Manihaaris & Viral Marketing

• The Manihaaris form a robust viral marketing system where they recommend complementary products to the customers.
  

• The rural customers listen to the Manihaaris in order to choose from an array of products.
  

• Manihaari Bazaar popularly known as Manihaari Lane, is located in centre of Chowk Bazaar of Banda.

• Popular among the women folk for shopping of Cosmetic Products and Chuddis (Bangles). Thus Market's Economy is totally dependent on women.

• This Market was set up 80 years ago during British Period. It was dominated by Manihaars (a class of people who are mainly small scale home made goods sellers). Thus the market was named by British Rulers as Manihaari Lane.

• Started with Few shops, Market has now grown to a big one. The total no. of shops has reached to about 80 where goods worth about Rs. 1/2 million are sold everyday.

• The Market has once changed its palce from chowk bazzar to Ramlila Ground during Emergency Period in India. But soon after, it was brought back to its original location i.e. Chowk Bazaar. Since then it is in Chowk Bazaar.

• Both Hindus and Muslims have equal partnership in this market.

Please comment more on them if information is available!

Viral Marketing: Trickle In Approach

The Viral Brand is created mainly through the reach and ability of the influentials to communicate about the same to the Mass. So for effective Viral Marketing, it is important to target the right influentials.

Even if influentials are several times as influential as a normal person, they have little impact beyond their own immediate neighborhood.
Hence brand idea or a trend ends up getting diluted as it travels farther out of the influentials’ control. So, while the idea might gather more of a reach, it diminishes in traction and is eventually outlived by fresher, newer ideas that demand consumers’ attention.


So, instead of “trickling down,” can we “trickle in” and keep the influentials feeding off each other’s discoveries, which will in turn affect the mass?

One clear example of a brand that seems to be playing in this territory is Firefox. Targeting these very influentials helped (Mozilla) Firefox to “trickle in” its efforts to preserve meaningful choice and promote innovation on the internet. By targeting the tech-savvy mavens, Firefox soon started gaining in popularity.

Today, viral marketing is based completely on a scatter gun approach, and maybe that’s why we cannot predict what is going to happen. We need strategies that depend on being able to measure things very well.

This gives credence to the Peter Drucker quote, “You cannot manage what you cannot control, and you cannot control what you cannot measure.”

THE BRAND EXPERIENCE & SUSTENANCE MODEL

This model has been built to better understand the various parameters that are involved in the road to the creation of brand sustenance. Every parameter is influenced by the consumers and their experience acts as the bridge between building a brand from inception to its sustenance through brand loyalty.

The variables influence each of the parameters and determine the success and future of the brand. The major drivers of the model; Brand Experience and Brand Ambassador are determined by brand usage, indirect experience, brand performance; and Viral Marketing, B2B-B2C-C2C, Relationships respectively. Relationships for instance are the collaborations and partnerships that firms have with their clients and other complementary businesses.