Why Kavya Karnatac said no to an Ambani wedding collab

Kavya Karnatac has been creating interesting content around Indian geography and culture for a while now, and the highlight of her social media career has been the National Creator award that she was honoured with earlier this year. The creator acknowledges that she charges around Rs 3 lakh per brand collab, and has explained why in detail in a LinkedIn post. Last week, however, she posted a detailed account of why she turned down a Rs 3.6 lakh deal that was part of ‘Ambani’s PR activation’.

Kavya says she usually does 6 branded pieces out of 30 pieces of original content she puts out every month. She says that she was approached to ‘discuss how Ambani’s wedding would boost the Indian economy’. The offer far exceeded her usual rate of around Rs 3 lakh, and the creator’s parents too urged her to accept it. However, Kavya Karnatac, who boasts 1.6 million Instagram followers and 700K YouTube subscribers, declined the lucrative offer. Her reasons?

‘I said no to the Ambani wedding’

She didn’t want to be part of an ‘overwhelming crowd promoting the same narrative’ (if you have been bombarded with Ambani wedding content this past week, you now know where most of it was coming from). She says she didn’t want to dilute her own brand’s uniqueness. Quite rightly, Kavya pointed out that audiences can discern between paid and organic content, and she wanted to retain her audience’s trust in her. A Tata Institute of Social Sciences alumnus, Kavya says she believes in strong ethics, and the Ambani wedding that conformed to all conventions of caste, class, gender and religion, would have been misleading to her followers who admire her values.

Kavya Karnatac – a creator who lives by her ethics

In her post, Kavya Karnatac has admitted that saying no to such deals can be challenging and that she could do so because she is at a stage in her career that allows her to make such choices. In the earlier post where she explains her charges for brand collabs, Kavya said she has a team of 10 persons she has to maintain, and that she charges a premium for her content to maintain value in the creative industry, and to enable young creators to make a living out of it. Apart from brands like The Coca Cola company, ITC and Google, Kavya acknowledges that she has done collabs for Vantara, the Ambani venture in Gujarat. She however said she did so since the project aligned with her values.

Do you think we will get to see Kavya Karnatac being approached for any venture that’s promoted by the Ambanis henceforth? Or do you feel Kavya will now emerge as a beacon for young creators who can sift the grain from the chaff while accepting brand collabs? Kavya may have taken a hit in short term gain and made a foe of the most powerful Indian family in the bargain, but the number of plaudits and encouraging words she has evoked on her LinkedIn post ensure that Brand Kavya has established itself a notch firmer with this resolve.