About the brand:

Hailing from the land of the rising sun, Merries is a premium
Diaper brand that sells exclusively on Amazon. Upon conquering the Japanese
Diaper market for 11 straight years, it ventured into the Indian market in 2018.

 

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Dissection:

For any fresh product, venturing into an established foreign market comes with its fair share of challenges. A premium product implicitly brings with it a premium price tag; hence they had to target a niche audience that was limited to specific localities. To create awareness and persuade new moms to try something new on their infants was also a gargantuan task that was only overcome by their judicious marketing strategy which leveraged the potential of social media to its fullest.

Their aim was to have real mothers use their product and then go on to influence other mothers to use it through positive feedback, highlighting the USPs of the product on social media platforms. They collaborated with Momspresso—a blogging website built around new mothers­—and JAMMs—a Mumbai based online community of ‘Mast Moms’—to reach out to over 18 million moms across India. They specifically targeted wealthy localities of Mumbai using blast messages on Whatsapp groups that they reached out to through JAMMs.

They capitalised on the power of visual advertising by asking these mothers to share their reviews through video content along with the Merries logo, creating incredible brand recall. With just 40 mom influencers on Momspresso, Merries managed to reach over 2.7 million moms. Along with their blog they also spread the word on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram which caught on like wildfire. Through their Whatsapp activity, connecting to nearly 8000 mothers of toddlers, they gained more than 1000 loyal customers. This influence of social media in their marketing strategy made their popularity soar so much that their monthly sales shot up by 50% in a single month while their likes on Facebook shot up from a mere 100 to over 17k.

This campaign is a prime example of how perceptive use of the clout of social media to target the appropriate consumers even in a very niche market can turn one’s weaknesses into their strengths.