Flipkart Agrees That Its Ads ‘Aren’t Working’

Apr 14, 2015, 16:59 IST

Flipkart has been known for its path-breaking advertising creatives. Be it their initial 'Flipkart Kids' series of ads or the most recent 'Thank The Family', all seemed to be working well for the eCommerce firm. However, the company's recent ad disagrees and states that their advertising ideas need to be 'fresh'.

To announce the latest category based sales, Flipkart has rolled out a series of digital videos under "Sale that sells itself" campaign.

Conceptualized by Dentsu Webchutney, this campaign kick starts with a hilarious film which talks about the sports category sale. The film shows a Flipkart meeting room where a grand TVC idea is being pitched to the Flipkart Marketing Head (fictional). After much discussion, the idea is rejected, and the marketing head states that "nothing can sell the sale, except the sale itself".

Filled with corporate nuances and a 'take' on popular stereotypes in advertising, the film serves as the first step to the digital extension of the campaign. Flipkart plans to invite ideas from users to try and "#SellTheFlipkartSale" too.

Speaking about this campaign, Shoumyan Biswas, Senior Director, Marketing, Flipkart, said, "As India's largest e-commerce marketplace, our key focus is to reinvent the way we communicate with our audience. For our latest category based sales campaign, we wanted to come up with an idea that is simple, innovative and immediately grabs a customer's attention. This film celebrates the idea of this sale as a grand concept that can sell on its own without the conventional advertising pushes. We are sure that our customers will enjoy the series of ads that will be launched under this campaign."

But to take a dig on its own advertising review process in no mean task. "Kudos to the folks at Flipkart for taking a pun at an idea this crazy. They've always set high standards with the quality of advertising. We took that, spun it around and have hopefully created something exciting out of it... In a way, we look at this campaign as a cheeky tribute to those high standards," says Gautam Reghunath, AVP, Webchutney.

At present, Flipkart offers over 80 categories of products through sellers on its marketplace, with fashion being the largest product line. The company said it sold gross merchandise worth $3 billion last year and aims at closing this year with $8 billion in sales. The firm has planned a strategy to include newer categories and business lines that will help boost revenue and chalk up profits.

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