Ad spends in India grew by 15.5 per cent in 2016 and e-commerce is one of the biggest contributors in it. With the festive season just around the block, Social Samosa brings to you #TheSocialBoom, a series that sheds light on e-commerce players' social media marketing strategy, the opportunities that lie ahead and the trends that you can expect.
A relationship like cheese and cracker, the festival of sparkles is a boon to e-commerce brands to line up promotional offers, enthralling discounts and schemes. Snapdeal’s #UnboxDiwaliSale allures customers for their one-stop festivity needs, contending neck to neck with competitors.
Announcing the #UnboxDiwaliSale
A country where purchase decisions are more than often driven by emotions, this occasion of gifting and greeting has been absorbed well by the brand thus customizing the festive needs of their customers for a couple of years now.
We knew it was that time around the year to go on a scrolling-selecting shopping spree when Snapdeal took to social media to announce, ‘Can you guess the dates of the #UnboxDiwaliSale’?
On September 23 the brand released a very short video using some Diwali-lingo where a little girl was seen twirling in joy calling it ‘Khushiyo ki Chakri’ as the voice over broadcasted the sale date to go live from October 2-6. Out of their whopping 4,152,755 followers, within three days the video had already reached 3.6k views.
As the next 10 second video released, we got the hang of the content marketing that Snapdeal was going at. Directly associating the campaign with elements of Diwali, this time they called it ‘excitement ka rocket’ where yet again a little boy was running around with his brand new studs wrapped in Snapdeal boxes.
‘Appreciation ka rassi bomb’ was the third titled short film which had an intimate family setting with lit up celebratory home setting giving a glimpse of Diwali through the visuals.
After these videos, the brand through their social media handle designed a contest directed to build engagement, where the good old GIF game was back. Participants had to share a screenshot in the comments section when the product and logo appeared together as they stood a chance to win the product shown in the GIF; such three GIFs were shared with plenty of them participating in the Diwali contest.
Snapdeal and Diwali over the years
Remember when Snapdeal had a big Bollywood influencer as the face of their brand in 2015 - Amir Khan. The brand combined their campaign with a series of videos that comprised of content oozing with humor of Shayaris delivered by the Bollywood influencer.
The type of content was underexplored back then which worked in favor of the brand; it was titled as #SnapdealDiwaliComingSoon which trended on top on Twitter in India.
Another major campaign by Snapdeal was#DiwaliDilKiDealWali, which trended on Twitter and worked in the interest of the brand by creating a high recall.
A year before that Snapdeal had taken influencer marketing to another unmatched level, emphasizing it on the television as compared to digital. The brand got 28 celebrities including celebrities from television world and created >40 different commercials, each endorsing the Diwali bumper sale.
Evolution of Snapdeal’s Diwali campaigns
As Diwali is around the corner, over the period Snapdeal has constantly kept its appearance bold and noticeable on our screens cracking alongside the festive season. Throughout, the brand has descended its influencer marketing on digital, from 28 celebrities in 2014 to just Amir Khan in 2015 and none this year.
As the brand recall enhanced the need for influencers tapered.
Apart from the fading of influencer marketing over the years, one thing remained constant is the hashtag used by the brand which even though was revamped and altered all these years, the word Diwali always became the highlight of it.
Unlike their competitor Flipkart which maintained their hashtag of #BigBillionSale, Snapdeal brought in a fresh hashtag with some fresh meat in their campaign.
Despite the raging competitors racing towards the Diwali slot, the brand did not manage to create content that would drive engagement. Their social media took a cut and dried route and creativity somewhere did not seep down the brand’s communication this time around.
One evident point, the giant e-commerce brand has inclined its content more towards digital moving along with the trend and tailing their customers who have now changed their screens for content consumption.
Revamping of the logo
In case you haven’t noticed, Snapdeal got itself a new deal by re-vamping itself to minimalism from its red with a blue tinge logo. Snapdeal now has a different face with the same voice, where the new logo that possesses two arrows now that indicate consumer connection which has always been their motive.
Through a stop-motion video of all red products, Snapdeal created a visually pleasing short video introducing their branding to the social-verse.
They used Twitter to announce their grand branding with #UnboxNewSnapdeal which was the precursor of their recent #UnboxDiwaliSale. As the holy period for e-commerce brands in India is on its way, this brand new change might just turn some eyes towards them, considering its their first campaign.
The rat race
A trend that’s putting offline markets to shame, online e-commerce has been clinched affectionately by Indian shoppers and Diwali clearly seems to be their ideal time to magnet customers. With every e-commerce brand climbing up on social media, it’s only the most creative one who’ll take the cake.
For now, apart from pleasing their consumers with offers they can’t refuse, it’s also imperative for them to get noticed on social media in comparison to their prime competitors like Amazon India, Flipkart, and e-Bay.
Stay tuned in for the next story of #TheSocialBoom series.
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