Tripping on Local Trip

Amarjot Kaur

The younger lot of Chandigarh are gunning for the radical fourth industrial revolution that began long ago with the advent of Internet but gained momentum only through social media. Local Trip, a city-based online marketing and event-promotion initiative by 22-year-old Ishaan Dhawan, is equipping young bloggers and social-media influences with monetary remuneration to make a living out of their passion. 

Cutting through middlemen, managers and public relation officers, Local Trip is synergising local businesses with common folk through these new-media influencers. Having dabbled in several careers, ranging between software developing, marketing, advertising and event management, this B.Tech degree-holder was offered a job worth Rs 18,000 in Bangalore. The low-blow may have knocked the living daylights out of Ishaan, but it intensified his vision—to do something of his own.

Along with his eight-member team of 20-year olds, comprising fashion, food, sports and food bloggers, even magicians, Ishaan talks about the initiative. He asks, “Why should I pay money to Facebook for advertising my ventures?” He’s not harrowed by big corporations making money off local businesspersons, especially as they’re looking to connect with their target audience. He wants to build a transparent and interactive local community. 

“Usually, business owners don’t get to meet their potential customers. Most clubs hire musicians, but they don’t get paid well. Bloggers are given free lunches for promotional articles and businesspersons make lakhs out of that free meal. I’m just trying to shake things up a little,” he begins explaining.

So, how does Local Trip work? “We bring social-media influences, businesspersons and local people under one roof. If entrepreneurs want to publicise their ventures, they can come to us, sign up our bloggers, magicians and photographers and pay them for what they do. A majority of young folk don’t read newspapers, or traditional ad-bearing mediums, and this is a good opportunity for us to promote local events and young artistes looking for work without having to show their degree. The impact of the promotion is transparent—numbers, in terms of views and likes, speak for themselves,” he shares.

While Akashdeep Singh is a magician, Paavni Kataria, Mohini Marwaha and Jasmine Nagpal are fashion bloggers with more than 9,000 followers on Instagram alone. “When we wear a brand, people follow it. Young folk can’t buy the kind of clothes that are exhibited on ramps, unless their parents have big pockets. Newspaper ads are expensive and almost unaffordable for local boot-string start-ups. There’s a huge gap in between, and we’re filling it right,” the girls say.

Unlike the previous industrial revolutions—that have been based on amassing resources, whether it’s oil or any other resource, further intensifying the ‘concentration of wealth’—the subversive new media functions on excessive distribution and sharing of information. It’s gradually, almost unnoticeably, taking the power from big corporate and giving it back to those who have been deprived of opportunities for a long time—the regular, common people. Hop on, the journey has just begun.

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