Flipkart’s ‘No Kidding, No Worries’ gameplan

Flipkart.com, one of India’s largest e-commerce companies, recently kicked off their new ad campaign ‘No Kidding, No Worries’. The TVCs, showcasing Flipkart as the ‘online megastore’, were launched on August 31, 2011. The campaign mainly addresses some long-held concerns associated with online shopping. The three commercials being aired each highlight a benefit that customers can avail while shopping on flipkart.com-‘Cash on delivery’, ‘30-day replacement guarantee’, and ‘original products with original warranty’ to make the online shopping experience hassle-free. The ads also display the entire gamut of new product categories such as cameras, mobile phones, and tablets that are now available on the site. The 360-degree campaign will run simultaneously on TV, print, outdoor, and radio for a period of three months, beginning this month.

Ravi Vora, VP (Marketing), Flipkart, explains, “While most consumers in our core target group understand the benefits of online shopping i.e. selection, price, and convenience, many are held back by apprehensions associated with online purchase of physical goods. We wanted to address these concerns and bring those shopping offline into the online space. This campaign brings to the fore some of our unique initiatives, for which we have got very encouraging response from our customers.”

The motive of the campaign was to address the fears people generally tend to have with online shopping and to create the ever-important aspect of trust. The task in the second campaign was two-pronged - to address consumer apprehensions around online shopping by featuring Flipkart's path-breaking services and to feature the new categories that the retailer now offers beyond books. Keeping this in mind, Happy Creative, led by Kartik Iyer and Praveen Das, came up with the idea of designing a campaign that featured kids in grown-up situations.

Kartik Iyer, CEO, Happy Creative Services, says, “As a first mover in the e-commerce category, it was important for the Flipkart brand to demystify the fears of online shopping. Creatively, it was a challenge, as we were also talking to shoppers who don't shop online yet. We needed both customers to get the drift and yet keep it entertaining and fresh. Hence, we took the classic format of conversations and just twisted a few things around. The idea of using kids stemmed from the fact that no one trusts you like children.”

So, how did the idea for the TVC come about? “The job was pretty single-minded; we had to build trust. Hence, we chose kids. But we were very clear that we needed something clutter-breaking. So we twisted the treatment a little to make it more interesting”, he adds. It’s a national campaign on TV and print. Other mediums like OOH and radio will be used to expand the reach in markets such as Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore that already have high e-commerce penetration. The ads for print, OOH, and radio have already been planned. They are already in the process of roll-out.

As for further plans regarding the campaign for Flipkart, Kartik states, “The current campaign extends till Diwali. There is a fourth commercial which will be released in the last week of September.” Ayappa of Footcandles, who has shot commercials for Tata Docomo (Vicky) and ITC Foods (Bingo-balcony ad), has directed the films.

This is the e-commerce player’s second marketing campaign this year. Bangalore-based agency Happy Creative Services acquired the account in January 2011. The first TVC was rolled out in April with the focus on the over 10 million titles that can be easily purchased from Flipkart. Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films shot the commercial. Kartik says, “The first campaign was more to launch the brand in to the mainstream and build credentials as the largest online bookstore in the country. The focus of that campaign was to build brand recall and increase awareness among a larger audience. Now that Flipkart is into many more categories and rapidly building share in them, the focus has shifted towards the larger objective of promoting online shopping and getting more non-users to adopt it.”

Flipkart.com has become one of India’s largest online retailers today, offering products across ten products categories such as movies, music, games, computers, mobile phones, consumer appliances and personal/healthcare products. It is India’s largest online bookseller with over 11 million titles.

In less than four years since its inception, Flipkart has chalked up a registered user base of 1 million across the country. Started in 2007 by former classmates at IIT-Delhi and later colleagues at Amazon.com Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the company is fast gaining dominance in product categories like music, video, computers, electronics, mobile phones, healthcare and personal product categories.

Currently, Flipkart sells around 18000 items every day across categories, clocking revenues of Rs 1.3 crore per day. It is now gaining prominence in the electronic gadgets category as well. With the ‘Cash on Delivery’ option, Flipkart has now made it possible for anyone across the country with internet access to shop online. The company has, so far, registered sales of nearly 2.5 million items across all categories and operates from offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Kolkata.

Credits:
Creative Directors: Kartik Iyer, Praveen Das
Copywriter: Naren Kaushik M
Art Director: Anuja Singhal
Account Management: Ruchika Chaudhry, Neelima Kariappa
Strategy: Ravi Bhat

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