With the widespread use of internet and emergence of social media, the world has been much more connected. It has revolutionized the way humans interact and communicate. Now, the communication happens at a lightening fast speed with the capacity to influence societies and businesses like no one has ever thought before.
This has resulted in the emergence of a new era of social media influencers and the rise of influencer marketing platform. CEO & Founder of Mad Influence, Mr. Gautam Madhavan talks to MediaCatalyst about emergence of Mad Influence as a leading influencer marketing platforms and the recent trends.
Here are the excerpts from the interaction:
Mad Influence works with over 10000+ Influencers across India. How has the journey of Mad Influence started?
I was the Director of Global Partnership Summit 2017 held in Delhi, had around 3000 delegates from 25 countries where my department was responsible for 1500 of them and ten speakers. The event made me realize that if there can be 1500 odd people coming from various countries to witness ten people just because of their influence and impact then why not create an army of 10000 influential people with me and impact the world? It was a Mad idea, so I named us Mad Influence.
I started this company two years ago on 1st January 2018. Mad Influence is a complete 360-degree influencer marketing company. We have over 10,000+ registered influencers pan-India from various categories like food, travel, tech, automobiles, fashion, etc. in our network. We help the brands in selecting the right influencers, design the marketing campaign, and execute them using influencers aiming to be the largest influencer network company in the world.
There are several influencer marketing platforms. How is Mad Influence different from those?
We are a hybrid company that means that we work both ways – for brands and influencers. When a brand comes to us, we not only understand their needs and help them execute with the right set of influencers but also give them the additional support for production, content creativity, and media amplification. With the right set of tools for impact measurement, sentiment analysis, and retargeting of the audience, we can proudly say we come as a 360-degree for any brand solution that is out in the market. For Influencers, we act as an incubator where we have incubated over 300+ Influencers / Celebrities such as Surabhi Samriddhi (ChinkyMinky), Aadil Khan, Suraj Pal Singh, and many more. We help them with producing their content, maintain brand relations and communications, support them with their PR apart from bringing basic brand deals to them.
How has the Coronavirus pandemic impacted the influencer marketing segment, in general, and Mad Influence, in particular?
Lockdown has had a huge negative impact on many businesses, the uncertainty of the treatment and prevention of the virus has forced brands to reduce their marketing spends and take every step with greater caution. During COVID-19, product marketing strategies in the influencer marketing segment have become more effective and the brands have used influencer marketing approach to reach their TG.
The unprecedented time required most brands to focus on changing their communications to support the current situation and to create equal awareness among their customers. People want trust and assurance. Impact marketing always aims to provide contact campaigns/activities. Given the situation and the difficulty, it seems to be the best way forward.
The recent ban on Chinese Apps, like Tik Tok, has impacted influencers and their earnings. Your thoughts on this?
There is always a plan B. TikTok has given fame and recognition to many new content creators out there which has also enabled them to be independent, explore new platforms, and create different forms of content at all times. Now TikTokers have settled in for new short video platforms like MX Takatak, Sharechat MOJ, Triller, Josh, etc., and these platforms are paying them well to sustain their daily needs.
Mad Influencer has served big brands. Would you like to talk about anyone campaign that has been close to you and your team?
I would say Emami Navratna Hair Oil Campaign which was kickstarted by Salman Khan. It was a massive pan-India campaign where we received over 40,000+ participants from all over India through videos where the objective was to promote the concept of champi for your hair. We saw an overall increase in brand awareness by 11% and brand recall by 26.24%. This campaign generated a total of 2.75 crores of viewership across India.
Given the current scenarios, even with limited resources, influencers are competing with Bollywood celebrities and some of them have been able to make it big in TVCs as well. What do you think? Are celebrities feeling the competition?
I believe that celebrities are not content creators but content creators can be celebrities. But post the covid situation, even celebrities have started to feel the importance of brand presence online since there is a lot of money which they cannot earn otherwise.