vijay Subramaniam, group CEO and co-founder, Collective Artists Network (CAA).

CAA, one of the top talent agencies in India with 300 clients, including Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Bhuvan Bam, has expanded its offering with BigBang.Social, a platform that connects agencies to influencers and creators. Its joint venture with tech firm Glance will co-create and operate multiple brands in partnership with CAA’s talent. “Our aim is to build an entertainment pop culture marketplace at scale and be the destination for creators to showcase and monetise their art,” says Subramaniam.

At the other end is The Girlfriend Box, an influencer management firm born in Kanpur in 2020. It handles the digital mandates of Hotstar, ALTBalaji, Netflix and Swiggy, and is associated with more than 100 social media, over-the-top (OTT) and television influencers such as Karan Kundrra and Akancha Sharma. It claims to have hit Rs 120 crore in revenue. Note, one of the largest talent agencies in the business, Matrix, clocked Rs 264 crore in the financial year ending March 2020.

In the last 15 years, India’s Rs 1,614-billion media and entertainment business has grown at an average of over 13 per cent. This has pushed the demand for talent up by 200-300 per cent — a gap that CAA (earlier Kwan), Matrix, Bling, Spice, Tulsea and a whole lot of talent agencies filled. They brought professionalism and helped talent capture the value it created. Since 2018, video and music OTTs and short-video apps brought in a whole new set of celebrities — called creators and influencers. YouTube alone has over 40,000 channels with more than 100,000 subscribers each. The fame machine then has got bigger and creates more celebrities than ever. This needs new thinking.

“Earlier, agencies helped with bookings and films; now they are shaping their (talent’s) whole life,” says Momin. “The democratisation of content, access and technology has meant a proliferation of consumer brands and a healthy startup ecosystem. There is a whole new monetisation opportunity for talent, and existing talent agencies can’t cater to that,” reckons Vijay Singh, CEO, Sony Entertainment Talent Ventures India (SETVI). The newly formed joint venture between Sony Music and Sony Pictures offers actors, musicians, sportspersons, gamers and content creators opportunities for co-ventures, metaverse solutions, brand partnerships and management. “Talent has looked upon itself as labour and made money putting in hours. We are saying, ‘Let us make you wealthier; help you make the right investment and monitor it for 4-5 years’,” says Vijay Singh. SETVI has identified 20 venture opportunities and is looking for talent that best fits it.

This 360-degree approach to services is the first thing that defines the new talent agency.

The second, as Momin points out, is the level of technology being a talent advisory involves. About 18 months ago, One Digital signed on a famous cricketer. “When we analysed his data, we realised that while he is known nationally, there was very little engagement with younger people,” Momin explains. Over eight months, the One Digital team worked to make fun videos, jokes and conversations with younger audiences, pushing engagement up by over 40 per cent. The investments it has made in everything — from data and machine learning to blockchain technology – helps, says Momin, adding “We tell all our creators — don’t sell the catalogue. Prajakta owns all her content. So, if she wants to do NFTs (non-fungible tokens), she can do millions.”

That brings this to the third and final hallmark of the new talent agency — the talent can be from anywhere: Bareilly, Kochi, Aizawl or Srinagar. The new talent agency is not hung up on the big stars only. It actively seeks and promotes upcoming talent, making for a healthier and more equitable ecosystem. CAA’s BigBang.Social, for instance, has 13,000 influencers who the agencies are matched with based on the brief.

This, then, is a good time to seek fame and fortune online.

The emerging ecosystem

As talent agencies change, so does the ecosystem of services around it. Money App was launched in December 2021 with a simple premise — many new creators who may be good at, say, gardening or cooking do not understand how to manage money. Money App helps them figure things out without the help of a chartered accountant. “What is PAN, GST, KYC, TDS — if you earn Rs 100, you get Rs 85, why? Democratisation of distribution has happened but democratisation of revenue has not. This is for people who are on the cusp of revenue generation. We connect them to financial institutions,” says Fayyaz Hussain, co-founder and CEO, Money App, which has 1,000 creators on board and hopes to get more of the 100 million-plus that India has.