SPEAKING AT THE Pitch CMO Spotlight Session titled “Attention is the New Currency: Building Brands at the Speed of Culture,” Yagnesh Ravi, India Ad Solutions Lead at Snap Inc., said marketers need to rethink their strategies to succeed in the attention economy. Ravi highlighted Snapchat as a platform where brands can participate in audience conversations during the Indian Premier League.
Ravi noted that Gen Z is now the largest generation in India, with an estimated population of about 377 million people. Over the next decade, this cohort is expected to make up nearly 50 per cent of the country’s workforce, significantly reshaping the consumer landscape.
Their economic influence is already considerable. According to Snap’s presentation, Gen Z currently drives around $930 billion in consumer spending in India, a figure projected to reach $2 trillion by 2035. In certain categories, such as footwear, their spending share can be as high as 50 per cent. However, Ravi emphasised that this same audience is also among the most difficult for brands to engage.
He pointed out that the average Gen Z consumer now watches more than 400 videos a day, contributing to what he described as “massively fast attention decay”. Research commissioned by Snap in partnership with Lumen Research also shows that younger audiences tend to abandon advertisements faster than older demographics.
A central theme of Ravi’s presentation was the need for multi-format campaigns. Rather than repeating a single video advertisement, he advised brands to distribute their messaging across a range of creative formats to sustain audience attention.
Cricket, meanwhile, continues to serve as a major cultural touchpoint for younger audiences. “About 85 per cent of Gen Z users on Snapchat follow cricket or the IPL, which is nearly twice the affinity seen for other sports,” Ravi said. According to the company’s data, Snapchat users are also 13 per cent more likely to be frequent sports viewers compared with non-users.
Although cricket viewership remains largely television-led, Ravi highlighted the growing trend of multi-screen digital behaviour during matches. “Ninety per cent of viewers are second-screening while watching the match,” he said. However, he noted that this activity is largely conversational rather than passive browsing, positioning Snapchat as a social layer around live sports viewing rather than a competing screen.
Sports personalities are also increasingly active on the platform as creators. Indian cricketers such as Arshdeep Singh have emerged as Snap Stars, sharing behind-the-scenes content and interacting directly with fans.
Ravi also underlined the platform’s scale in India as a key factor attracting advertisers. Snapchat currently has more than 250 million monthly active users in the country, including over 130 million daily active users. The audience is heavily skewed towards younger demographics, with around 90 per cent of users aged between 13 and 34.
