How Brands used the viral social media trend #Pray_For_Nesamani

One of the perks of learning Marketing is you can relate to everything happening around you and see the idea behind the trend. one such trend which was supported by Tamil Twitter is this "#Pray_For_Nesamani". It all stared by one person who commented in a civil engineering forum like this,

People started to enjoy and were ready to trend this, at the end of the day it was trending worldwide in twitter trends. And many newspapers and non Tamil twitteratis were questioning who is this "Nesamani"

It is a character played by Tamil Comedian "Vadivelu" in the movie Friends, where he plays a major role as a painting contractor. People started to use this and trend funny memes based on that situation.

Brands and celebrities didn't want to be left out and they soon hitched themselves to this trend. The amount of tweets by  brands is very good indication of how much the brands are active in social media.

Chennai Super Kings always prides itself in its Tamil Identity and heritage and it enhanced its position with this cheeky tweet. Even Harbhajan singh posted a personal funny tweet.

Painting companies also took advantage over the narrative , Nippon Paints and a Chennai based paint contracting firm "Paint Decors" took the focus towards their services

 Then there were firms which were related to entertainment like K TV and Sony Music which related through films and Music; Tourism and Travel firms like Air Asia and Pick your trail which associated  with the experience of getting hit on head.

The most innovative are the marketers for the education industry , CADD centre lined itself by posting a CAD diagram of the hammer, and Great Lakes institute implies it is a reliable institute by saying they wont drop a hammer on their customers head.

Then there is this oil marketing company which extolled the healing property of sesame oil and wished a speedy recovery for the injured Nesamani

Construction and petrochemical industries also hitched themselves to this trend

A pub in Chennai also tweeted an awareness message to its customers based on this trend

Even Government agencies were not ready to be left out, Tamil Nadu Police tweeted the need for wearing helmets with this wonderful tweet.

 This trend shows how a market can be uniquely segregated and targeted when brands are sensitive towards its target market. Tamilians have been united by Twitter like never before and are quick to give voice to what they believe is right and just. I believe that companies that reach out to customers in Tamil Nadu through social media will reap rich dividends.

   Here are some good articles about this trend

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/neasamani-takes-twitter-by-storm/article27358308.ece

https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/why-is-prayfornesamani-trending-the-reason-tamil-nadu-is-weeping-for-a-character-from-2001-movie-and-best-tweets-1538125-2019-05-30

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/nippon-csk-board-the-pray_for_nesamani-bandwagon-4043491.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48456790