MAM
World’s first social media loyalty platform ‘Brandie’ comes to India
MUMBAI: After a successful run in the US and homeland Sweden, Brandie, world’s first crowd marketing platform, has entered India in partnership with 11 carefully selected innovative Indian brands. Brandie is built on the principle that consumers already endorse their favourite brands on social media and the brands can now reward them to encourage and build a network of brand loyalists on the way.
Playing on the concept of word-of-mouth marketing, the founders of Brandie have developed a disruptive model where consumers promote the brand they love on social media by posting pictures and earn rewards for it.
Brandie co-founder Pranav Kosuri said, “We believe that brand loyalty can only be achieved by empowering the consumers and engaging with them on a direct level. Our platform allows brands to directly incentivise and engage with their audience in a way which is meaningful. This sets us apart from discount platforms and other influencer marketing players.”
He further added, “India is an exciting market for us. The consumer behaviour here is very different from that of US and Sweden, our other markets. The one-month beta test gave us a lot of insights which we included into the platform before the official launch.”
Brandie has been launched with 11 carefully selected Indian brands after a month’s Beta testing, including The Bowl Company, Godrej Nature’s Basket, Raw Pressery, Anand Ahuja’s Bhaane, Pipa Bella, Le15 Patisserie by Pooja Dhingra, Olive Bar and Kitchen, Yerha, FancyPants, and Bengaluru FC.
During the one-month beta test, a closed community of four thousand users posted 15000 photos and generated 3.9 million impressions and 400,000 likes which resulted in more than 6000 rewards being claimed. The testing demonstrated an instant increase in revenue by 30 per cent and a reduced marketing spend of about 40 per cent by the brands.
The app is available on iOS and Android. Users either need to be invited to the platform by the brands or they can choose the brand they like and request to join their reward programme. The platform is channel agnostic and allows users to post on all popular social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Tumblr etc. Brandie’s photo recognition tool makes sure that the content posted by users is related to the brand, basis which users are rewarded points which enable them to get non-cash meaningful rewards from the brands like VIP access to matches by Bengaluru FC, limited edition jewellery from Pipa Bella, exclusive invites to future events by Bhaane and more. In the next six months, Brandie plans to onboard 10 more brands on the platform.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
