Marvelous opportunity for influencers

Be heard, grow a following and inspire people. In this age of social marketing, it is the mantra for tech-savvy, enterprising, young people and companies that want to grow in the digital front. This is where social influencers come in to help an idea connect with people in daily life.

Influencers are common human beings like us who share their thoughts and opinions on social media platforms and physical get-togethers. Deep-rooted connections with the audience, authentic and relatable content bring their followers closer to them. In Bangladesh, the influencer culture has emerged rapidly in the past 5 years, and it is estimated that influencer marketing will have the highest impact among all marketing tools by 2025.

Some influencers strive to have a career in this domain, while others start just as a part of their interests. Thanks to digital technologies, millennials, and Gen Zs' strong presence on social media, influencers play an immense role in shaping the choice of the products used, must-haves, tour guides, fashion, or lifestyle choices. Influencers work on wide array of initiatives such as spreading awareness for COVID safety and precautions, body shaming, rewriting the rights of women, and other pressing issues. Thus, they have become a massive force for driving young minds. To understand as well as recognize their efforts and their power to initiate a positive change in society, Marvels have organized an award and recognition program mainly with the aim to create a bridge between the influencer and the marketers.

Marvel has taken this initiative and partnered with Kantar Bangladesh to identify the eligible candidates who have not only been engaged in brand-centric campaigns and activities but also were actively involved in spreading social impacts and awareness in the last two years. Daraz, along with other business reputed names in the country such as The Business Standard, HungryNaki, Polar, etc. have come ahead to patronize this initiative.

Through a rigorous process of data accumulation, data structuring, and validation, a shortlist of eligible influencers has been created, where the Kantar team collected around 3000 profiles across 25 broad categories. Through an algorithm the relative importance has been assigned to each parameter for the ranking process. Further, in-depth profiling has been done for 200 sort lists across 15 categories by the Marvel team which got vetted by The Business Standard team based on the last 2 years of reports and data.

Finally, the shortlisted profiles have been presented to the Grand jury who have identified a winner in each of the 15 categories. The winners will be felicitated in the program at Radisson Blu on 9th December, for creating the maximum impact in the last 2 years.

Ziaul Islam, Kantar Bangladesh