Amazon’s Campaign

Amazon India named the campaign as the Great Indian Festive Sale, with the hashtag # ‎AmazonFestiveSale. They used different hash tags fo r eve ry day , such as #AmazonSaleDay2, #AmazonSaleDay3. These days were backed by two contests. The first one involved Dubsmash on their catchy “Try Try Try” jingle and the most unique or disruptive Dubsmash had the chance of winning Rs. 10,000 vouchers. The next contest was about sharing how one would react if he or she comes to know that they have won 1 kg of gold. The lucky winners would get vouchers of Rs.10,000. Amazon’s central message was about upgrading in the festive season sale (example upgrading from boxers to pants). Additionally, Amazon kept different products on offer every 30 mins to manage site traffic and to increase visits.

Flipkart’s Campaign

Filpkart started (or rather restarted) its Big Billion Days campaign (#BigBillionDays) where the brand was marketing itself by highlighting that the big billion days are back! The campaign dedicated different days to promote each of their key categories, right from fashion, electronics, books, etc. Interesting PR angles with Sachin Bansal (CEO – Flipkart) and Binny Bansal themselves went out to deliver the orders to customers (took selfies and posted on social media). Flipkart’s social media activity was mainly boasting about how they had become the top most downloaded app on iOS and Android and how fast they are selling their products in the campaign duration.

Digital Scorecard

Increase – post campaign (17th Oct) Amazon Flipkart

Facebook Fans 17,622 64,104

% increase in FB fans 0.35% 1.26%

PTA 1,14,315 3,11,110

Engagement % 2.29 6.03

Twitter Followers 4172 7818

%increase in Twitter followers 2.40% 1.75%

Effect of contests : Dubsmash (Try Try Try) & #Tryforgold

#‎AmazonFestiveSale

•  Brand uplift on Facebook was higher for Flipkart in absolute and in percentage. Increase in absolutes on Twitter was

again in favour of Flipkart, however the percentage increase in Twitter followers was higher for Amazon

•  Overall when it came to #tag of the campaigns, Flipkart was 5 times more effective than Amazon

8,346,669 impressions

1,984,616 reach

591 users

1,402 posts

36,153,359 impressions

13,645,138 reach

2,495 users

5,004 posts #BigBillionDays

Campaign Impact A survey was conducted with Consumers and Panelists to gauge the effectiveness and impact of both campaigns.

Consumer Dipstick: Amongst 21 – 40 year olds from Mumbai, Delhi & Bangalore •  88 respondents (Total respondents) •  72 respondents (Aware of both the campaigns) Panel Experts: 8 experts with relevant industry experience

Campaign buzz

Insights:

•  Campaign awareness for Flipkart was higher than Amazon, however app/website visits and the claim for purchases was

very similar to both.

•  Social media awareness of Flipkart was higher as compared to Amazon, probably due to the social media reach and

the reach of #BigBillionDay which was 13 milllion compared to 1.9 million of Amazon.

#‎AmazonFestiveSale

82%

#BigBillionDays

97%

52%

50%

18%

17%

Awareness through social media 36%

Awareness through social media 52%

Campaign Awareness

App/ Website visit

Purchase (Action)

Experts Speak Panel: 8 experts

Campaign Consistency

More than half of the panelists claimed that Flipkart’s campaign was more consistent than Amazon’s

“From what I could gauge on social, Flipkart's daily promotion added an instant connect to the campaign.

Their collaterals and communication maintained consistency. Amazon, on the other hand, tried to do too

many things at once. The result being not a consistent theme but rather chaos on digital.”

‘Flipkart's Big Billion Days campaign clearly stood out when it comes to being consistent and they had a first mover advantage with the TVF video they launched

ahead of the sale. While on the other hand, Amazon's campaign got overshadowed by Flipkart's media reach, however they appeared to have a better engagement

rate on social media, especially Twitter.”

- Arif Khan Planning Director Cheil India Pvt. Ltd. Gurgaon

Experts Speak Panel: 8 experts

Campaign Exclusivity

Exclusivity of Flipkart’s campaign was acknowledged by half of our panelist, claiming that #BigBillionDays was more exclusive than #AmazonFestiveSale

“Any brand on this planet can have a name that has "Indian" and "Festive" in its campaign or communication.

Big Billion Days seem like one that has now stuck to Flipkart.”

“The founders of Flipkart delivering goods themselves sure seems an interesting tactic. The dubsmash concept by

Amazon is cliched. Dubsmash became ancient months ago.”

- Ankita Gaba Co-founder Get Evangaized

Impact on brand

#‎AmazonFestiveSale

#BigBillionDays

Insights:

•  BigBillionDays was more effective in terms of brand recall, Amazon on the other hand was running lot of

contests around winning gold and Dubsmash, which resulted in dilution of the brand’s role.

Parameter Analysis

9% 13% 17% 15%

16% 19% 9% 11%

33% 26%

22% 23%

24% 24% 34% 33%

Relevance Credibility Exciting Recommendation

Flipkart Amazon Both Neither of the two

50% Consumers didn’t find any aspect to be

exclusive

Insights:

•  Relevance and credibility for Amazon’s campaign was claimed to be higher, however the campaign excitement and the

potential word of mouth for Flipkart was better than Amazon.

•  Amazon’s brand image of being credible rubbed off pretty well on the campaign, however Flipkart’s consistent discounts and

value proposition to customers made it more buzzing than the counterpart.

Conclusion

•  Amazon’s generic approach and engagement through contests resulted in dilution of the

brand’s role. Flipkart on the other hand had a theme that was central to their campaign

and the strong association with the hash tag proved to be effective.

•  Word of mouth and excitement resulted in higher buzz for Flipkart’s campaign, however

the brand strength of Amazon being credible and relevant stuck with Amazon.

Experts say:

‘Over the last two years, when you hear 'Big Billion Days' Sale, you think of only Flipkart. They've successfully built that imagery and kept it exclusive. Also learning from last year's disaster, Flipkart

distributed the sale across five days to ensure there aren't any technical glitches, website crashing, unreasonable price hike and 'sold out' issues and cut down on its negative sentiments heavily this year. On the other hand, Amazon's 'Great Indian Festive Sale' was unique by offering deals every 30 minutes but it wasn't exclusive as we've seen 'the great this', and that sale quite often with many brands. Last

year, they had 'Diwali Dhamaka' which was again different.

- Arif Khan Planning Director Cheil India Pvt. Ltd. Gurgaon

Way Forward – Experts suggestion

“The deals mechanism was very good and a 'new offer every 30 mins' ensured repeat visits, however the Dubsmash and occasional contest ideas diluted the campaign by giving limited noise. IMO, if you would've come out with two quick customer videos on how they've enjoyed and benefited from the sale then that could've given you more weight. Also, you dropped 'Diwali Dhamaka' (I may be wrong in case you have it planned for next month) to give it a new name which doesn't build on the digital equity you enjoyed last year. Lastly, I did check out your marketplace more than Flipkart because of the 'authentic' perception and I'm sure your social media too would've shown you such trends. You should make something out of this insight.”

“In my opinion, Dubsmash was a viral phenomenon. But it's almost extinct now. Having an overly used cliche as a contest was rather lame. On the other hand, if possible, they could have utilized tech borrowed from Amazon US. Even a few days of using their delivery drones as a marketing ploy (staged even) could have created buzz for Amazon India.”

“Amazon lacked the personal touch. It was just another Diwali sale. They should consider getting associated with some known Indian celeb faces.”

“Campaign was planned very well, with mobile being the focus. I guess it will help Flipkart to offer more customized offerings to each user. It will be great to see some results in terms of how many people visited Flipkart during the big billion days, conversion rate (in terms of sales), etc. and accordingly this data can be used to build future strategy. I don’t know if there was real time optimization in terms of product offering. For e.g. if a lot of searches was happening for a particular product (we can also call demand) then that product was pushed more to other users on their app.”

“You were consistent throughout the campaign, however it would be interesting to know how well the 'app only' approach paid off? Mr. Punit Soni did tweet out a couple of interesting numbers on the app sale but considering the Indian digital ecosystem, you might have gained additional brownie points with continuing with web sale.”

“You have a BIG campaign to leverage. Do it. Have some interesting posts around the sale and play well with words. There is no point of just blandly informing your customers about the same. Your campaign on digital should make them go and purchase stuff from your site (even if they have no plans to do so!). Now that's a successful conversion.”

CAMPAIGN TRACKING What is it?

A robust evaluation of a particular campaign starting from reach, frequency, fans to perceptual shift facilitated by the campaign. It will even diagnose the impact of a campaign on the brand, as a whole.

Campaign effectiveness

Creative impact

Campaign buzz

Potential word of mouth

Digital brand uplift

Campaign wear out

Information areas

This Report was conducted using MindShift Metrics service

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