Droom to spend Rs 100 crore on promotional marketing blitzkrieg

The new campaign is being launched across television, YouTube, print, digital, social media, billboards, and external installations.

Droom, an online automobile transactional marketplace, has announced a budget of Rs 100 crore for its promotional marketing campaign. The new campaign will be rolled out across a varied media mix that includes television, print, digital, YouTube, social media, billboards, and external installations.

Of the Rs 100 crore budget, Rs 25 crore has been allocated to television (TV), outdoor, print, radio advertising, and other above-the-line (ATL) activities. Considering the huge market available digitally, another Rs 25 crore has been earmarked for digital promotional activities such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and online ads.

Catering to seven different cities including Delhi/NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, Droom aims to spend Rs 100 crore as the minimum threshold, rather than maximum value allocation, and plans to raise the industry standards of marketing expenditure through its upcoming brand-building activities.

With the onset of the festive season round the corner, which is when the propensity to purchase vehicles is the highest, Droom will roll out its marketing initiatives well in advance. Deals and discounts will also feature significantly in the marketing budget allocation, says the company in a press release.

The entire campaign is designed to drive traffic and increase consumer awareness, as well as instil a sense of pride among Indian consumers when they buy a pre-owned vehicle, says the company in a press release. It goes on to say that Droom, which has reported more than 700 per cent year-on-year revenue, plans to adopt an aggressive performance-linked marketing approach which will see a country-wide spread of the advertisements. Automobiles, being a big-ticket item, have a significant gestation period which may last from one month to a year.

Commenting on the king-sized marketing budget, Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Droom, says, "Buying a used vehicle is still shrouded in great doubt for many Indian consumers. This year, through our marketing efforts, we hope to instil a sense of pride in buyers when they purchase a pre-owned automobile. Our focus completely lies in implementing high Return on Investment (RoI) promotion options. Furthermore, the 360-degree marketing initiatives will also help us achieve our goal of reaching an annual gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 3,000 crore by the end of 2016, and Rs 5,000-7,000 crore by the end of 2017 by enhancing consumer tendency to look at the benefits of purchasing their dream vehicles through us."

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom claims to be India's first and largest marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and offer automobile services. Droom is a mobile first marketplace with a presence on the three platforms of Android, iOS, and Desktop. Prior to Droom, Aggarwal founded ShopClues.com, which claims to be India's first and largest managed marketplace.