Snapdeal.com: Family Fashion

In its latest piece of communication, Snapdeal.com focuses on cost effective fashion assortments for the whole family. A look at the effort.

Snapdeal.com's new television commercial, created by Draftfcb Ulka, is visually different in that it shows a regular household - one in which all members shop for apparel online - unlike other ads in this segment that show models wearing fashionable clothes.

Interestingly, the narrative doesn't come from the shoppers or consumers. Rather, it comes from the maid who is burdened with the task of washing and sorting the family's collection of clothes, which only gets bigger.

The brand's earlier campaign was hinged on the savings proposition. Titled 'Paise bachane ke liye hum kya kya nahi karte', it positioned Snapdeal.com as an online mega mall offering a wide assortment of products and brands at affordable prices. The campaign drew on the typically Indian quirkiness of trying to save money in every possible way. The current campaign works hard to position the brand as a fashion destination.

Sandeep Komaravelly, vice-president, marketing, Snapdeal.com, says, "With the previous ad campaign, we established the USP of Snapdeal.com as a destination for savings for our consumers. This campaign is focused around establishing Snapdeal as a destination for family shopping for fashion products. We have the largest assortment of products across apparel, footwear, jewellery and fashion accessories, and hence the focus was to bring out the variety through this communication."

And this was precisely what the creative brief given to the agency was all about. The objective was to create a distinct online shopping space for the entire family vis-à-vis other shopping sites, with clear focus on youngsters, the brand's core TG.

Talking about the idea of giving the narration through a maid, Sachin Das Burma, group creative director, Draftfcb Ulka, says, "We had a close look at all the other ads for online fashion and realised that all showcase their products only through youngsters. Nobody actually spoke about fashion for the entire family, though data suggested that families also shopped online. And most importantly, all advertising showed the TG as the protagonist."

His team was therefore keen to execute the brief without taking the "safe route" of showing the family actually shopping. "And that's when Shahid Hussain, a member of my team, came up with the 'maid' idea."

Burma goes on, "I thought this could be a quirky way to deliver our message. Here, I must say, the client was brave enough to buy this creative route, and we plan to create a lot of fun stuff around this character in the future."

Komaravelly tells afaqs! that the ad is currently running on channels across genres on television, a move to fetch good reach and visibility. Regarding other marketing initiatives, he adds, "We will also promote it on the outdoor medium in key cities with focus on metros. There will be radio promotions as well at a later stage."

The campaign has been produced by Mekala Krishnaswamy and Akshay Uchil of Jamic Films and directed by Nikhil Rao.OMD is the media agency working for Snapdeal.com.

Perfect fit?

Raj Nair, chief creative officer, BMB Madison, says, "I happen to have caught this one on air and recall being a trifle irritated by the maid and her performance and therefore promptly changing the channel. Just one of those inexplicable subjective things, I guess." But now that he has seen the entire ad, the message he gets from it is, "bachatey raho".

Was this the most inventive, clutter breaking way to convey the brand's message? "That is a rhetorical question. You already know the answer," he replies, adding, "Is it better than anything I have seen before for the brand? I can't really tell as I couldn't remember any other spot I have seen. So, in a nutshell, maybe the team needs to push the boundaries further."

To Suraja Kishore, executive planning director, planning head, Mumbai, McCann Erickson, the positioning of Snapdeal is very much in the name itself. "So for me the brief seems to be about how deals on Snapdeal can get you fashionable clothes for the entire family for less," he reasons.

While Kishore finds the idea of the maid taking a dig at her employers interesting, he says the way it is executed is "a bit irritating and overdone." In fact, he didn't realise she was a maid for the first few seconds. "I guess someone has sold the idea of the modern maid," he says on a lighter note.