Adding a notable amount of annual sales of e-commerce firms in the country comes during the third quarter of the year, usually the festive season in India and therefore, big online shopping companies prepare themselves and wait for its arrival.

2. Amazon’s Campaign
Amazon India named the campaign as the
Great Indian Festive Sale, with the hashtag
#‎AmazonFestiveSale. They used different
hash tags for every 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.

3. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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)

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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.”

14. 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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