Social media loyalty app Brandie taps brands to reach out to local users

Sweden based Brandie Technologies has partnered with brands such as Godrej Nature’s Basket, Bengaluru FC and Raw Pressery juices as it looks to tap discerning users in India, a market in which it sees an opportunity to grow its userbase.

Pranav Kosuri, co-founder, Brandie told ET that India was an attractive market for the app given the number of smartphones and the tech savvy young population.

“We also see people in India like to post photos of their new brand purchases and engage with the brands they love on social media, so it made sense to launch the app here,” he said.

The app takes the idea of influencer marketing on social media and turns it on its head by shifting the focus from having a large number of followers to smaller private groups. “It’s about being more influential in a smaller network of people,” said Douglas Andersson, co-founder, Brandie.

Users who opt in for the programme would be rewarded based on their social media shares related to the brand. The rewards would typically be access to exclusive products or deals, depending on the nature of the brand. The focus would be more on the quality of the content shared, rather than quantity. This would be determined by a mix of the machine learning and photo recognition algorithms, user community and the partner brands.

Over the next few months, Brandie would onboard a few more brands who have a pan-India presence, with the focus being on brands that already had a strong online community.

While the development team is based out of Sweden, the company has set up offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru to manage its India operations. Brandie is a Sweden-based crowd marketing platform that is also the world’s first social media loyalty program. It operates in the b2b space in Sweden, and this is the first time it is entering the consumer space.