User engagement and social media marketing are driving any marketer to spend millions out of the marketing budget. Most CEOs who do not even understand social media are heard asking their CMOs “What is out social media strategy? What are we doing to engage the user”. While broadly speaking this is a must have but narrowing down a little, most executives are found counting the number of fans on Facebook. The engagement with the brand just seems to be missing. There are already startups like Trol.ly that are pitching social engagement as the core deliverable. The big opportunity lies there and much beyond. 
Recently launched, BrandAndMe is a brand engagement platform based on brand related quizzes. As a user you are given different campaigns everyday to participate. Each campaign is a promo pitch of the brand, that includes texty information, brand videos etc. Users need to answer some simple questions based on the information provided to win points and redeem them for goodies.
Note that the quiz questions are only based on the information provided in the text, video and image gallery of the brand/product and not from any prior knowledge base. This would ensure that the users have engaged with the provided brand content. This is what we call as ‘quintessential brand engagement’ in a clutter free format focusing on one-brand-at-a-time.
The concept is not new as we have seen Contest2Win do similar stuff long back. Though what’s good here is that the redemption thresholds are quite within reach.
Although there are not much off-the-shelf choices for marketers looking for brand engagement but what’s bothering is that does a paid to participate program generate the right kind of audience for a brand.
Also, is engagement about answering some questions about the brand or experiencing what the brand believes in. What I have observed is, engagement programs work best when developed around a social cause, for example the Jaago Re campaign from Tata Tea. Answering basic questions about my brand should be used as media effectiveness measurement tool. Using it as the medium itself is wrong as the core motive of engagement was faulty. (Read: The Business Model of Paying users Vs Paying-users)
All said, I do see a lot of takers for this kind of engagement campaign. The team is looking to add a layer of social engagement to the current platform and that might make it more valuable.
Do hop on to BrandAndMe if you are looking to get a free tshirt from your extra time and learn more about some of your favorite brands.
What do you think of this platform and user engagement in general?
Recommended Read: Don’t Serve Me Momo With Ketchup – Respect The Tag Or Die
[Naman is a startup enthusiast and has worked with couple of Indian startups as Product Manager. He is the founder of FindYogi]
