Scaling With Soul: How Brands Win in the Many Indias

The next billion won’t settle for generic.

Brands in India are already getting sharper about how they reach people. But as digital moves deeper into Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, the next big opportunity is to understand what makes these audiences tick. How do they discover brands? What kind of content feels relevant? Which languages, formats, and channels actually work?

The next phase of growth belong to those willing to get a little more curious, and a lot more local.

Mind the Growth Gap

Redseer estimates that new online shopper acquisition is now shifting decisively towards Tier 2+ markets, with the annual transacting users reaching 320–340 million in FY26. So yes, the next big growth story is already moving beyond the metros.

The tricky part? Many of these consumers may be meeting the brand, or even the category, for the first time. That gap between the consumer who has no awareness of you today and the customer you want tomorrow is where the real growth game is played. And nowhere is it more urgent than in Tier 2 and Tier 3 India where the majority of India’s e-commerce growth is happening.

The Cold Start Problem: Building Curiosity Without a Frame of Reference

In a metro, you can assume context. If you launch a specialty coffee brand in Bengaluru, you’re entering a city where people already know what an Aeropress is, what single-origin means, and why freshly-roasted costs more than a jar off a shelf. The consumer has a reference point. Your brand just has to only compete within it.

In Tier 2+ cities that context doesn’t exist yet. You are creating a category from scratch.

Luckily today, discovery is instant. A consumer in a Tier-3 market can watch an international product launch, follow global trends, compare reviews, and make informed decisions within minutes.

So how do you make a consumer curious about something they’ve never heard of? Creators. Celebrity influence has dropped to just ~3%, while 23% of consumers trust creator recommendations. This was key in overturning the long-held beliefs around aspiration-led advertising in non-metro India. It reinforced the importance of relatability, demonstration, and lived experience.

Blue Tokai did exactly this by first educating consumers about coffee’s origin, quality and brewing methods. It then made specialty coffee easier to enjoy regularly, whether at a neighbourhood café, through home-brewing products or during other everyday consumption moments.

The Brand & Performance Ballet

Brand building cannot be the emergency button brands press when performance slows down. People are exposed to thousands of messages every day, and they are not swayed easily. They are increasingly informed, research-driven, and trust-led demanding proof, relevance, and reliability from brands.

Memory needs to be built across moments, contexts, and repeated exposure: at home, while scrolling, during a commute, while comparing options, or when a need suddenly appears. It gives people a reason to remember you before you ask them to convert.

Deal Seeking is Real, Don’t Make it the Whole Story

Deal-seeking is not new in India. Big sales are no longer reserved for festive seasons either. Just look at Amazon. Offers now pop up throughout the year because platforms know people are happy to wait, compare and buy when the deal feels right.

But here’s what brands can get wrong: value-consciousness is not the same as price-sensitivity. Redseer’s festive analysis shows Tier 2+ spending growing faster than metros, with more than half of new luxury shoppers now coming from non-metros. These consumers are willing to spend and want to feel what they are buying is worth it.

The problem starts when the deal becomes the reason to buy. If every purchase needs an offer attached, you are not building preference. You are teaching people to wait for the next discount.

More Than a Good Deal

Take Nykaa. When it started, they brought context. Reviews, tutorials, ingredient explanations, a way to understand what you were buying and why it was worth it. Morgan Stanley estimates that Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets now contribute around 60% of Nykaa’s beauty revenues. Nykaa’s focus on improving affordability, awareness and accessibility is aimed at attracting first-time beauty users, Gen Z, and aspirational consumers in Tier-2+ markets where demand for premium products is steadily increasing. The play here is democratising the experience of beauty.

Minimalist did something similar in skincare. The Minimalist brand strategy broke nearly every rule in Indian skincare. No celebrity endorsements, no “chemical-free” claims, no Bollywood face on the bottle. Instead: ingredient percentages printed on the front, with clinical data backing every product. In a market where most skincare felt opaque and aspirational, Minimalist treated consumers as intelligent enough to understand what they were putting on their face. That trust signal “we’re showing you exactly what’s in this and why” turned out to be far more powerful than any discount.

Known, Trusted, Chosen: The Zudio Model

Zudio might be the cleanest example of what it looks like to scale with soul into Tier 2 and Tier 3 India. The strategy was deceptively simple. Zudio focused on affordable pricing, fast trend availability, and physical store presence, especially in smaller cities. What Zudio understood and what many brands miss is that in a Tier 2 city, a store opening is a cultural moment. The first time a recognisable brand comes to your neighbourhood, it’s a signal that you matter as a consumer. That your city is being seen. The brand earns goodwill before anyone has tried on a single item.

boAt cracked this in consumer electronics by going the other direction: no stores, just stories. Instead of positioning itself as a “gadget brand,” it called itself a “lifestyle brand.” From day one, BoAt built its world around influencers, storytellers, and UGC: people who could make audiences feel something rather than just see another ad. A gym influencer showcasing sweat-resistant earphones in Nagpur isn’t an ad. It’s evidence. It’s someone who could be your neighbour saying: this is worth it, and here’s why.

The job is to be clear about what your brand should mean to the people you want to reach and then show up consistently enough for that meaning to stick.

The “Here’s How It Works” Moment

There is a specific, underused format that does more heavy lifting than almost anything else in new markets: the demonstration. Not a TV commercial. Not a discount banner. A real person, in a real setting, showing how a product fits into their actual life.

When Blue Tokai’s creators walked someone through brewing a pour-over at home, they were selling a morning ritual that feels like it belongs to you.

22% of Tier 2 and Tier 3 consumers are influenced by word-of-mouth. 43% of Tier 3 consumers actively verify brands via official websites before purchasing, while 32% factor customer service interactions into their decision-making; positioning service and transparency as critical pre-purchase trust signals.

This is the consumer brands are dealing with. Someone who watches a creator explain why a product is worth it, checks the website, reads the reviews, maybe asks in a WhatsApp group, and then decides. The job of brand content in Tier 2 and Tier 3 is to build enough curiosity and enough trust that when the moment comes, the consumer already knows the answer.

Winning the many Indias

India operates as 28+ distinct markets rather than a single homogeneous consumer base, with regional cultural factors outweighing national trends in consumer decisions. The brands that win at this are the ones that don’t create one piece of generic “regional content.” They find the specific stories, the specific moments, the specific creators who make the brand feel native to that market.

The brands that win Tier 2 and Tier 3 will do the warming-up work early: building familiarity, relevance and trust before the category gets crowded. Curiosity earned early becomes a moat and once people understand you and feel connected to you, competitors have a much harder job catching up. That is where the “soul” comes in. Brands need to give people a clear reason to connect with them, remember them and choose them.

This article was originally posted on Campaign India